Philosophy Stack Exchange
Philosophy Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [myths]

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What function do myths serve in the Platonic dialogues?

There is a consistent pattern throughout the corpus of Plato's dialogues: first, Socrates proposes a philosophical problem, like "what is justice?" or "is there an immortal soul?". Then he goes on to challenge each attempt of his interlocutors at…
Otavio Macedo
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Has anyone suggested a modern substitute for mythology?

Several authors have mentioned that mythology play a central role in human societies, satisfying various social and psychological needs and giving meaning and a spiritual dimension to people's lives. (See for example Karen Armstrong, Joseph…
Alexander S King
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Why did Aldous Huxley not include the Zohar/Kabbalah in "The Perennial Philosophy"?

The Perennial Philosophy presents a universalist interpretation of the world's religions through a comparative study of a collection of mystical writings, from both Eastern and Western philosophies. Although I have a brief understanding of the…
user29568
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Was Neoplatonism a synthesis of Jewish & Platonic monotheism?

Was Neoplatonism a synthesis of Jewish & Platonic monotheism? Neoplatonism was a school of mystical philosophy synthesising Jewish theology and Plato's philosophy. Its major theorist & practitioner is Plotinus. But there appears to be two dialogues…
Mozibur Ullah
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Pandora's Box: Is hope evil?

I know, most questions here are more sophisticated, but this question sparked in my mind some time ago: Is hope a bad thing? The reason I got to this idea is that I had a hard time with lots of bad luck the last years. And of all emotions and…
miep
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Can myth be a part of philosophy?

There are many ancient myths regarding cosmology which have their descriptions of reality including those which are seemingly directly unobservable to us. For example, what is outside of our universe? What was before the universe started to exist?…
rus9384
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Is Aristotle a monotheist?

Is Aristotle a monotheist? It would seem so because in Book 8 of Aristotle's Physics he proves the existence of a single Primary Mover or Unmoved Mover. of his views on truth and contradiction, viz., that he believes in the law of…
Geremia
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Has the early part of Platos Timaeus been used as evidence for establishing the origins of philosophy?

Although admitting that there was a long-running debate on the origins of Philosophy, Diogenes Laertius asserts that Philosophy began with the Greeks. This can mean only that the debate centred around whether other near-ancient civilisations should…
Mozibur Ullah
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journal for mathematics of philosophy/mythology

I have been working on research involving the use of mathematical formulas and reasoning in order to philosophical concepts, specifically concepts concerning mythology, the Jungian model of the psyche, genius(in the archaic usage for an individual's…
Alexander
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Nietzsche's birth of tragedy

In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche describes a Dionysian satyr as a force that impregnates an Apollonian world of images giving rise to dialogue on the Hellenic stage and henceforth the Greek tragedies. Is it that conflict between Dionysian and…
Chris
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Are most philosophers atheists, monotheists, polytheists or what?

Has anybody made such analysis? It would be interesting to know the position of the majority of philosophers regarding metaphysics/mythology/religion, maybe by region and/or period.
Rodrigo
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Are mythological stories scientific explanations?

Are mythological stories scientific explanations? {It would seem so because Zeus, for example, was as early explanation of lightening.} Or are they stories/rhetoric? Or is story-telling or rhetoric identical to scientific explanation? {It would seem…
Geremia
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Is religion a kind of mythology, or the opposite?

Can we define religion as "the mythologies that don't assume they are mythologies"? First, mythology is the oldest way of describing Nature. Polytheisms, extant or extinct, usually know|knew their mythologic nature. Thus the usually pacific and…
Rodrigo
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"great power of the divinity as part of the cosmos"

Hopefully you are fine! I am having difficulty in understanding the meaning of "great power as part of the cosmos" in the following encrypt from an article on Pre-Socratics: For the Greeks, the fundamental properties of divinity are immortality …
Mushrraf Baig Ashraf
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Are there philosophical principles that made convincing in antiquity that the Earth was a sphere?

According to Wikipedia, there is no account of how the sphericity of the Earth was established. Though it goes on to say 'A plausible explanation is that it was "the experience of travellers that suggested such an explanation for the variation in…
Mozibur Ullah
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