This article deals with Slavic pseudo-mythology, comprising myths and deities that do not exist in authentic mythology and folklore or whose existence is doubtful or refuted. It is typically an artificial construct and may be created by scholars who freely interpret scarce sources. This pseudo-mythology, as we will see, has created a false reality. The image we have of Slavic paganism is in fact very vague for lack of sources. On the contrary, today we are (...) used to talking about a well-constructed mythology which in fact rests on the construction based on assumptions and pseudo-theories of the 18th, mainly of the 19th and 20th centuries. This phenomenon is also related to Rodnovery or Rodnovery, which is a Slavic neo-pagan reconstructionist movement. (shrink)

The evolutionist theories of Bachofen on the priority of matriarchy are today no more than one of the most unusual pieces of the historical museum of anthropology. The wealth and diversity of historical and literary sources therein are juxtaposed with the construction of a conjectural chronology organizing the relationship between the sexes in a progressive mode and in accordance with an immanent finality. But it is also necessary to distinguish, on the one hand, Bachofen's historicism as an expression of the (...) evolutionist tendencies of that time, based on natural sciences and the results of Darwin's work, and, on the other, interest in the inter-sexual relationship within the social institution. For the invention of successive stages in order to propose a social history of sexuality is based as much on evolutionism as on constitutive psychic representations of the individual. By projecting these representations into a pseudo-historical period and by ordering them, at each level, in terms of the two parameters of domination / subjection and collectivity / individuality, Bachofen assigned semantics to history and an evolutionary sense to transformations in marriage and the family. And by conferring historical validity on the myths of Antiquity, he set forth an implicit denial both of the work of the imagination (not to say sub-conscious, which would be an anachronism for this pre-Freudian period) as well as of ideological ruses in the political field. Bachovian evolutionism thus developed a new myth out of the ancient myths, false witnesses of the past but authentic representatives of the ahistorical present of the psyche, endowing with scientific color the image of humanity progressing from dominance of the mother and collectivism to the triumph of the father and individualism. The idea of “matriarchy” (Mutterrecht) in Bachofen is indeed to be taken in the sense of “maternal dominance” (as the German expression better suggests), and not that of political power of women. (shrink)

Scientist naturalism as pseudo religion and anti-natural theology After exposing the basic ideas of the naturalistic worldview, an attempt is made to show that naturalism is an interpretation of science that has an inescapable "mythological" dimension, in the sense that Midgley gives to this expression. This does not discredit it on principle but means that we cannot accept it uncritically by the mere fact that it appeals to the natural sciences to justify its validity. It is then argued that (...) the central commitment of naturalists is the affirmation of atheism. In fact, the most radical contemporary naturalisms can be interpreted as an attempt to make every natural theology impossible, i.e., they seek to destroy the grounds on which reason classically relies to affirm the existence of God. It is argued that naturalism does not necessarily enjoy a priori epistemological superiority over theism. (shrink)

This essay argues strongly that racism in the United States hurts thefuture of all children. To eradicate this pernicious mindset inits institutional forms requires that we understand that race,as an idea that shapes social organization in this country,is a unique historical product dating from the colonial periodof the southern colonies of mainland British North America.Further, the mythology about American history, as it is taughtin school, excuses and legitimates continued inequality,oppression, and racism today. This essay traces the historyof class oppression (...) from the 17th century, when the institutionof slavery was invented as a means of securing the unpaidchattel bonded labor of Anglo-Europeans, to the emergenceof unfree labor as a form of racial oppression, and subsequently the institutionalization of racial slavery inthe 18th century. Racial slavery, which elevated whitesupremacy and privilege, was still not synonymous with themodern form of pseudo-scientific racism that emerged as adefense of slavery in the antebellum period and its aftermathin the Civil War and Reconstruction. Racism and the legacyof white privilege is still used as a means of social controlto mask class relations and to thereby control and diminishcollective social action that potentially would occurin the absence of the color line. Knowledge of race as anhistorical construct created by human beings in particularcircumstances raises the possibility that race, racism, and its effects can also be changed by human beings acting in opposition to the conditions that artificially separate us. (shrink)

La série Doctor Who est parvenue, en cinquante ans d’existence, à mettre en place une mythologie dans laquelle technologie et mythes des origines ont donné vie à un univers que la majorité des personnages perçoit comme étant « magique ». Tout comme le magicien ou la figure du sage dans le monomythe campbellien, le Docteur apparaît toujours au bon moment et provoque l’appel de l’aventure qui guide ses compagnons humains dans un monde merveilleux. Offrant souvent des explications pseudo-scientifiques incompréhensibles (...) pour le commun des mortels, le Docteur ressemble ainsi au magicien d’Oz dont les pouvoirs magiques viennent d’une maîtrise scientifique supérieure à celle de ses interlocuteurs. Mais la représentation de ce magicien spatio-temporel a pris une toute nouvelle tournure lorsqu’il est devenu évident que le Docteur et Merlin avaient une histoire et des origines communes. In fifty years, Doctor Who managed to develop a mythology in which technology and origin myths gave birth to a universe that most characters perceive as “magical”. Just like the wizard or the wise in the Campbellian monomyth, the Doctor systematically appears at the right moment and provokes the call to adventure that will lead his human companions in a wonderful world. His pseudo-scientific explanations, often incomprehensible for us mortals, thus create a certain connection between the Doctor and the Wizard of Oz, whose magic powers result from a superior knowledge of science. But the representation of this spatiotemporal magician became quite different when the Doctor and Merlin started to have a common history and a same origin. (shrink)

To articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it "the way it really was". It means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger.In today's analysis the early days of "Solidarność" are usually nostalgically petrified into a pseudo-utopian mythology of a once brave nation that is long past. The sheer possibility of approaching the events of 1980 and 1981 is conveniently blocked by the supposedly definitive character of the events (...) that took place later—the martial law introduced in 1981 and the neoliberal transformation that began after 1989. This idealized and stabilized vision of a securely distanced political event usually becomes an argument for the impossibility of any... (shrink)

Scholarship on the late fifth-century BC New Music Revolution has mostly relied on the evidence provided by Athenaeus, the pseudo-Plutarch De musica and a few other late sources. To this date, however, very little has been done to understand Athenaeus' own rale in shaping our understanding of the musical culture of that period. This article argues that the historical context provided by Athenaeus in the section of the Deipnosophistae that cites passages of Melanippides, Telestes and Pratinas on the (...) class='Hi'>mythology of the aulos (14.616e-617f) is not a credible reflection of the contemporary aestheties and strategies of the authors and their works. Athenaeus is both following the structure of Aristotle's discussion of the topic of the aulos in Politics 8. 1341a-1342b and accepting the elite ideological position given there. Athenaeus' text thus does not provide evidence for the historical context in which late fifth-century authors were composing, but rather constitutes an attempt to illustrate Aristotle's argument with poetic examples from late fifth-century poets. (shrink)

The real, thought of as human reality, that is, a mixture of the imaginary, mythology, emotions, flesh, passions, suffering, love, is always surprising, full of possibilities and hard to grasp. A thinking adapted to the complex reality of our earthly homeland cannot be a trivial realism content with the established order and accepting the victory of the victorious. On the contrary, understanding of reality, lucidity are often the result of an ethical revolt against the fait accompli, against certainty. The (...) thinking suggested by Morin attempts to move beyond the alternatives between, on the one hand, the worst option: the utopia that thinks it is realistic, and on the other the utopia that knows it is utopia, and is therefore harmless, outside the real. The hope is to introduce the poetry of intensity into reality, to resist the oppressive forces of pseudo-realism by cultivating the garden of our earthly homeland. (shrink)

La notion d’un corps intermédiaire, connu sous le nom de véhicule de l’âme dans le néoplatonisme, est destinée à expliquer l’union de l’âme et du corps, mais aussi l’articulation du rationnel et de l’irrationnel, les communications avec le divin, et le maintien d’une forme de vie post mortem. Cette étude montre comment les premières attestations d’un usage structuré de la notion, sous la forme « le pneuma est le (premier) véhicule de l’âme », apparaissent dans deux contextes différents, fort éloignés (...) l’un de l’autre : une discussion de physiologie sur le pneuma optique, chez Galien ; et une explicitation philosophique de l’eschatologie d’Homère, dans le De Homero du Pseudo-Plutarque. Ce sont cependant les témoins les plus clairs d’une doctrine qui est encore en gestation dans le platonisme impérial. L’analyse montre en particulier ce que le médecin doit au Timée de Platon, ce que l’allégoriste doit à la théorie médicale des exhalaisons du sang, quand ils formulent cette nouvelle hypothèse commune sur la nature du pneuma, appuyée sur Platon et Aristote, et manifestement présentée comme une alternative à la doctrine stoïcienne de l’âme-pneuma. (shrink)

Bishop Butler objected to Locke's theory of personal identity on the grounds that memory presupposes personal identity. Most of those sympathetic with Locke's account have accepted Butler's criticism, and have sought to devise a theory of personal identity in the spirit of Locke's that avoids Butler's circularity objection. John McDowell has argued that even the more recent accounts of personal identity are vulnerable to the kind of objection Butler raised against Locke's own account. I criticize McDowell's stance, drawing on a (...) distinction introduced by Annalisa Coliva between two types of immunity to error through misidentification. (shrink)

(2013). Not Your Typical Frequent Flyer: Overcoming Mythology in Caring for Sickle Cell Disease Patients. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 18-20. doi: 10.1080/15265161.2013.767963.

Excerpt from Die Metaphysik und Ethik des Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita: Im Systematischen Zusammenhange DargestelBis auf den heutigen Tag ist die sogenannte areopagitische Frage noch nicht gelost, obwohl die Litteratur uber dieselbe bereits eine betrachtliche ist. Die erste Erwahnung der areopagitischen Schriften fand auf einer Zusammenkunft der monophysitischen Severianer und der Katholiker zu Konstantinopel im Jahre 532 statt. Bei dieser Konferenz beriefen sich die ersteren auf dieselben, wahrend die letzteren ihre Echtheit bestritten. Aber der Protest hielt nicht lange an; vielmehr hielt (...) man bis zum funfzehnten Jahrhundert an der Authentie dieser Schriften fest, und sowohl in der romischen wie in der syrischen und giechischen Kirche galten sie fur "wunderbare und fast gottliche Schriften." Da begann endlich im funfzehnten Jahrhundert der gelehrte und scharfsinnige Kritiker Laurentius Valla von neuem den Kampf gegen ihre Echtheit, ein Kampf, der bis auf unsere Zeit noch nicht entschieden ist. Die einen suchten mit allen erlaubten und unerlaubten Mitteln die Echtheit der areopagitischen Schriften nachzuweisen, wahrend die anderen im Gegensatz zu ihnen die Unechtheit derselben darzulegen sich bemuhten. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.". (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 93 Heft: 2 Seiten: 583-584.

This paper focuses on Warren Nutter’s The Extent of Enterprise Monopoly in the United States, 1899-1939. This started out as a (1949) doctoral dissertation at The University of Chicago, part of Aaron Director’s Free Market Study. Besides Director, O.H. Brownlee and Milton Friedman were closely involved with supervising it. It was published by The University of Chicago Press in 1951. In the 1950s the book was explicitly understood as belonging to the “Chicago School” (Dow and Abernathy 1963). By articulating the (...) content, context, and reception of Nutter’s monograph, this paper discusses four larger themes. First, I introduce the importance of Kuhnian conceptions of science to the methodological and institutional understanding of economics in the development of a ‘Chicago’ school of economics. I do this in context of previously unpublished Stigler-Kuhn exchange. While Thomas Kuhn was widely read and adopted in the social sciences and humanities in the 1960s and 70s (and thereafter), I argue that at ‘Chicago,’ proto-Kuhnian language can be found going back to the 1940s; in those early days it is partly used to disparage the achievements of economic theorizing as promoted by others. A more self-congratulatory Kuhnian self-understanding of economics as a mature paradigm starts to get adopted around 1955 by George Stigler. One important new claim is that the later Kuhnian language gets adopted in part to divest ‘Chicago’ from its shared roots with Institutionalist economics. So, this paper contributes to a better understanding of the formation of a shared narrative at ‘Chicago.’ Second, I introduce contextual themes from Milton Friedman’s writings in the late 40s and 50s to help us understand the nature of realism at Chicago. Nutter’s dissertation helps in reading and illuminating Milton Friedman’s famous 1953 methodology paper in historical and intellectual context. Third, while this chapter notes some of the political ramifications of Chicago economics, my main aim is to help explain the manner in which Chicago attempted to chart a distinctive methodological course. This methodology has often been described as Marshallian with debts to the large-scale NBER studies. Rather than going over familiar territory, I call attention to the importance of proxies in Nutter’s empirical methodology. It is an unappreciated feature of the inductive, quantitative method that focused on the component structures of the economy that characterizes Chicago’s methodological outlook in this period. I show this by comparing Nutter’s dissertation to work done by Stigler, then at Columbia. We know from Stigler’s correspondence with Friedman that in this period they discussed methodological matters. What is less well known is that Friedman is explicitly credited for Stigler’s methodological insights in Stigler's Five Lectures at LSE. The fifth lecture, “Competition in the United States,” covers similar territory as Nutter’s project. Comparing the work by Stigler and Nutter sheds light on the nature of Chicago methodology as it was being developed away from foundations laid by Frank Knight and Henry Simons in the late 1940s and 1950s and opening up the door to (right wing) social engineering as exemplified by Harberger. I present my analysis through the published critical reception of both works among economists. A fourth reason to focus on Nutter’s dissertation is that it was featured in a Fortune magazine article in January 1952. So, it provides a useful entry into how politically important ‘Chicago’ research was marketed to a wider audience. This connects to issues explored by Phil Mirowski and his students, Rob van Horn and Eddie Nik-kah. So, Nutter’s dissertation can help us see how ‘sponsored’ research looks at ‘Chicago at the time. This is especially important because it has been claimed that Director’s Free Market Study group promoted a change from classically liberal views on monopoly, which condemned labor and employer monopolies, to a more pro-business stance. (shrink)

Essays on a Science of Mythology is a cooperative work between C. Kerényi, who has been called "the most psychological of mythologists," and C. G. Jung, who has been called "the most mythological of psychologists." Kerényi contributes an essay on the Divine Child and one on the Kore, together with a substantial introduction and conclusion. Jung contributes a psychological commentary on each essay. Both men hoped, through their collaboration, to elevate the study of mythology to the status of (...) a science.In "The Primordial Child in Primordial Times" Kerényi treats the child-God as an enduring and significant figure in Greek, Norse, Finnish, Etruscan, and Judeo-Christian mythology. He discusses the Kore as Athena, Artemis, Hecate, and Demeter-Persephone, the mother-daughter of the Eleusinian mysteries. Jung speaks of the Divine Child and the Maiden as living psychological realities that provide continuing meaning in people's lives.The investigations of C. Kerényi are continued in a later study, Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. (shrink)

Arthur E. Lean’s irreverent and con­troversial essays represent the distillation of many ideas about education—ideas developed during most of a lifetime spent in and about schools. In the second edition of this popular work, to which he has added eight new essays, he presents his latest observations on current ele­ments and programs in education—such as the grading system, academic rank, the teaching process, assessment of edu­cational progress—concluding that many of them are not only unnecessary but actually harmful to the very (...) process which they are supposed to serve. Covering a broad spectrum of current issues in its criticism of American edu­cation at all levels, _And Merely Teach _is a book to be read by veteran educator, beginning teacher, and lay citizen alike. Though critical of the teaching profes­sion, Arthur Lean also offers constructive suggestions in the form of practical solu­tions that are urgently needed to save our ailing educational system. (shrink)