William Nestle’s Vom Mythos zum Logos (1940) is the classical statement of this reading. On the opening page, Nestle claims mythos and logos are “the two poles between which man’s mental life oscillates. Mythic imagination and logical thought are opposites,” the former being “imagistic and involuntary,” rooted in the unconscious, while the latter is “conceptual and intentional, and analyzes and synthesizes by means of consciousness” (quoted in Glenn Most, “From Logos to Mythos,” in From Myth to Reason?, 27).

His main works, which appeared late in 1940 and 1944, are the aforementioned Vom Mythos zum Logos, die Selbstentfaltung des griechischen Denkens von Homer bis auf die Sophistik und Sokrates and Griechische Geistesgeschichte von Homer bis Lukian in ihrer Entfaltung vom mythischen zum rationalen Denken dargestellt, are the result of his Greek studies conducted over several decades.

Vom Mythos zum Logos. Die des griechischen Denkens Selbstentfaltung von Homer bis auf die Sophistik und Sokrates. (From Mythos to Logos: The Self-development of Greek Thought from Homer to the Sophistics and Socrates.) 1940. 2nd edition. 1942. Reprint. 1975, 1986.