Myth and the Limits of ReasonRodopi, 1996 - 133 pages Traditionally understood as pre-critical, even pre-rational, mythical thought has in fact played a critical role in post-Enlightenment intellectual history. Modernists in philosophy and literature have used the depictive rationality of myth to disclose, in self-reflective ways, the limits of discursive sense-making in various domains of human experience. In so doing, they have effectively furthered, without resort to analytical abstractions, the epistemological critique of reason begun during the Enlightenment. Stambovsky illustrates four widely diverse examples of this critical form of mythical thinking in works by Kierkegaard, Miguel de Unamuno, Henry James, and Margaret Atwood. The selected texts focus respectively on religious, national-cultural, psychosocial, and psychobiological realms of experience. These illustrations follow an inquiry into why the very possibility of critical, mythically inventive (mythopoetic) reflection is unsatisfactorily explained by leading rationalist accounts of myth. It is with this problem in mind that Stambovsky begins his monograph with observations on the origins of rationalist and counter-rationalist conceptualizations of myth in the fragments of Xenophanes (the father of rationalist mythology) and in Plato's Phaedrus. Of pivotal import is the early rationalist discrimination of mythos from logos and its epistemological implications (the rationalist legacy) in the history of the idea of myth. Following his look at paradigmatic classical precedents, Stambovsky traces the influence of the rationalist legacy in the myth theory of Malinowski, Lévi-Strauss, Cassirer, Ricoeur, and Blumenberg. The aim is to reveal how this influence in different ways limits these theories as instruments for detecting and explaining the seminal critical and historical significance of modern mythopoeia. This study will be of particular interest to teachers and students of myth theory in departments of philosophy, religion, literature, and cultural anthropology. |
Contents
2 | |
Emergence of the Rationalist | 23 |
THREE | 42 |
Limits of Linguistic Logos | 50 |
Myth as an Ahistorical Starting | 60 |
Myth as an Accomplishment of Logos | 66 |
Mythopoeia | 73 |
Transformative Mythopoeia in Unamunos | 83 |
An Instance in Henry Jamess | 90 |
Critical Mythopoeia in Margaret Atwoods | 96 |
Conclusion | 103 |
References | 109 |
Key Terms Concepts and Sources | 117 |
60 | 123 |
About the Author | 125 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abraham abstract Akeidah analysis analytical approaches to myth articulate Atwood biblical Blumenberg Cassirer's Cervantes's Chapter classical cognitive conceptual consciousness context counter-rationalist critical mythopoeia critique cultural demythologization depictive rationality dialectic discursive reason Don Quixote doppelgänger dramatic Edenic garden Enlightenment epistemological Ernst Cassirer ethical reasoner euhemerist existential experience explain faith Fear and Trembling Giving Birth Golden Bowl Greek Hans Blumenberg Hatab hermeneutic human idea intellectual interpretation James James's Jeanie Jeanie's Johannes de Silentio Kierkegaard Lévi-Strauss limits of discursive linguistic literary logic logothetic Maggie Maggie's Malinowski meaning Miguel de Unamuno mode modern mythopoeia modernist mythic figuration mythical thinking mythologists Mythology mythopoesis mythopoetic figuration mythopoetic reflection mythopoetic thinking mythopoetic thought mythos and logos mythos/logos narrative Paul Ricoeur perception Phaedrus philosophical Plato Prelude of Fear presentationally rationalist rationalist myth theory reality religious Ricoeur sense Socrates story structuralist structure theory of myth Trans transformative Unamuno understanding University Press windmills woman Xenophanes
References to this book
The Metaphysics of Religion: Lucian Blaga and Contemporary Philosophy Michael S. Jones Limited preview - 2006 |