Mythopoetic thinking verses propositional analytical thinking

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I am taking most of this section of the lecture from old notes I made on an essay I am having trouble tracking down. Everything in bold is something I've added instead of a summation of the essay which was most of the point of the original notes. I will link to that essay and reference it when I find it.

 

“The fundamental difference between the attitudes of modern and ancient man as regards the surrounding world is this: for modern, scientific man the phenomenal world is primarily an 'It'; for ancient - and also for primitive - man, it is a 'Thou'."

 

Keep these texts in mind in order to contrast them with the pre-Socratics. Homer is moving towards the pre-Socratics, but he’s not quite there. Homer has one foot in this world and one in the next world.

 

The speculative thought of primitive man compared with the modern man’s speculations. The Pre-Socratic philosophers are the ones who think much more like we do today. Speculative thought is by definition thinking about things outside the realm of experience. It’s thought about things where evidence just isn’t available. If we can investigate we don’t need to speculate.

 

The speculative thought of the ancient near east has two distinct characters, he says:​

• On the one hand, it is not limited by science.

  • It is not limited by a disciplined approach to inquiring about the nature of the world.

  • The scientist uses a particular methodology and a discipline; this is not true here.

  • The range of things one could speculate on was massively greater

    • I would argue that there ARE methods and editorial processes of the stories of pre-analytical propositional reasoning, these just don't exist in one mind, but are played out through thousands of years of history.

• For primitive man, the realms of nature and the realms of man were not distinct.

  • There was no distinction between “facts about the world” and "knowledge of the self."

    • We will come back to see that if there is a synthesis between these two again, we will have completed what Hegel called the "End of History".

  • The radical distinction we have between us and the world is really just a Cartesian invention. 1500s. We have it because we are children of Descartes.

    • We might say something like: “It seems to me that Obama is a good man, but I don’t really KNOW how it is in fact.” or “That last burst of lightning really scared me even though I know there is nothing to fear in it.”

    • How it seems to us is one way, but our rational mind knows that we don’t have anything to fear, or that we really know something.

 

“Thou” instead of “It”.

 

Let’s contrast ways of seeing the world.

• We draw a distinction between subject and object.

 

That distinction is the basis of all scientific thinking of the world. This is reasonable.

 

In science we are trying to see the world “as it really is” apart from how it “appears to us to be.” There’s the “reality” and then there is the way it feels.

 

The OBJECTIVE is alien to primitive man. The whole distinction between subject and object is alien to him.

 

For primitive man, what appears, is. There is no distinction between what appears and what is. For us colors don’t exist in the world, just in our minds. Scientists not only have nothing to say on the subject of "Why it is like something to see red." but they CAN never have anything to say about so basic a question. Even the philosophers have little they can say about this... it is still a question in the realm of the artist, the poet, the conductor, to explore this quality of life.

 

I walk into a room, I’m late, I've drunk too much. I don’t need to think about or analyze or speculate about my wife’s feelings. They are written all over her face. There is no inference here; that’s the important part. I “understand all at once” I don’t have to reason about it.

 

In the objective sense, I’m an active inquirer. In the subjective stance I’m passive, I just read the situation.

 

In treating the world as an “it” i treat it as a “thing to be inquired about”. And that implies that “it is set” that “it is determined, that it is set in its ways; unchanging, explicable, predictable.”

 

The world treated as a “thou” presents itself as individuals. Unpredictable as people. I would argue that familiarity with the characters is what makes it predictable enough to navigate to some degree.

 

“Primitive man simply does not know an inanimate world.” The “thou” exists for us still, when we think of other human beings.

 

Try to imagine viewing everything in the world as a “thou”. This is how the mythologists did view the world.

 

If this is all correct, then we can ask about the consequences this has for thinking about the world. Let’s unpack it.

 

Happenings are viewed as unique, individual, distinct events, if everything is a thou.

 

Myths on this view are NOT a form of entertainment; they are a form of explanation. It is a recounting and celebration of life’s important events.

 

If the events are unique, then we need unique stories to capture unique events.

 

There is no such thing as a consistent mythology. The stories explicitly contradict each other. I'm not so sure this is a fair appraisal. I would rather say: The stories are approximate and in development; when the stories contradict, they are still being perfected. It would not be fair to say that one philosopher contradicts another, so let's not take philosophy seriously. IF what this point was saying was: The story doesn't have to be consistent when it comes to rules of time and space, this I agree with; just like dreams don't follow those physical laws.

 

Consistency is just NOT important. Explanatory power is what’s important.

 

One can see from this that mythical thought is an ABSTRACT kind of thought, of speculation, of explanation.

 

IT is CAUSAL this explanation.

 

It’s just causality conceived very differently, under the “thou” instead of the “it” framework.

 

Given the lack of distinction between subject and object; generalities carry no weight in the mythic mind. The “simple terms for many general phenomena” are scientific values, the primitive mind cares not for these things.

 

Neither does the distinction between appearance and reality mean much to the mythical mind. Hallucinations/dreams are treated as just as meaningful as waking experience.

 

The mythic mind does not distinguish between the symbol and the thing symbolized. We must look at Jung to see why this is not such a foolish approach as it may seem to us. The Sign is different from the Image or the Symbol; the Symbol must contain within it the image or the form of the thing it is trying to relate to us. (A sign just points in the direction).

 

Protestantism is distinguished from Catholicism because they believe that the bread and wine are merely symbols of the body and blood; but Catholics see them as the same thing. (We will get to the preservation of mysticism in the Catholic Roman Tradition in Part 4 of this 8 part series).

 

Although mythic thought is causal thought, it lacks the scientific conceptions of causality, the impersonality and generality and such.

 

Mythic thought is concerned with the INDIVIDUAL character of events, not the general commonalities of events.

 

If I think of each leaf as how that one is DIFFERENT from that one NOT with the myth that there are “same” things in the first place. Nietzsche.

 

Mythic thought seeks RICHNESS of explanation not simplicity of explanation.

 

It’s like they were living in a dream world. Time and space rules are INSIGNIFICANT to my dreams if time and space rules are violated to tell me what I’m supposed to learn from that dream. The paintings have Ra in many places on the same depiction, nut is a woman in one and a cow in another… SO WHAT! Says the primitive mind.

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NOTES OVER, WILL LINK HERE WHEN I TRACK DOWN ORIGINAL ESSAY