Myth in the Structure of Human Mind and Hermeneutics of Myth

The general purpose of the project is to analyze the structure of human thinking by means of the concept "myth". Our starting points are several prominent theories on this subject, which are in agreement that myth is neither a simple opposition to logos or rational thinking nor that it allows for separating strictly purely irrational and purely rational thinking. However, we find in these theories very different ways of understanding myth, its relation to logos and its functions in the structure of human mentality. The key questions of our project are whether myth is a universal (timeless) or historical phenomenon, and what is the relation between myth and rational thinking: whether myth is an opposition, a reduced or a complementary form of rationality. These questions are not merely theoretical; they have epistemological, political and ethical relevance, since they concern the broader problem of cognition and constitution of human mentality, challenge our understanding of rationality and have implications for our understanding of social order and the functioning of society. Our approach to these problems is neither empirical nor historical. The proposed project aims at developing a systematic conceptual frame for the myth and the so called mythical thinking by means convergence of several methods and forms of inquiry about the complex relations between theories of meaning and theories of myth. Its innovative character consists in the systematic examining structures of mythical thinking with help of conceptual tools coming from the nowadays largely forgotten hermeneutic tradition, which until now has not been applied to this subject matter. We will examine to what extent this theory can be helpful for the understanding of myth and explanation of its role in thinking and life of modern humanity. For this purpose, our theoretical research will be accompanied and supported by the case study of the myth of Heimat, which will be examined by means of the new hermeneutic theory of myth. Heimat discourses are widely spread in variety of modifications in connection with globalization and migration. The concept of Heimat has recently become again a subject of hot political debates in the society. Therefore, this concept can be an interesting starting point to demonstrate the dissemination of mythical world interpretation, especially nowadays, and to stress the necessity of analysis of this phenomenon in all its complexity.

Since the twentieth century, myth has become a focal point of reflection in a variety of approaches. A general result of recent studies on myth is that this concept has lost its clear contour. Therefore, the overall aim of the project was to clarify this phenomenon. One of the advantages of this research is the formulating a new logical-hermeneutic theory of myth which includes such innovative methodological aspects as a hermeneutic theory of meaning with the focus on the genesis of conceptual structures, a theory of productive narration where "narration" is reinterpreted as a mechanism of awareness of individual lived experience, a theory of "lingualism" based on the idea of the "thinking in the accusative" as a differentia specifica of human thought, a theory of logical (non-linguistic) metaphor which interprets metaphor as a primary mechanism of generation of concepts, and a hermeneutic theory of subjectivity focused on a specific self-reflective structure affecting our cognitive approach to the world. Thanks to this new theory, it has become possible to analyze myth as a specific form of constitutive interpretation of the world. The most significant result is the demonstration that myth emerges from the human capacity of productive conceptual imagination which is, in turn, an essential quality of human rationality as such. That made clear that mythical thought is not a counterpart of logos and it is not parceled out in specic historical domains of culture, but it is a universal phenomenon which penetrates the whole of human consciousness and actions. One part of the project has been devoted to the clarification of the concept "Heimat" which has recently become a subject of lively debate in society and science. In the course of this debate, it has become clear that this concept has been endowed with very different, even controversial meanings, the consequences being confusion on the issue. The logical-hermeneutic analysis of the concept "Heimat" has revealed its ambivalence and allowed for challenging its dominant understanding in a recent social-political discourse on the topic as a merely material object or location. Our analysis has demonstrated that, in contrast to the ordinary social-geographical understanding of this term, "Heimat" functions also as an ideal construction - the imaginary, a special kind of myth - outside of time and space, and has a function to constitute self-identity of a human. However, it is not a place and social environment that determine the self-understanding of a person, but rather her ability to form the concept "Heimat" in a free act of self-determining. Thus, the project demonstrates that myth understood in terms of the proposed theory can be used as an effective category of conceptual primacy in cultural, social, and political studies.