Latin or Greek book on self-observation

[Junya]

Someone recommend me some Latin or Greek books writing on self-observation.

Self-observation means
1. observation of one's body (with an inner sense),
2. observation of one's mind.

Such a book I know only Augustinus' Confession.
I suppose there would be a lot of meditative books by Christians or ethical people writing about the mind (type 2).
But I would rather like to read the type 1 (not that the type 2 is out of my concern).
I guess there might not be type 1. in the field of religion, but might be some in the field of medicine or alchemy.

The content would be on
1. how the body or the mind is before the eye of the observer,
2. the method of self-observation.
3. both
Add a note please to your recommendation about which of these types your book is.

[adrianus]

Apud Renatum Cartesium...
You have in Descartes...
Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii, Principia Philisophiae

[Junya]

Thank you every time, Adrianus.
Yes, Descartes. Famous.
And are there others, in the same era, and in earlier periods ?

[adrianus]

Ei qui de opere animae Aristolelis tractant, exempli gratiâ, Guillielmus de Ockham, Thoma de Aquino.
Those dealing with Aristotle's De Anima, e.g., William of Ockham, Thomas Aquinas.

[Junya]

I've read De Anima and its commentaries by several people both in Latin and in Greek, but I didn't realise that they were the issues from self-observation.

Come to think of that, they were written by observing the mind, a prototype of psychology.
But the self-observation was purely theoretical and, in Neo-Platonists very imaginary and fantastic in a bad sense, and was not connected with practice for some good end, for example amending of mental defects, improvement of intelligence.
So they got gradually boring to me.

De Anima also observes the body, and the way of observing includes self-observation as well as the observation from outside,
but the observations were not very deep, and again were theoretical and not connected to practice for some good end, that is, improvement of health.

In one word, the observation in De Anima was too much theoretical, having no aim in the observation.




Now do you get some image about what kind of books I want to read ?
I think what I want to find is a self-observation for the purpose of self-improvement.




Turning back to Descartes, do his writings seem to interest me ?
I totally forgot what was written in Descartes which I read in college.