Examination Of Myths Research Articles

Plato and the Mythic Tradition in Political Thought

“Who died and made you king?” Many philosophers and followers of Plato will, without blinking, respond that Plato made them philosopher-kings. Some disciples of Plato acknowledge that this position can be embarrassing. Thus, we have texts like Jonny Thakkar's Plato as Critical Theorist, which struggles to justify philosophers as rulers by squeezing Plato's assertions under Lady Liberty's aegis, as if they had been part of her inclusive couture all along. Parallel projects to keep Plato as high priest include jettisoning the philosopher-king model while peddling the eminence of a Platonic process; say, the Socratic method. For example, Jill Frank in Poetic Justice reads the Republic (577a) as a repudiation of philosopher-kings in favor of people who want a little informed “conversation” with those “awakened to reflection.” The “awakened” seem to include gentle souls like Wayne Booth but not critics of Plato like Kojin Karatani, who denies that Plato and Socrates converse. In Transcritique, Karatani rejects the notion of Platonic “dialogues.” Karatani calls works like the Republic “dramatic monologues,” where Socrates gets to set up the rules for interaction, and woe awaits anyone who contradicts himself or Socrates.Tae-Yeoun Keum's book falls into the second category in Plato fandom. She is interested in process, in how Plato uses myths. That is the first portion of her work. The second portion lays out a history of great thinkers who modeled their political treatises on a myth-enriched Plato. She accomplishes her task in a thorough and unabrasive fashion. Keum's extraction and examination of myths from the Republic sometimes seem like teeth floating in water on a nightstand where an elderly scholar might also place spectacles; we obtain thereby a new perspective on the topic. Recognizing that myths “may be much more deeply entrenched in our way of life than we might think,” Keum balks at the interpretive tradition that insists Plato's is “a rational and critical enterprise divorced from myth.”As one of her guides for reconnecting Plato's myths to the Republic's aims, Keum turns to Hans Blumenberg, a key philosopher who argues that mythos and logos are synonyms. For Blumenberg myth counts as a response to a primal scene of terror. Myth is a rational response to questions that do not, at first, have answers. Keum: “Philosophy's reliance on mythological expressions revealed a deeper need to impart meaning to reality through narratives that are reworked, time and again, to frame the unfamiliar and inexplicable in terms of the familiar and significant.” Myths depend on topoi, commonplaces that feel comfortable. Keum is attuned to the role figuration plays in politics. Thus she is swimming against the scholarly tide that wants to rinse philosophy and politics clean of elements that seem to contribute to opacity or to irrationality. Keum advocates “an inclusive stance on what counts as philosophical writing,” so that Plato's myths remain part of the Platonic corpus. Her faith in pluralism might appear admirable—ill will is not a characteristic of Keum's book—but needs to be juxtaposed to some work off of Keum's radar. For example, it would be illuminating had Keum's lengthy consideration of Ernst Cassirer, including Cassirer's famous meeting with Martin Heidegger in Davos in 1929, been juxtaposed to Geoff Waite's reading of that meeting (see Political Theory, October 1998). With Waite in the picture, Keum could have leaned into Heidegger's statement: “The ‘doctrine’ of a thinker is what is unsaid in his saying.” Even after parsing Plato's myths with care, we are still not at the “doctrine.”

Epistemological approaches of nonclassical science and the general theory of myth

The subject of this research is the analysis of epistemological approaches offered by nonclassical science towards the ontology of myth in the context of nonclassical mythology. Myth is viewed as a basic cultural universal, responsible for the semantic field of culture; while mythopoeia is perceived as a characteristic and important function of consciousness. The goal of this article lie in outlining the opportunities opened to the researchers of myth in the context of shift of the scientific paradigm. It is namely thanks to the scientific paradigm that mythological space of culture is no longer perceived as the antagonist of science, but as the essential aspect of its effective functionality. Methodological framework is comprised of the approaches developed and accepted in nonclassical science. Examination of myth through the prism of nonclassical science reveals new perspectives that allow studying myth as an integral whole, without separating into scientific disciplines. It should be taken into account that myth plays a significant, although not always positive role in science and society, interacting with science upon the principle of mutual complementarity. In particular, myth helps to advance and substantiate the scientific hypotheses, form scientific worldviews and images of the future. The approaches of nonclassical mythology, in turn, reveal that in the modern conditions, myth becomes the instrument of politics and the method for solving social issues, manifesting as a factor of national security and mechanism for manipulation. However, its further study requires the development of the universal theory of myth, the basic prerequisites of which have already been created.

Myth and concealment at colonial law's foundations

AbstractThis paper provides an engagement with, and highlights the depth of, Peter Fitzpatrick's careful examination of myths that grounded modern law and its colonial instances. That grounding is shown to be premised on a concealment of basic contradictions behind fictions of a unified law, even though it only appears through negations of others. Intersecting patterns of marginalisation are shown to be constitutive of modern and colonial law, so it is not surprising that current protests should address a basic exclusionary racism that Fitzpatrick's work signalled. It concludes with some reflections on what his work might mean for three current debates.

Culturally competent health care for sex workers: an examination of myths that stigmatize sex work and hinder access to care

Sex workers are individuals who offer sexual services in exchange for compensation (i.e. money, goods, or other services). Within the United States, the full-service sex work (FSSW) industry generates 14 billion dollars annually there are estimated to be 1–2 million FSSWers, though experts believe this number to be an underestimate. Many FSSWers face the possibility of violence, legal involvement, and social stigmatization. As a result, this population experiences increased risk for mental health disorders. Given these risks and vulnerabilities, FSSWers stand to benefit from receiving mental health care however a constellation of individual, organizational, and systemic barriers limit care utilization. Destigmatization of FSSW and offering of culturally competent mental health care can help empower this traditionally marginalized population. The objective of the current review is to (1) educate clinicians on sex work and describe the unique struggles faced by FSSW and vulnerability factors clinicians must consider, (2) address five common myths about FSSW that perpetuate stigma, and (3) advance a research and culturally competent clinical training agenda that can optimize mental health care engagement and utilization within the sex work community.

The media or the message? An examination of myths as resources to understand the tourism phenomenon

The present paper discusses the histories of tourism knowledge. The authors argue that tourist travel should be considered in the perspective of broader institutions enrooted into the mythical structures of cultures. The inadequacies of some of the previous attempts to understand tourism from various methodological perspectives are noted. Then, myths are introduced as offering alternate explanations of the tourism phenomenon. Myths have two pronged advantages in understanding tourism: they contain our collective historical understanding about tourism; also, they are a methodological solution to tap into the wealth of tourism knowledge hidden in expressive artefacts. These claims are verified by presenting and analysing a sample of well-known myths.

Deux modèles du rapport entre l'homme et l'animal dans les systèmes de représentations

Two Models of the Man-Animal Relationship in Systems of Representation The widespread absence in Aboriginal Australia of beliefs in animal souls, of spirits masters of hunting, of the idea of a man-animal contract, and of ceremonies for winning the favor of animals, means that the conceptions of man-animal relationships are very different from those prevalent in America or Siberia. An examination of myths about the theft of fire leads to the same conclusion, as does a re-examination of totemism.

COMPARATIVE HISTORY OF RELIGION

This book is a collection of Panikkar's papers, revised by him under the headings of myth, faith, and hermeneutics. Two-thirds of the papers included were originally read at the annual colloquium (organized by Enrico Castelli) at the University of Rome. Panikkar sees this volume as introductory to books he has planned on Intrareligious Dialogue and Symbolic Character of Words (15). The purpose of these papers, says Panikkar, is to contribute, from several angles, to overcoming the split between mythos and logos, action and contemplation, tradition and modernity (3). Myth (part 1) is understood by Panikkar as the context or horizon within which one lives. Myths provide the presuppositions from which systems of thought (logos) arise. Thus myths stem from a deeper, and so more universal, human stratum than do the philosophies (98). Panikkar's examination of myth uses two approaches. To begin with, he relates myth to fundamental human problems such as tolerance and ideology (chap. 2) and morality (chap. 3). The discussion offered is stimulating and the examination of myth and morality has much to say about the failure of today's so-called value-free education. Panikkar concludes part 1 by offering two case studies, both from the Indian tradition: Myth of Prajdpati: the Originating Fault or Creative Immolation (chap. 4), and Sunahoepa: A Myth of the Human Condition (chap. 5). In both cases, Panikkar demonstrates how to interpret such texts by avoiding reductionism and yet allowing various scholarly techniques to draw out the richness of the myths for modern man, be he Eastern or Western. Part 2 focuses on Faith. Panikkar argues that faith is basic to human experience. By faith man is distinguished from other beings (190). cannot have faith the way we have money, property or friends. We live by faith and from faith; it is always underneath or above but, like any horizon of reality, always just beyond our grasp (218). Faith is the bridge pointing man to and connecting him with his destiny-whether that destiny be conceived of as God, the Absolute, nirvana, or humanity (208). Thus faith is common and constitutive in the experience of Western religions, Hindu, Buddhist, humanist and atheist. Without faith there is no basis for right action or aesthetic experience (201). Panikkar's study of faith is reminiscent of Tillich's classic Dynamics of Faith, although Tillich is not cited. As Tillich had earlier, Panikkar defines faith as an existential openness in which doubt and incompleteness are always present-a very Protestant view of faith. Panikkar, again following Tillich, advocates a method of correlation for uniting the questions of faith with the answers of revelation (211). Panikkar's claim that his conception of faith is acceptable to Eastern religions is only partly correct. The notion of faith as a bridge or means to the goal is consistent with Eastern thought. But Panikkar's typically Western stress on the fact that the end will never be fully achieved, that faith remains open and unfinished (207-13) does not coincide with the Eastern view that by faith, human nature can be purified