دیباچه: فلسفۀ اسطوره شناسی ۱. کانت معتقد بود که در ذهن سه ساحت مختلف هست که هیچ یک از آن ها را نمی توان با ارجاع به ساحت دیگر فهم کرد. ساحت شناخت، ساحت اخلاق، و ساحت زیبایی شناسی. معیارها و ساختارهای ذهن در هر یک از این سه ساحت متفاوت از دیگری است، و گویی در هر ساحت، ذهن به جهان متفاوتی روی می آورد. جهانی که ذهن در رویکرد زیبایی شناسی می فهمد، با معیارهای علمی و اخلاقی قابل توصیف و درک نیست، و به همین شکل، جهانی که در رویکرد اخلاقی می بیند، با معیارهای زیبایی شناختی و تئوریک قابل توضیح نیست.
۲. از زمانی که فلسفه شکل گرفت، فیلسوفان اسطوره را نوعی تلاش کودکانه برای فهم جهان معرفی می کردند. به این معنا که انسان در مرحلۀ کودکی خرد، از آن جا که مفاهیمی فلسفی برای توصیف جهان در اختیار نداشت، با توجیهات خیالی و نیمه عقلانی فهم فلسفی خود را بیان می کرد. در نتیجه اسطوره تمثیلی است از فلسفه، هر چند تمثیلی ناقص، و باید اسطوره را به این نحو فهمید و تفسیر کرد.
شلینگ برای نخستین بار با الهام از نظریۀ ساحت های سه گانۀ ذهن که کانت مطرح کرده بود، به برداشت رایج از اسطوره انتقاد کرد، و فهم اسطوره ای از جهان را ساحتی جدا از شناخت فلسفی دانست و آن را ساحتی چهارم در عرض سه ساحت شناخت، اخلاق و زیبایی شناسی معرفی کرد. با این توضیح، ذهن در رویکرد اسطوره ای به جهان، همانند رویکردهای شناختی و اخلاقی و زیبایی شناختی، صورت ها و چهارچوب های پیشینی ای دارد که جهان را در آن ها می ریزد و می فهمد، صورت ها و چهارچوب هایی که در میان اقوام و فرهنگ های مختلف مشترک است، و شباهت غریب میان اسطوره های فرهنگ های مختلف را باعث می شود. شلینگ این چهارچوب های ثابت ذهن اسطوره ای را «صورت های سمبلیک» می نامد.
۳. ارنست کاسیرر در کتاب فلسفۀ صورت های سمبلیک از این نظریۀ اساسی شلینگ بهره می برد، و به کشف صورت های سمبلیک یا به قول خودش «تحلیل فلسفی فرم اسطوره» مبادرت می کند. و منظور صورت های ثابتی است که انسان وقتی به شکل اسطوره ای به جهان روی می آورد، جهان را در قالب آن صورت ها می ریزد و فهم می کند، فهمی که قابل تأویل به فهم شناختی یا اخلاقی یا زیبایی شناختی نیست. منظور از این قالب ها، فقط قالب های محتوایی یا اموری کلی مانند «دید جادویی» نیست، بلکه منظور اموری است از قبیل نوع نگاه به فضا، نوع برداشت از زمان، شکل تمایز گذاشتن بین شیء و صفات آن، و...
در این رویکرد، تلاش به تقلیل اسطوره شناسی به روانشناسی (چنان که فروید) یا جامعه شناسی (چنان که امیل دورکیم) و کشف منشأ روانی یا اجتماعی اسطوره کنار گذاشته می شود، و به جای آن تلاش می شود که معرفت شناسی خاص اسطوره، به همین شکل که هست، فهم و تبیین شود. از دید کاسیرر، اسطوره «ابداع» یک یا چند انسان نیست، بلکه انسان باستانی خود را در حضور اعیان اسطوره ای می یابد، جهان را با دیدگاهی اسطوره ای درک می کند، و حتی وقتی به اشیا نگاه می کند، نه تصویری صرفاً حسی از آن اشیا، بلکه معنای اسطوره ای و جنبۀ قدسی یا غیرقدسی آن اشیا را می بیند. و جستجو به دنبال مبانی و چهارچوب های همین نوع نگاه، همین نوع زندگی است که موضوع کتاب حاضر است.
کتاب کتاب از سه فصل اصلی تشکیل شده که از تصور رایج، یعنی یکی بودن رویکرد اسطورهای با رویکرد علمی و تئوریک شروع میکند و با نشان دادن تفاوت های بین اندیشهی علمی و اسطورهای، گامی به عقب برمیدارد و نشان می دهد که اسطوره جایگاه بنیادی تری دارد، و انسان بدوی تنها به هنگام اندیشیدن انتزاعی راجع به جهان به سراغ مقولات اسطوره نمی آید، بلکه در تمام لحظات زندگی خود در جهان اعیان اسطورهای به سر میبرد.
[A good book to read along with this one is Joseph Campbell's Primitive Mythology in his 4 vol. Masks of God "magnum opus"]
I had to read Cassirer's works in grad school and they challenged me then and gave me headaches at the same time. But the man is brilliant and opened windows and doors in my mind about how language functions in cultures and the individual life and how it has evolved over time in human history. I recently re-read this volume hoping to get some inspiration, maybe get the juices flowing, imbibe some optimism, refresh myself and writing. This volume is on mythic thought and that world view, a world view and a way of experiencing life so radically different from our modern sanitized, objective, abstract, distanced relationship to what is out "there" versus what is "in us"--it's a world more immediate, tangible, compelling, connected to other life, so imaginative, spiritual and full of amazing surprise and possibility--it really knocked me out all over again. Ripped open my eyes. Everything in that world is numinous, fraught with anima, liable to induce mysterium tremens (make your knees buckle, strike you frozen in place and open-mouthed with awe-in-the-presence-of-the-divine). Everything has a spirit, quivers with some sort of sanctity or dark evil intention and capacity, is fully alive and reactive to stimuli, including you and your "vibes" or whatever, and active (even stones, even the wind and rain) and capable of entering your comfort zone, altering it, affecting it, purposefully. A tree is not just a thing that grows out of the ground and has leaves, that needs sunshine and water. It's a being with every bit of significance and sensitivity/awareness as you. You walk by it? It sees you, takes you in, reacts to you, judges you, ignores you or likes you, tells you something important or funny that only a tree, this particular tree, could know, and both of you are changed by the experience.
As you can tell, this the world of children's literature too: everything has a face, a heart, is alive, can communicate, and is connected with everything else! So it's still in our blood...
Most of the human race passed through this way of seeing the world as a phase or stage, but thousands of primitive societies still exist on the planet who continue to live, feel, think and apprehend reality this way. It's astounding. And interesting too because we haven't, even at this late date and great distance or remove from it, entirely lost the capacity to relate to the world this way.
Strangely, POETS seem to have a flair or apptitude for going back and forth between these states or world views. Many of the greatest poets apprehended reality from essentially the same "place." Their poems gleam, glisten, quiver, speak to us in the voices of angels, saints, heroes,in the language of myth (eternity) and there's a golden numinosity to them that just stops us in our tracks. We recognize, but can't name or explain what it is, but we have a limited though stubborn sense that it's a more "real" and "wonderful" place, maybe more true, even better. But that's a subject of another comment or blog blather down the road for me. BTW, this is not original with me, Oh, no, I'm not the first one to have noticed this. Fascinating stuff.
PS I suggest that if you want to put your toe in the water with Cassierer (before doing a canon ball into his endless sea of discovery), you can read his LANGUAGE AND MYTH first. There's an inexpensive Dover paperback of it. Go ahead, highlight it like mad! Make notes. You'll go back to it many times, if he grabs you at all. It's only 99 pages, and distills to a nectar of the gods the essence of his thought. It will ready and prepare you for more. Just by itself, it's a landmark work, and stands as a major contribution to our understanding of language, human thought and the eternal power of myth in the human life.
Cassirer continues his argument that form precedes content while he delves into the feelings of Mythological thought in pre-ontological humans as it leads to the mythical consciousness creating religion. As for me, what is the difference between religion and myth? Religion takes their myth as if it was real, and consider themselves who are living within the lies of a myth as if it is true, then, and only then, can they call it a religion for even the myths of Homer by the Greeks were considered a religion until they became myth by those who were not of the esoteric sect.
Cassirer gets that the I and the thou are necessary in order to get a we within a society as it is contrasted with nature, and within the individual themselves as they become aware in the pre-ontological stage of development, that is, before there was a complex system of beliefs based on empirical observations and a foundation for being since ‘being is the footprint of God’ (he quotes Liebnitz) and that the ideas that form the mythical reality around us that connects the spiritual to the material, or the subjective to the objective needs a connecting tissues which creates our symbols that point to the real since they are real and make the truth of the motion that is described by our language, myth and art, at least Cassirer will argue that in so many words, since he is ultimately arguing it is our ideas that make us who we are and that those ideas are orthogonal (their dot product is zero, that is, they are independent) between substantial forms and are only dependent on the categories they reside in.
The totem is as real as the thing itself for it exists within the truths that are made by the symbols that exist beyond the thing itself leading to the reification (a word he doesn’t use since he sticks with the word ‘totem’), at least Cassirer will say as much in this book. The model is the real is what he is getting at, for language, myth (religion), and art or at least they are as real as any idea we are capable of having.
The myths come from our desires which get mitigated by our ability to deliver to our wants such that ‘I will that my hand to grab that apple, but does the apple will me to want it’, or in other words as when he is talking about Hume ‘I will what I want, but what wills my will to want it’. Cassirer will give our myth creation priority for our being, or in other words, the form will precede the content. Slight side note: in Augustine’s Confessions he argues that too because he needs a God before existence in order to create a universe out of nothing and to give an all powerful God the option at creating our own universe.
Cassirer is making a colossal mistake in the time period he is writing in and he is leaving a giant opening for Nazi’s like Heidegger to win the argument for the meaning of existence leading to a world where the mythical consensus is the guide post for a sublimation of the individual towards a cultural determination. Obviously, Cassirer doesn’t aim to do that, and he will shortly be leaving Germany because of the hate of the Nazis against him just because he is a Jew.
Cassirer gives credence to almost all myths as a universal truth that arise from pre-ontological humans and he is giving a justification by his approach for what will soon become a runaway best seller in Germany ‘The Myth of the 20th Century’, the most vile book ever written and whose main thesis will be the superiority of the ‘Aryan Race’ over all other races because of their Nordic myths and that Jesus was not a Jew but was Aryan just like the modern day (1930s) real mythical Germans, at least according to Alfred Rosenberg the author of that vile book. Cassirer is giving cover for those who are dependent on myth creation for their hate, followers of Cassirer will only be able to say ‘well that myth you have such as Fascism is the wrong myth, but my myth is the right one so come and follow me’, but in the end it is just a myth that is best forgotten.
At least with the first volume in this series I could wrap my head around the fact that all understanding is interpretation and that being that can be understood is language. His believe in truth within myths as a pre-ontological necessity is a little bit too much for me, but I still give this book five stars in as much as all the quotes he gives from Frazer’s The Golden Bough means I won’t have to read that book on my own next.
Cassirer is always very academic, but nevertheless, never lets the Goethe inside him remain hidden: his poetics and elegant writing is always a joy to read. Very interesting analysis of myths and religions too! Oh, what a monumental book he has done.
"Here we stand at the opposite pole from the original view in which the symbolic signified something objectively real, the immediate work of God, a mystery. For the religious significance of an event depends no longer on its content but solely on its form: what gives it its character as a symbols is not what it is and when it immediately comes but the spiritual aspect in which it is seen, the relation to the universe which it obtains in religious feeling and thought. The movement of the religious spirit which constitutes its form, not as a static figure but as a characteristic mode of configuration, consists in a living oscillation between these two fundamental views." (pg. 260)
Thus Ernst Cassirer intones in the final pages of this second volume of "The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms," his wonderful exploration of the philosophical and mythological bases for thought. As I read this intriguing, erudite, and ultimately comprehensively rewarding book I found myself wondering, with a deep sense of grateful appreciation, at the scope and breadth of the mastery of the author of the material at hand. For all aspects of the subject at hand (the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (Mythology), everything from Medieval European mysticism, to primitive mythology of Oceania, to Near Eastern (Iranian) religions, to Greek philosophy in all its permutations, is communicated in a comprehensive and analytically taut manner that brings enlightenment, and vivid intellectual enjoyment, to the tome's reader. Previous forays into this field by the reviewer (Eliade, Campbell) prepares one for some familiarity with the subject matter, so much so that there was a faint expectation of boredom and tediousness at going over the same old stuff; yet Cassirer's 'take' is so wide in its scope, and this translation so wonderfully well done, that the reader felt as if his mind (and soul) was lifted from the mundane world that surrounded him to an elevated arena where he became acquainted with the mythological (and philosophical) equivalent of the 'music of the spheres.' As wise and it is educated, Ernst Cassirer's "The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms" (Vol. 2) is a must read for those interested in the field of interest treated in the book; it is also recommended for anyone (everyone?) interested in improving their understanding of essential questions as to man's relationship to the Godhead (and how this relationship has changed over time).
Pues nada, sigo creyendo que vendría bien haber hecho una historia del símbolo y después de esa acumulación de datos filosofar sobre la forma. No es así, aquí como en el primer tomo el cúmulo de datos bloquea la atención, se vuelve más que una exposición de pensamiento una especie de constatación del mismo. Poco queda para la reflexión propia sin terminar arrebatado por Cassirer.
No creo leer el tercer tomo, no creo que cambie el punto de partida estipulado.
یکی از بهترین روش ها برای تئوریزه کردن و صورتبندی آنچه به میتوس و لوگوس مرتبطه، رابطه بینشون و چگونگی کار کردنشون. به شکل دهی ذهنم در حیطه اسطوره شناسی بسیار کمک کرد. متنش سنگینه و ریتم آرومی داره. اما اگر ریتمشو پیدا کنی و با همون سرعت بخونی راندمان خوندنت میاد بالا.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Yazar, Spinoza'nin cuzzi iradeyi tamamen reddeden ve Panteizm'den esinlenen deterministik felsefesi ve Bergson'un tamamen iradeye dayali ve determinizm i yok sayan anlayisi arasinda kiyaslama yaptiktan sonra kendi hareket felsefesini aktarir. Ozetle:
- Spinoza'nin Panteistik felsefesinde hareket eden her sey ve tek gercek Mutlak Varlik'dir. Dolayisiyla sebeplere araci olan sebepleri yaratan kisileri hareket ettiren tek gercek Mutlak Varlik'dir. Boyle bir anlayista cuzzi iradeye yer yoktur.
- Ote yandan, vazife, sorumluluk, bilinc gibi cokca Bati'da orneklerini gordugumuz hareket noktalarinda Mutlak Varlik'in kabulu sart degildir.
- Orta yol ise, cuzzi ve kulli iradenin kabul edilmesi ve her hareketimizin suurumuzda bir karsiligi olan bir deger kaynakli oldugunun bilinciyle yasanmasi....
“İşte böyle !Biz sizi, insanlar üstüne tanık olasınız, elçide sizin üzerinize tanık olsun diye, orta yolu izleyen bir ümmet yaptık… ” (Bakara 143)