The article raises the problem of the essence of the main historical types of worldview myth, religion, philosophy and science through their cognitive function. For early societies, myth and myth creation were the main and only ways of thinking and the type of ancient culture. So, the myth is primitive, undeveloped, despite the fact that all subsequent types of worldview contain religion, philosophy and science in it. However, the leitmotif of the article is the idea that even in the modern era of scientific and technological progress, humanity remains within the framework of the mythological worldview, the main attributes of which are imagination, anthropomorphism, subjectivism, relativity. According to the author's point of view, religion, philosophy and science are manifestations of metamorphism in myth-making, since in cognitive questions they are fundamentally different from the mythological worldview. And this puts the problem of the relationship between man and the surrounding world in the ontological and epistemological aspects in a new way.
Man and the world ... Man in the world ... World in man ... The world of man ... Even for the philistine such questions require a special concentration of thought, maximum imagination, certain efforts and tension in the development of their own positions and judgments. As for the special «breed», the «caste» of people, in the Indian culture called «brahmanas», in the Greek – «philosophers», in Arabic «hakim», for which deep reflection is their main nature, the essence is not just questions , Requiring a response, but, rather, on the contrary, the installation of a new questioning as the main guide of human life.
Man and the world in which he dwells and dwells? Perhaps this is a general illusion or the Great Buddhist Void? Or is a person still in peace unable to penetrate it? This explains the Kantian question posed by him after the philosophical scandal of Hume and Berkeley and declared the main philosophical question: What can I (the person) know (about the world)? What is the essence of the worldview?
From a scientific standpoint, the worldview of mankind originated in antiquity and evolved according to the continuity of its historical types mythology, religion, philosophy and science. There is no doubt that the criterion of such periodization is the chronological and degree of development of the rational factor of culture.
According to the majority of researchers, it was the mythological picture that initiated all the others in the spiritual history of mankind. This means that in the mythological worldview in an incomplete, embryonic state, all the following types of worldview are already such as religion, philosophy and science.
At first glance, such a judgment is quite convincing, if one does not take into account the fact that the mythological way of thinking, the mythological picture of the world is far from being solved. It is really mysterious, being covered by a «deep veil» of prescription. How much we will be able to understand what exactly reflected and expressed the myth in the life of ancient people, what was caused by its necessity and regularity, what degree of its simplicity or, on the contrary, complexity, how the myth relates to different genres and types of artistic creativity open questions for today day. No doubt, it is these issues that led to the emergence of many original and interesting philosophical and culturological schools in the study of myth in the face of such representatives as M. Muller, E. Taylor, V. and J. Grimm, J. Fraser, M. Eliade, Malinovsky, Cassirer, K. Levi-Strauss, L. Levy-Bryull, Z. Freud, K. Jung, J. Campbell, E. Durkheim, Meletinsky, S. A. Tokarev and many others.
Despite the many questions posed by mythology, it is still possible to single out certain known features of the mythological worldview.
To begin with, let's compare it with a fairy tale. At first glance, the myth and the tale are even identical.
They have a lot in common:
- rich imagination, imagination;
- an interesting adventure story;
- educational, instructive effect;
- artistic figurative style of presentation;
- often oral folk
Children perceive myths as fairy tales and are interested in them with interest. But already intuitively, we understand that in the semantic context, the myth is more serious than fairy tales. After all, the main characters of the myth are the gods. And it shows that in myths there is one of the important questions for the first intelligent beings: who created the world? And this question sounds in the myth almost rhetorically: who? Gods ... So, in the myth already indirectly, in a hidden form there is a philosophical search for the foundations, the substance of being. True, in philosophy this question sounds somewhat different: from what the world arose? Maybe from the Spirit, and maybe from matter. However, these issues are the same order, the questions of finding the beginning of the world. Polytheism of myth eloquently speaks about the existence of higher beings over man and this is the path to religion.
Thus, in the myth, indeed, all the types of world outlook that follow him-all religious, philosophical, even scientific, are contained.
Conclusion: myth is more serious than fairy tales, so it is the world outlook of the era, its quintessence. This is undoubtedly the first attempt of a reasonable person to understand the surrounding world order. A fairy tale is a special kind, a genre of creative creativity of a domestic, heroic or mystical character, fulfilling important social functions, but for which there is a lack of pretension to deep reflection, historical narrative, unconcealed fiction of the plot. The myth, on the other hand, is overwhelmingly historical, based on actual historical events.
As an example, we can cite the famous ancient Greek myth of the minotaur. Minotaur half-hearted, half-human lives in a labyrinth and punishes Athenians for their sins before the Cretan king Minos. According to one version of this famous myth, the Athenians were supposed to send seven girls and seven young men to the monster as a gift. When the turn came to Theseus, who was in love with the daughter of King Minos Ariadne, he decided to kill the minotaur. To help her beloved Ariadne gave him a magic ball of threads, through which he found a sleeping monster, fought with him, won and could safely get out of the tangled maze.
It would seem that the plot is fictional. But thanks to the excavations of the English archaeologist Arthur John Evans, who is known as a major discoverer and explorer of the Crete-Minoan civilization, many palace constructions were constructed on the island of Crete, built in the form of numerous complex labyrinths, and on the walls of these palaces images of bulls. Hence the scientist made a logical conclusion that the idea of the labyrinth in the myth is not accidental, and the ancient Cretans, in all likelihood, considered the bull to be a totemic animal. As a result, it turns out that the myth of the minotaur was based on real historical events.
If we turn to another well-known Homers mythological story from Illyada, which tells of the capture of ancient Achaeans by Troy, until the end of the XIX century it was believed that this famous plot is the fruit of Homer's artistic fiction. But in 1870 a German traveler, an archeologist self-taught Heinrich Schliemann unearthed an ancient fortified settlement in Asia Minor Troy.
All this again shows that the myth is not a fairy tale, it is more serious in terms of semantic orientation. In addition to the fact that the myth indicates many real historical events transmitted in an artistic style and style, it reflects the very first type of world outlook in the history of mankind that characterizes the consciousness of an ancient person and his relation to the surrounding world, especially the natural world.
Hence the well-known conclusion about the myth. Myths are the oldest legends of various ancient peoples, representing an artistic narrative about the origin of the world, important natural and social phenomena, the mystery of the birth of man and mankind, the exploits of gods, kings and heroes, their victorious battles and bitter defeats.
In connection with the domination of the Eurocentric cultural view, which has developed in the humanities and declares the «matrix» of European culture precisely the ancient (ancient Greek, Roman) culture, ancient mythology became very popular for us. Therefore, mainly proceeding from the knowledge of ancient mythology, we shall single out the main features of the mythological consciousness.
Rich imagination, bright imagination. This brings together a myth and a fairy tale. This determines their artistic, imaginative, colorful style of presentation. If we allow a comparative analysis of the imagination of an ancient and modern man, then, for sure, it will still be brighter for an ancient person, since in the modern era of scientific and technological progress the ability to fantasize «is drained» by schematism, allconquering rationalism, linearity of modern man's thinking.
The richness and brilliance of the imagination of ancient people were due, in the opinion of the majority of scholars, to the lack of scientific views of the world, and thus compensated for ignorance in explaining the natural processes that were frightening and at the same time admiring the first people, forcing them to worship it. Therefore, as features of the mythological worldview is ignorance of the essence of natural phenomena and processes.
But it is necessary to understand that in this matter everything is not so simple, as in modern science there are still many «white spots», «unexplained phenomena», «riddles», such as the Egyptian pyramids, statues giants on the Chilean Easter Island, megalithic structures Stonehenge in England or a boomerang is a tool of the primitive hunter. As is known, the property of a boomerang is to return to the hunter if it does not hit the target, which is due to a special angle of curvature. If official science claims that primitive people use natural hunting tools, directly taken from nature, then, according to the same scientists, the boomerang is not ready in the finished state, it is made. And for this, complex aerodynamic calculations are required. Hence the question naturally arises: how could primitive people do all this? On this score, in modern science there are many interesting hypotheses, according to one of which primitive people visited extraterrestrial beings who «gave» a boomerang.
Therefore, if the majority of scientists claim that for the ancient people there was an ignorance of the laws of the universe and the construction of the world, inability and impossibility to explain the natural processes, and this ignorance compensated mythological thinking with its inherent vivid fantasy and imagery, then, nevertheless, there is another point View, according to which the ancient man knew much more than we can imagine, but this knowledge was for some reason lost.
Polytheism. In mythological thinking, the idea of multiple gods, personifying various natural phenomena, natural objects, processes, as well as all kinds of human activities, character traits and many other things that surrounded a person, played an important role in his life. In the scientific and philosophical literature, in this regard, there is a widespread view that everything related to the polytheistic ideas of people is usually attributed to the mythological worldview, and the idea of monotheism (one God) to the religious one. And this testifies to the greater development of the religious consciousness that has come to replace myth-making. The view, called Promonotheism, according to which the worldview of mankind began with the belief in one God, did not gain popularity in the scientific community. For most researchers of human history and culture, the idea is acceptable that the earliest, first historical form of the world outlook was precisely polytheism, which is a sign of mythological ideas. All ancient peoples, representatives of the first civilizations, as the facts of history show, were pagans.
Another important feature of mythological thinking, no doubt, is syncretism. Syncretism is a contradictory combination, the chaos of various ideas, thoughts, worldviews, reflecting the whole naturalistic vision of the world by an ancient man, his inability to «sort everything out by hand», to separate the phenomena of the surrounding world between himself and himself. Thus, myths reveal the absence of a systemic exposition, order in the comprehension of the world, the mixing of mythological, religious, philosophical and, in part, scientific notions. All of them, as if in a folded, «embryonic» state, are present in the myth first, and then necessarily arise from each other. So, in the myth, we are talking about the Gods, which makes it related to religion, the search for the initials in the person of the Gods is carried out, which brings the myth together with philosophy, and also there are some scientific principles. And all this later from the myth will be unfold. Syncretism of mythological thinking can be traced very clearly in ancient mythology, where nature, Gods and people are in the closest relationship, there is no clear line between them. Gods personify different forces of nature. At the same time, the conceptions of the Gods are anthropomorphic, zoomorphic. People themselves are a part of this nature, the Cosmos. Hence the cult of the human body. The ancient Gods live on Olympus (on earth), among people, closely interact with them, give birth to common children (the example of Hercules is a demigod, a half-human). It is very difficult to distinguish between Gods and people, since the Gods have all human traits, including negative ones. Remember the myths about greedy, envious, cunning Gods. There is no clear «demarcation» line between man and animals (the example of the Minotaur, Centaur as a half-man, half-horse). It is this undivided, mixed, cohesive, rationally unformed, more figurative image of the world, and is syncretism.
Anthropomorphism is the humanizing of the surrounding world, the endowment with human properties and traits. Being in the «captivity» of mythological representations, the ancient person involuntarily transferred his own qualities, features to the natural world, in no way separating or distinguishing himself from it. Everything is humanized first of all by the Gods. Let's remember the ancient Gods they are in the image of people, their bodies are athletic, because the ancient Greeks cultivated physical, natural beauty. It is no coin-
cidence that Greece became the birthplace of the Olympic Games. The cosmos, according to the ideas of the Greeks, is something harmonious, perfect, in the sense of natural perfection. Man as a particle of this Cosmos must correspond to it, possessing physically («fusis» from the Greek «nature») a developed body. Gods as beings more perfect in relation to people, first of all, are perfect physically. Recall, an ancient sculpture, depicting the overwhelming majority of the Gods with bodies of athletic build.
Anthropomorphic myth is manifested in the number of Gods there are as many of them as people. Among them there are major and minor, subordinate to the main. The gods possess the whole spectrum of human qualities, not excluding the negative ones (compare with religious concepts of God as a standard of perfection and ideality). There are myths about bad Gods, cruel, treacherous, etc. The following attributes of the anthropomorphism of the mythological consciousness testify to it.
Animism (from the Latin word «anima» «soul» the inspiration of natural forces, the endowment of the soul of the surrounding world.) Apparently, the ancient man reflected in this way: if I have a soul, then the soul has everything that surrounds me: water, and Earth, and air, and the sun, and stars, etc. There are a lot of spirits, «gods» to be reckoned with around the man, for example, the spirit of fire, the spirit of the wind, the spirit of the ocean, the spirit of light, the spirit of lightning, the spirit of war and many Others of different peoples.This ideological position echoes polytheism.
Hylozoism the revitalization of the world around a person. The logic is the same: if I am alive, the whole nature is alive: water, wind, mountain, stars, etc. Modern people distinguish between living and nonliving nature, highlighting the signs of the living: reproduction, breathing, metabolism, irritability, Selection, etc. And in the early stages of human society people, according to scientists, believed that the whole nature is alive, organic.
Further enumeration of the attributes of the mythological world view is an occupation, undoubtedly, interesting and fascinating. But the aim of our research is to raise the question of how far we have moved away from myth-making in modern life, living in the realities of the 21st century, in which science dominates in a complex intertwining with religion and philosophy. In our opinion, no fundamental break with the mythological worldview has so far occurred. Just in the depths of the ceaseless myth-making metamorphosis took place, which created religion, philosophy and science.
Religion is completely mythologized, since it retains the main mechanism of myth religious faith and religious feeling. As for the mind, for him the world of God is fundamentally incomprehensible, being, according to I. Kant's expression, a «thing in itself», or «noumenon» -that beyond all rational knowledge. Hence: in God you can only believe. In his transcendental philosophy, the thinker who committed the Copernican revolution in the sphere of epistemology emphasizes the ontological limitations of human nature, introduces the concepts of «thing-in-itself», «antinomy», indicates the design of any knowledge by subjective forms, and, most interestingly, raises the question of the interdependence of morality and science. In the Age of Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant came to the understanding that science is the destroyer of false omniscience, but in order to realize and preserve this, honesty is required as a person's moral position. This philosophy was called by the philosopher as genuine enlightenment, which unlike naive enlightenment, on the one hand, tears a person out of traditional superstitions, and on the other, relieves optimistic hopes for the absolute strength of the theoretical mind, from the fanatical belief that reason can solve any problem Human life. And most importantly, the scientific mind did not give itself cause for such self-confidence.
The radicalism of Kant's revolution in the field of epistemology and epistemology also lies in the fact that instead of the category of «reflection» on which the entire building of classical epistemology rests, the philosopher introduces the category «imagination.» But this, as we have already explained, is an attribute of mythological consciousness and thinking.
Then there is a relevant question: How far have we moved away from mythmaking? Moreover, Kant is not the only philosopher of the New European philosophy who begins to doubt the absolute capabilities of the human mind. So F. Bacon thought in his famous theory of ghosts, D. Hume and D. Berkeley, having made a scandal in this respect in European philosophy. It is pertinent to note that such thinkers expressed such views at the peak of the classical Newton-Laplacian science, for which there is optimism about the possibilities of the human mind.
Beginning with the New Time, the problem of uncertainty is mainly attached to epistemological status.
Hume declares the limitations of the cognitive capabilities of the subject and shows the impossibility of objective knowledge of the world in general. From the point of view of the famous Scottish philosopher the skeptic, the world surrounding man is a complex of subjective human perceptions. Phenomena and things are a reflection of the diverse impressions of a person, and images imaged by impressions cause the birth of ideas that are complex and simple. The formation of simple ideas is influenced by the impressions themselves, and the formation of complex ideas is influenced by the combination of ideas. Hence, knowledge must begin with experience (D.Hume continuer of the empirical traditions of J. Locke and J. Berkeley) as a process of obtaining personal experiences of experience. D.Hume stresses also the role of human instincts, in the process of cognition, allowing to reveal its truth.
The universal connection, the causality between the phenomena, according to D. Hume, are the results of the human «habit» of thinking this connection, in order to «discover» the cause-effect relations, which in reality do not exist objectively.
Thus, beginning with modern times, philosophical problems are rethought, overestimated, «making a bank» from ontological to epistemological and epistemological. This is often called an epistemological coup. The names of the works of the brightest representatives of modern times testify to this: «The experience of human reasoning» by J. Locke, «Rules for the guidance of the mind» by Descartes, «The new experience of the human mind» Leibniz, «The treatise on the principles of human knowledge» Berkeley, «Criticism of pure reason «Kant», A Treatise on Human Nature «Hume. The «vector» of uncertainty, skepticism in cognition shifts from an ontological to an epistemological characteristic. In other words, the uncertainty in cognition, in the opinion of a considerable number of philosophers of this period, is caused by the inability of the human mind to discover the laws of the universe.
Why did it happen? What caused such a crisis of rationalism in epistemology and epistemology? In our opinion, one of these reasons was the cherished desire of philosophers and scientists inspired by the success of the sciences to obtain an absolute Knowledge of the structure and essence of the universe, absolute World Science or Mirovest. If you extrapolate this to Indian philosophy (Vesta knowledge, knowledge), then it actually pops up in the part that all of our suffering is from desires. In general, it happened in the philosophy of knowledge there was a scandal, arranged by the British J. Berkeley and D. Jum. However, such optimism regarding absolutization, rationalization, total control of the world by man is clearly manifested in the establishment of a capitalist society with its rationalistic paradigm of life.
On the other hand, it seems that man is always guided by simple ideas corresponding to the logic of common sense, which paradoxically seems to border on genius (it is no coincidence that «all ingenious is simple»). And, as a rule, such simple ideas matured at the peak of the rise of human thought in order to bring them back to their own origins. Moreover, simple ideas, as a rule, are always far directed.
It is on the «crest» of the scientific progress of modern times that a very simple idea arose that the world of the existence of mankind is diverse and endless. And the instrument of his cognition the human mind and feelings is finite and the same for all people. Hence the question: does the person have enough time and money to know the infinite world. What are the possibilities of human feelings and reason? What is intuition? What is instinct? And anyway, who is this person? What is its nature?
One of the first to think about this is Rene Descartes, even more vividly expresses such a strategy David Hume in the Treatise on Human Nature: «Undoubtedly, all sciences are more or less related to human nature and that, however remote from the latter Some of them appeared, they nevertheless return to it one way or another. Even mathematics, natural philosophy and natural religion depend to a certain extent on the science of man, because they are the subject of people's knowledge and the latter judge them with the help of their strengths and abilities» [1; 49].
Hume proposed the original concept of the «mixed image of man»: man is
- the entity is reasonable,
- public property,
- an active entity that manifests itself in various
«So», concludes Hume, «nature apparently indicated to humankind a mixed way of life as the most suitable for him, secretly warning people of excessive infatuation with every single inclination in order to avoid losing the ability to engage in other activities and entertainments» [1; 54].
The «mixed way of life» of a person is manifested in his versatile activity, in his versatile nature, and therefore it is impossible and unambiguous to interpret it unequivocally. It is unrealistic and even inhuman to go too far in calling for the improvement of the human mind, for social activity, for moral renewal, since human capabilities and powers are limited. In the interpretation of human essence, a certain amount of skepticism is necessary.
Hume's epistemology is based on this very skepticism. Continuing it, the philosopher concludes that if it is impossible to establish objective causality, the inferences obtained in the process of induction or deduction are probably reliable and unreliable. The criterion of their truth is a scientific experiment, which, as mentioned above, tests not the objective relationship of phenomena, but the relationship between ideas. In other words, the position of epistemological uncertainty in Hume's concept is due to his skepticism with regard to the role of reason in the cognitive process. Hume believes that our knowledge is conditioned by experience and habits that do not include thought processes, since experience is a false intelligence, and ordinary knowledge is the result of the absence of reason. In his book On Knowledge, D.Yum writes: «... we completely undermine the authority of human cognition. Thus, we have only the choice between false intelligence and the absence of reason in general» [1; 58].
Another English philosopher, empiricist J. Berkeley, asserts solipsistically about the illusory and immateriality of the cognized world.
Kant's doctrine that the mind has its own boundaries, denies the skeptical agnosticism of D.Hume, but at the same time destroys the scientist's scholarly audacity, his unreasonable claims to prophesy and the management of people. «What can I know? this question for the philosopher had not only a methodological, but above all an ethical component, which keeps scientists from scientific self-conceit». That temperament, as well as talent, «wrote Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason, «need some relations in discipline, and everyone will readily agree with this. But the idea that the mind, which, in fact, must prescribe its discipline to all other aspirations, itself needs more discipline, can, of course, seem strange; And in fact, he still avoided such humiliation precisely because, seeing the solemnity and serious bearing with which he speaks, no one suspected that he was frivolously playing with imaginative creations instead of concepts and with words instead of things» [2; 113].
The triumph of the human mind in the age of the Enlightenment led to the fact that even universal regulators of human behavior were scientifically built in situations of human choice. Kant especially opposed the scientistic attempts to prove the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, which was practiced not only by theologians, but also by philosophers (recall Descartes). According to Kant, these justifications can not be not only demonstrative, but also lead to antinomies uncertainties-insolubilities.
The crisis of rationalism is at the end of the XIX-beginning of the XX century and especially at the end of the twentieth century. This is already in the twentieth century, the famous philosopher M. Mamardashvili wrote that «the evolution of philosophy occurs when something is really disturbed in this conquered bliss, in this ontological rootedness of man. This is evidenced, in particular, by the development in the twentieth century of the idea of physical uncertainty, statistical research methods, monstrous development, the strengthening of the symbolic side of modern physical theory, the appearance in it of an increasing number of concepts that can not be given visual physical significance. And as a result, a person begins to feel that he is dealing with a world that almost excludes the very possibility of his understanding. And from here on the surface of public consciousness, the idea of a crisis of physics appears, that physics has become allegedly «inhuman». And the question arises (in any case, in the vein of this issue there is a rethinking): and is there a ready world of laws and predestined essences? [3; 59].
Immanuel Kant was one of the first to call the question of cognition of the world the main philosophical question, the cornerstone, methodological, in the degree of depth and importance superior to the ontological one. Having put forward his famous questions, he is known to have committed the Copernican revolution in the pre-Kantian dogmatic philosophy, which he called even «despotic» before the rise of skepticism [4]. What can I know? Hence: what should I do? And in the end: what can I hope for? And by and large: what is a person? And these Kantian questions as a return to the great Socrates: «Know yourself!».
In the Preface to his famous work Critique of Pure Reason, Kant writes: «I mean by this not the criticism of books and systems, but the criticism of the ability of the mind in general with respect to all knowledge to which it can strive independently of all experience, therefore, the solution of the question The possibility or impossibility of metaphysics in general, and the determination of sources, as well as the scope and boundaries of metaphysics on the basis of principles» [4]. «Thus, it turns out that ontology-gnoseology in the dilemma of the concept «ontological» and «epistemological», on the one hand, shows ambivalence, but on the other, however, the primacy of the epistemological exists. And in this connection an equally important aspect emerges in the epistemological problems: the development of cognitive methodology». In other words, what are the faculties and limits of the human mind (understanding) beyond the boundaries of which is the world in which man lives? How to know the world given to us through our sensations? How to know the world, framed by our reason?
So, how far the world has progressed in matters of gaining knowledge about the world. The situation is familiar. An ancient and civilized man ... What distinguishes them? What does it have in common? There are questions about the world order. But, strangely enough, the answers are also related. Myths are born ...
References
- Hume, D. (1996). Traktat o chelovecheskoi prirode [A Treatise of Human Nature]. Sbornik sochineni – Collection of (Vol. 1-2; Vol. 1). Moscow: Mysl [in Russian].
- Kant, I. (1966). Kritika chistoho razuma. Predislovie k pervomu izdaniiu [Critique of Pure Reason. Preface to the first edition]. Sbornik sochineni – Collection of essays. (Vol. 1-6; Vol. 3). Moscow: Mysl [in Russian].
- Mamardashvili, M.K. (2002). Vvedenie v filosofiiu iz knigi «Filosofskie chteniia» [Introduction to the philosophy of the book «Philosophical reading»]. Saint Petersburg: Azbuka-Klassika [in Russian].
- Zhusupova, B.Zh. (2016). Dialekticheskii sintez v metodolohii nauchnoho poznaniia [Dialectical synthesis in the methodology of scientific knowledge]. Mezhdunarodnyi zhurnal eksperimentalnoho obrazovaniia – International Journal of Experimental Education, 7, 106–110 [in Russian].