Abstract
Myth has a convoluted etymological history in terms of its origins, meanings, and functions. Throughout this essay, I explore the signification, structure, and essence of myth in terms of its source, force, form, object, and teleology derived from archaic ontology. Here, I offer a theoretic typology of myth by engaging the work of contemporary scholar, Robert A. Segal, who places fine distinctions on criteria of explanation versus interpretation when theorizing about myth historically derived from methodologies employed in analytic philosophy and the philosophy of science. Through my analysis of an explanandum and an explanans, I argue that both interpretation and explanation are acts of explication that signify the ontological significance, truth, and psychic reality of myth in both individuals and social collectives. I conclude that, in essence, myth is a form of inner sense.
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15 July 2020
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Notes
Initiated in the nineteenth century, and now in its 9th revised edition, Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon is generally considered among classicists to be the finest compilation to date of the classical works of antiquity where the etymological sources of ancient words derive and correspond to contemporary linguistics and modes of discourse. All references to μῦθος begin on p. 1151, Vol. 2.
See Anderson (2004, p. 61) for a discussion.
Eliade (1963) asserts that “the myth is regarded as a sacred story, and hence a ‘true history,’ because it always deals with realities. The cosmogonic myth is ‘true’ because the existence of the World is there to prove it; the myth of the origin of death is equally true because man’s mortality proves it” (p. 6). Here we may say that Eliade is conflating myth with an actual portrayal of history and that such a portrayal conveys actual realities, which needs defined and demonstrated, hence proved. A myth may be true insofar as it is an artifact of culture, but it does not mean that it signifies a true reality apart from the experience of the subject or social collective. And just because the world exists does not make the myth real or true apart from the believer. The existence of the world does not remotely prove the reality of the myth other than it is an anthropological occasion or psychological projection. Projections do not necessarily correspond to objective reality. And just because we are mortal and die, does not mean that a myth of the origins of death proves it any more than the biological fact that we cease to be, as any anatomist or mortician will tell you.
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Mills, J. The Essence of Myth. J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res. 37, 191–205 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-020-00198-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-020-00198-3