The original forms of worldview. Features of the mythological worldview - report

Historically, the first form of worldview is considered to be the mythological worldview, i.e. a system of fictional ideas about the world, its origin, the emergence of man, a fantastic understanding of natural phenomena and historical processes in which man participates. The mythological worldview is based not on the study of the surrounding world and not on knowledge, but on fiction, sometimes in the form of a very fascinating story. Under mythological worldview It is customary to understand the totality of ideas about the world and life, formed through the prism of myth.

What is a myth?

Myth- this is fiction, thanks to the myth, you can very interestingly and beautifully explain any phenomenon related to any sphere of human activity and the manifestation of the forces of nature. The most striking example of the form of consolidation of the mythological worldview are Greek myths, which are a wonderful literary and artistic monument.

Developed mythology covered almost all aspects of human life and society. It explains the emergence of an ordered cosmos from the primary chaos, the origin of life and the emergence of man, explains the emergence of the most important skills in a person’s life (writing, crafts, fine arts), gives knowledge about future times and about posthumous existence. At the same time, in the myth, man and the world around him were inseparable. Man is one of the parts of nature, and the forces of nature themselves have the appearance of gods and heroes. The myth does not have a specific author and it is impossible to indicate the exact time of its occurrence. At the same time, the mythological gods and heroes of the Greeks completely repeat all the features of ordinary life: like ordinary people, they intrigue, act up, interfere directly in people's lives, argue, lie, fight with each other. What distinguishes gods from people is their immortality and the ability to show special abilities, to work miracles.

Mythological worldview continues to exist today, including among a fairly enlightened part of humanity. The myths as stories about gods and heroes were replaced by social, political and economic mythology- for example, myths about great leaders like gods, about secret conspiracies and worldwide terrorism, against which all forces and means should be thrown.

Features of the mythological worldview

1. Mythology (from the Greek mythos - legend, legend and logos - word, concept, teaching) is a type of consciousness, a way of understanding the world, characteristic of the early stages of the development of society. Myths existed among all peoples of the world. In the spiritual life of primitive people, mythology acted as a universal form of their consciousness, as an integral worldview.

Myths - ancient tales about fantastic creatures, about the deeds of gods and heroes - are diverse. But a number of basic themes and motifs are repeated in them. Many myths are devoted to the origin and structure of the cosmos (cosmogonic and cosmological myths). They contain attempts to answer the question about the beginning, origin, structure of the surrounding world, about the emergence of the most important natural phenomena for a person, about world harmony, impersonal necessity, etc. The formation of the world was understood in mythology as its creation or as a gradual development from the primitive formless states, as ordering, that is, the transformation from chaos into space, as creation through overcoming destructive demonic forces. There were also myths (they are called eschatological) describing the coming death of the world, in some cases - with its subsequent revival.

1. mythological worldview. It has been formed since the appearance of Homo sapiens, about 40-60 thousand years ago. This is a worldview that describes and explains the world and the place of man in the world in a very peculiar way. For this, the deeds of gods, heroes, numerous fantastic creatures are shown, phenomena of nature and social life are described and explained in their own way. Fantastic creatures do things that are not real from the standpoint of science. Just like they themselves are not real. The myth allowed everything. In it, anything could appear from anything, just like that, or with the help of an intermediary in the form of the same fantastic creatures. This was the weakness and anti-science of myths. In the world, indeed, something is generated by something, something appears from something, nothing can appear from nothing. But for everything to appear out of everything, then this is by no means possible.
2. A lot of attention in myths was paid to the origin of people, birth, stages of life, death of a person, various trials that stand in his way of life. A special place was occupied by myths about the cultural achievements of people - making fire, the invention of crafts, agriculture, the origin of customs and rituals. Among developed peoples, myths were connected with each other, lined up in single narratives. (In a later literary presentation, they are presented in the ancient Greek "Iliad", the Indian "Ramayana", the Karelian-Finnish "Kalevala" and other folk epics.) The representations embodied in the myth were intertwined with rituals, served as an object of faith, ensured the preservation of traditions and the continuity of culture. For example, myths about dying and resurrecting gods, symbolically reproducing natural cycles, were associated with agricultural rites. The originality of the myth was manifested in the fact that the thought was expressed in specific emotional, poetic images, metaphors. Here the phenomena of nature and culture converged, human features were transferred to the surrounding world. As a result, the cosmos and other natural forces were humanized (personified, animated). This makes the myth related to the thinking of children, artists, poets, and all people in whose minds the images of old fairy tales, legends, legends "live" in a transformed form. At the same time, the generalized work of thought was also contained in the bizarre fabric of mythological plots - analysis, classification, a special symbolic representation of the world as a whole.

In myth, the world and man, the ideal and the material, the objective and the subjective, were not differentiated in any way. Human thought will draw these distinctions later. Myth is a holistic understanding of the world, in which various ideas are linked into a single figurative picture of the world, a kind of "artistic religion" full of poetic images and metaphors. In the fabric of myth, reality and fantasy, the natural and the supernatural, thought and feeling, knowledge and faith are intricately woven.

1. The most important feature of myth is anthropomorphism. This is the transfer of the features and properties of a person to the rest of the surrounding world. One of the schemes for explaining everything that exists in the world is the genetic scheme. Man is born by birth. Therefore, inanimate objects are born. The principle is that anything can be generated by anything

The myth has shown its effectiveness as a means of controlling human behavior, as a way of regulating relations between people. Therefore, primitive collectives were very close-knit within individual clans, tribes, but other clans and tribes were perceived, as a rule, with hostility.

Myth is the most ancient (archaic) type of thinking, in which the real and the fictional did not differ; word, thought and object of thought. Therefore, the myth is syncretic. Therefore, the ancient man performed many, in our opinion, senseless actions. For example, before going hunting, an ancient hunter at the beginning killed some image of an animal, believing that this would ensure his success in hunting. Children were given the names of many natural phenomena, the names of animals, believing that thanks to this, the child would be endowed with the properties of these natural phenomena or animals.

1. The myth expressed the worldview, worldview, worldview of the people of the era in which it was created. It acted as a universal, undifferentiated (syncretic) form of consciousness, combining in itself the rudiments of knowledge, religious beliefs, political views, various types of arts, and philosophy. Only later did these elements receive independent life and development.

With its help, the connection of "times" - the past, present and future, was carried out, the collective ideas of this or that people were formed, the spiritual unity of generations was ensured. Mythological consciousness consolidated the system of values ​​accepted in a given society, supported and encouraged certain forms of behavior. It also included the search for the unity of nature and society, the world and man, the desire to find a solution to contradictions and find harmony, the inner harmony of human life.

In the search for answers to the questions of world outlook posed in mythology, the creators of religion and philosophy have chosen, in principle, different (although still sometimes closely converging) paths. In contrast to the religious worldview with its predominant attention to human anxieties, hopes, to the search for faith in philosophy, the intellectual aspects of the worldview were brought to the fore, which reflected the growing need in society to understand the world and man from the standpoint of knowledge, reason. Philosophical thought declared itself as a search for wisdom.

I.5. Pre-philosophical forms of worldview: mythology and religion.

Philosophy arises on the basis of mythology and the early religious worldview; to a certain extent, it is the successor of mythology and religion. The inclusion of religion in philosophy is also demonstrated by various religious areas of philosophy that still exist today. Religious philosophy has existed for two millennia, Russian philosophy of the 19th - early 20th centuries. at its best was religious. Outstanding Russian philosophers V. Solovyov, N. Berdyaev, P. Florensky and others developed their philosophy on the basis of a religious worldview. One of the leading trends in modern Western philosophy is neo-Thomism is the official philosophy of Catholicism. The unity of pre-philosophical forms of worldview and philosophy is based on their common theme. Mythology and religion included the most general questions of being, the foundation of the world, its origin, structure, life meanings, norms of human behavior, etc. Both mature mythology, and religion, and, later, philosophy tried to answer general worldview questions: What is the essence peace? Who are we, where are we from? Who or what rules the world? What is the essence and purpose of man? etc. But each of these three types of worldview has its own characteristics and differences, so we will briefly consider them separately and in comparison.

The first historical form of worldview was mythology. Mythology is not just ideas about the gods, not only a collection of "traditions of antiquity", but, above all, a way of understanding nature, society and man, especially in the early stages of human history. Mythology is a worldview based on the inclusion of nature and the forces of nature in the human order of life. Therefore, mythological images are addressed, first of all, to the eternal principles of being. The complex mythological images created in different cultures indicate that the world in the minds of people even of that ancient period was not limited to physical phenomena alone, but also included that secret, invisible, fantasized, supposed, which later began to be designated as ideal. Man already then felt that behind the visible world there is an invisible world, which is more complex and more important than the visible one. Therefore, a person with a mythological consciousness endowed the world with miracles, mysticism, sacraments, in which this complexity was reflected. Although most myths depicted the external side of being, mythology was an attempt to look into oneself, into one's inner world. Mythology was not only a way of understanding the world, but also a way of understanding the world, and most importantly, it was a necessary means of regulating the relationship of a person with the world and with his own kind. Summarizing and concretizing what has been said, the following features of the mythological worldview can be distinguished:

1. It was based on the inseparability of man and nature, it was syncretic. Inanimate objects, the forces of nature were animated and thought of as really existing. Mermaids, witches, mermen, nymphs - all of them were real creatures for a person of that time. They complemented the world of primitive man and personified the forces of reality, surpassing the possibilities of man.

2. Mythological consciousness differs from the scientific and philosophical nature of the worldview. The differences are as follows:

a) mythological consciousness perceives the world personally, “passes” it through itself, the object and the subject merge into a single whole

b) Accepts events as an indisputable given and, at best, retells them, and no more. It neither establishes nor seeks the causes of events and facts of existence. The question "why so"? not set yet.

c) mythological consciousness does not analyze events and does not draw theoretical conclusions, but perceives the world in images and through images. It reflects the world not in a system of concepts, but in a figurative-symbolic form. The symbolism of myths is the definition of the content of being and its value. Ritualism is of great importance in mythology. With the help of symbolism, rites and rituals, the mythological consciousness, as it were, fixed the natural pattern. The ritual acted as an expression of the law, and participation in the ritual - as a personal participation in the world order. Symbolism and imagery in mythology, its rich content were inherited by the future culture. Artistic creativity, poetry, early philosophy include a lot of myths, and the symbolic and mythological content of works of art gives them a philosophical coloring.

3. The mythological worldview was organically combined with early religious, polytheistic forms of worldview (animism, totemism, fetishism, etc.), therefore it is more accurate to call this type of worldview - mythological-religious or religious-mythological.

The concept and structure of the worldview

The concept of "worldview" does not have any single definition recognized by all. Most often, scientists agree that this term should be understood as a complex idea of ​​a person about the world, a kind of substance that is a link between consciousness and cognition. From the point of view of its structure, the worldview includes such elements as attitude, worldview and worldview.

Main types of worldviews

The worldview developed along with the development of man, his ideas about the world around him and about himself. Despite the fact that at present scientists pay the most attention to the ordinary and scientific understanding of the surrounding reality, historically the first form of worldview is the mythological worldview.

The concept of mythological worldview

The mythological worldview, as the name implies, is based on myths, that is, on bright, emotional, logically built schemes with which a person tried to explain certain phenomena or processes. Emotionality and colorfulness was necessary to make others believe that in reality everything is exactly what is happening.

Myth as a reflection of the specifics of the mythological worldview

At the same time, a myth is not just a story, it is a very deep experience by a person of the events that he tells about. This perception occurs because these stories touch upon the most important problems of a person and his relationship with the outside world. A myth is a kind of cipher, a "hidden language", with the help of which a person sought to convey to others all the complexity and orderliness of the natural environment. It is in this search for the deep meaning of certain phenomena and processes, painted in bright, and sometimes in fantastic tones, that the specificity of the mythological worldview lies.

Prerequisites for the emergence of a mythological worldview

The mythological worldview, its appearance and development are associated with a certain stage in the development of human consciousness and the accumulation of knowledge about the surrounding world. The immediate prerequisites for its appearance should be recognized as a certain emotional discomfort that surrounded a person in those distant times, as well as his desire to use even the insignificant knowledge that he already possessed in order to immediately explain all the processes and phenomena surrounding him.

They are most directly related to the specifics of this type of worldview. This is the animation of surrounding objects and phenomena, and the inseparability of ideas about reality and fantasy, and the transfer of many phenomena of one's life to the world of gods and spirits. In addition, the mythological worldview is characterized by the absence of any attempts to give cognition an abstract character, that is, to try to single out their main, essential qualities and properties in certain phenomena. At the same time, in myths, a person tried to give an explanation to absolutely everything that surrounded him, including himself. At the same time, it should be noted that the mythological worldview, in contrast to the same ordinary knowledge about objects, is a rather harmonious system, where each myth occupies its own, clearly defined place.

Mythology is a form of social consciousness, the worldview of an ancient society, which combines both fantastic and realistic perception of the surrounding reality.

A mythological worldview - regardless of whether it refers to the distant past or today - we will call such a worldview that is based not on theoretical arguments and reasoning, but on an artistic and emotional experience of the world, or on public illusions born of inadequate perception by large groups of people (classes , nations), social processes and their role in them.

One of the features of myth, which unmistakably distinguishes it from science, is that myth explains "everything", because for it there is no unknown and unknown.

As a rule, myths try to answer the following basic questions:

• - the origin of the Universe, Earth and man;
• - explanation of natural phenomena.

And also for mythology, the inability of a person to isolate himself from the environment and explain phenomena on the basis of natural causes is characteristic. It explains the world and all phenomena in it by the action of gods and heroes. But in mythology, for the first time in the history of mankind, a number of proper philosophical questions are also posed: how the world arose and how it develops; what is life and death, and others.

The traditional definition of myth belongs to I.M. Dyakonov. In a broad sense, myths are, first of all, "antique, biblical and other ancient tales about the creation of the world and man, as well as stories of gods and heroes - poetic, sometimes bizarre."

The word "myth" is of Greek origin and translated into Russian means "tradition" or "tale".

Mythological ideas were formed because the primitive man perceived himself as an integral part of the surrounding nature, and his thinking was closely connected with the emotional and affective-motor spheres.

People endowed natural phenomena with human qualities.

The events described in the myths were not classified by primitive people as supernatural. For them, myths were absolutely real, because they were the result of comprehension of reality by many previous generations.

Often mythology is mistakenly identified with religion. The question of the relationship between these two concepts is one of the most difficult and does not have an unambiguous solution in science. There is no doubt that the concept of mythology is much broader than the concept of religion, since it includes not only stories about the gods, but also legends about the origin of the cosmos, myths about heroes, legends about the formation and death of cities, and much more. Mythology is a whole system of primitive worldview, which includes not only the rudiments of religion, but also elements of philosophy, political theories, pre-scientific ideas about the world, and also, due to its figurativeness and metaphor, various forms of art, primarily verbal.

Thanks to a comparative historical analysis of the extremely diverse myths of various peoples of the world, it was found that a number of basic themes and motives are repeated in them. This allowed researchers to identify certain types of myths:

• - myths about animals;
• - totemic myths;
• - solar myths;
• - lunar myths;
• - calendar myths;
• - agricultural myth;
• - cosmological and anthropological myths.

Mythology, on the one hand, is a collection of myths that tell about the deeds of gods, heroes, spirits, and more, in which people's fantastic ideas about the world, nature and man are reflected. On the other hand, it is a science that studies the origin, content, distribution of myths, their relationship with other genres of folk art, religious beliefs and rituals, history, and many other aspects related to the nature and essence of myths.

Mythology is not identical to philosophy, although it contains quite a few discussions about the global problems of being. Mythology is not identical to religion, but includes various cults and rituals dedicated to the gods. It can be stated with full confidence that mythology is something universal, the first worldview system.

The mythological worldview is the earliest, and for modern consciousness - an archaic form of worldview.

Myth is the earliest type and form of consciousness and reflection of the surrounding world in it. The features of the mythological worldview are that the myth itself is the earliest historical form of awareness of the surrounding reality by the individual. The myth brings together and intricately intertwines the initial knowledge of a person, the norms of regulation of individual and social thinking and behavior, as well as artistic and aesthetic criteria, emotional design and criteria for evaluating human activity.

Mythology, according to a number of scholars, appears before modern man, not just as a kind of oral creativity, the source of which is human imagination. Mythology also has a motive not only for the simple satisfaction of human curiosity and the search for answers to the burning questions of life. The mythological worldview acts as an integral mechanism of social regulation of society, and an objective mechanism, since at a certain stage of its development, society begins to feel the need for such a regulator especially strongly. In this capacity, the mythological worldview manifests itself as a way to preserve natural and human harmony and the psychological unity of people.

The specificity of the mythological worldview in this sense lies in the fact that it is generated and recreated in new generations not by rational logic and the historical experience of previous generations, but by fragmentary pictures of the world, which are purely individual and figurative. Within the framework of such a picture, nature, social phenomena are reflected and motivated to such a reflection only to the extent that there is a need for the people themselves in this reflection.

The mythological worldview at this stage of the formation of society is characterized mainly by ignoring cause-and-effect methods of describing reality, as a result of which the picture of the world appears only in its spatio-temporal design (for example, in unreal terms of people's lives, their rebirth and resurrection in a different capacity, etc. .).

The main thing in the mythological consciousness is the image, which, in fact, distinguishes mythology from philosophy, where rational thinking already prevails. Nevertheless, the myth presents the world to a person not just in the form of a fairy tale, but in such a way where some supreme authority is indisputably present. This factor subsequently becomes the basis for the formation of "pure" religions that distinguish themselves from mythology.

The mythological worldview has one more feature - in the myth there is always the presence of an undivided representation between the natural substance and the person himself. The social significance of this unity is embodied in the principles of collectivism, which assert that everything in this world is subject to control if the problem is solved collectively.

Based on these features, it can be argued that the main function of mythological consciousness and worldview does not lie in the plane of cognitive activity, it is purely practical, and its main goal is to strengthen the solidity of society or part of it. Myth, unlike philosophy, does not give rise to questions and problems and does not require from the individual a meaningful and conscious attitude to the environment.

But with the accumulation of practical knowledge, there is an objective need for their systematization already at the level of rational activity, and, consequently, theoretical. Therefore, the mythological consciousness first "dissolves" in the religious, and then gives priority to the philosophical, remaining, nevertheless, in the minds of every person in the form of mental representations of the ordinary level.