Through a wide-ranging analysis and study of the intellectual heritage of the archaic culture before Hellenism, Philosophy before philosophy tries to reveal the earliest seeds of philosophy and philosophical thinking.
Considering the rather astonishing cosmological, theological or ontological speculation of the Egyptians, the following questions arise: Does it make any sense to discuss ancient Egyptian philosophy? Existed a philosophy before Hellenism at all? Or: Can we talk about philosophy in an archaic culture beyond Europe? Despite of the examination of questions of culture-historical point of origin, this is not a culture-historical work. Since the intellectual improvement was interlinked with picture symbolics in Egypt, the complex system of symbols - the hieroglyphic writing - basically determined the culture. The example of Egypt seems to support the statement, that pictures are able to reflect ideas without having direct reference to the sounds of spoken language: this is why the book ends up with the natural history of symbols.