A Phenomenology of the Profane: Heidegger, Blumenberg and the Structure of the Chthonic

Abstract

2Yet Otto's analysis of the numinos as simultaneously daunting and fascinating 3 did not shed much light on the difference between the sacred and its opposite, the profane. It was Mircea Eliade, in several works on the history of archaic religious narrative, ritual, and art,' who made prominent the ubiquity of the sacred­ contrast throughout world mythologies. But still, while an almost limitless variety of expressions for the sacred have been the subject of many phenomenological and anthropological studies, different senses of the and their connections have been much less widely studied, though they are as important in our symbolic history. As an archetype for all that is unmeaning in Heidegger's sense,' the profane is not simply the absence of meaning. Rather, the has a positive archetypal meaning that remains one irreducible pole of the religious experience of Being which later existentialists, following Otto's inspiration, tried to recapture. The main goal of this essay is to fill this gap by interpreting the through its close connections with a series of anti-vital paradigms that following Claude Levi-Strauss, Eliade, and other mythographers - I classify together under the heading 'chthonic.' As I will show, these chthonic figures for the profane, which are found in mythic and legendary narratives the world over, divide up into several complexes of associated motifs. 6 To make these motifs clear, I will look at a wide variety of sources, ranging from archaic mythology, ancient art, folklore, and pre-Socratic writings to modem film, psychology, and examples from the work of Sartre and Heidegger that seem to fit the same figurative paradigms. These more recent instances from art and existential philosophy, and their prima facie connections with mythological motifs of the profane, will help illustrate the enduring significance of archetypal analysis for understanding contemporary themes - a relevance perhaps too rarely appreciated by philosophers today. Understanding the means much more than simply reviewing some interesting curiosities of our cultural history: it may give us a vantage point for critical evaluation of contemporary issues. For