Why Science is Always Mythological (Aleksei Losev)

The previous doctrine of the ideality of myth is especially sharply manifested in the understanding of mythology as a primitive science. Most of the scientists, led by Kant, Spencer, even Taylor, think about the myth precisely in this way and this fundamentally distorts the whole true nature of mythology. The scientific attitude towards myth as one of the types of abstract relations, assumes an isolated intellectual function. We must observe and remember a lot, analyze and synthesize very much, and very carefully separate the essential from the nonessential in order to finally obtain at least some elementary scientific generalization. Science in this sense is extremely troublesome and full of vanity. In the chaos and confusion of empirically tangled, flowing things one must grasp an ideal-numerical, mathematical regularity, which, although controlling this chaos, is itself not chaos, but an ideal, logical conformation and order, otherwise the first touch of empirical chaos would have been equivalent with the creation of the science of mathematical natural science. And now, despite the abstract logic of science, almost everyone is naively convinced that mythology and primitive science are one and the same thing. How to deal with these chronic prejudices? Myth is always extremely practical, more than needed, always emotional, affective, vital. And yet they think that this is the beginning of science. Nobody will argue that mythology (this or that, Indian, Egyptian, Greek) is a science in general, i.e. modern science (if you have in mind all the complexity of its calculations, tools and equipment). But if development of mythology is not a development of science, then how can a developed or undeveloped mythology be an undeveloped science? If two organisms are completely dissimilar in their developed and complete form, then how can their embryos not be fundamentally different? From the fact that we take a scientific need here in small form, it does not at all follow that it is no longer a scientific necessity. Primitive science, no matter how primitive it may be, is still somehow a science, otherwise it would not enter the general context of the history of science at all, and therefore it could not be considered a primitive science. Either primitive science is science, then in no case is it mythology; Or primitive science is mythology - then, not being a science at all, how can it be a primitive science? In primitive science, despite all its primitive nature, there is a certain amount of well-defined aspirations of consciousness that actively do not want to be mythology, which substantially and fundamentally supplement mythology and do not meet the real needs of the latter. Myth is full of emotions and real life experiences; It, for example, personifies, deify, honors or hates, gets angry. Could there be science like that? Primitive science, of course, is also emotional, naive-spontaneous and, in this sense, completely mythological. But this just shows that if mythology belonged to its essence, then science would not receive any independent historical development and its history would be a history of mythology. Hence, in primitive science, mythology is not a "substance", but as an "accident"; And this mythology characterizes only its state at the moment, and not science itself. The mythical consciousness is completely direct and naive. It is generally understandable that Scientific consciousness must have a deducible, logical character; It is not direct, it is difficult to digest, requires long training and abstract skills. Myth is always synthetically vital and consists of living personalities whose fate is illuminated emotionally and intimately sensitively; Science always turns life into a formula, giving instead of living personalities their abstract schemes and formulas; And realism, and the objectivism of science is not in the colorful picturing of life, but in the correctness of the correspondence between the abstract law and the formula with the empirical Inconsistency of phenomena, beyond any picturesqueness, picturesqueness, or emotionality. The latter properties would forever turn science into a miserable and uninteresting pendant of mythology. Therefore, it must be considered that already at the primitive stage of its development, science has nothing in common with mythology, although, because of the historical situation,  exists both as a mythologically colored science and also as scientifically Conscious or at least primitively scientifically interpreted mythology. Like the presence of a "white man" does not prove anything on the topic that "man" and "whiteness" are one and the same, and how, on the contrary, it proves precisely that "man" (as such) has nothing to do with "whiteness" "(As such), for otherwise the" white man "would be a tautology,so that between mythology and primitive science there is an" accidental ", but not" substantial "identity.

In this regard, I categorically protest against the second pseudoscientific prejudice, which forces us to assert that mythology precedes science, that science emerges from myth, that some historical epochs, especially modern ones, have absolutely no mythical consciousness and that science conquers myth.

First of all, what does it mean that mythology precedes science? If this means that the myth is easier to perceive, that it is more naive and more direct than science, then there is absolutely no arguing about it. It is also difficult to argue that mythology gives for science the original material on which it will later produce its abstractions and from which it must derive its laws. But if this statement has the sense that first there is mythology, and then science, then it requires complete rejection and criticism.

Secondly, if we take real science, that is, science, which is actually created by living people in a certain historical epoch, then such a science is decisively always not only accompanied by mythology, but also really feeds on it, drawing its initial intuitions from it.

Descartes is the founder of the new European rationalism and mechanicism, and, consequently, of positivism. Not the pitiful salon chatter of the materialists of the eighteenth century, but Descartes, of course, is the true founder of philosophical positivism. And it turns out that this positivism has its own definite mythology. Descartes begins his philosophy with universal doubt. Even with respect to God, he doubts whether he is also a deceiver. And where does he find support for his philosophy, his already undoubted foundation? He finds it in the "I", in the subject, in the thinking, in the consciousness, in the "ego", in the "cogito". Why is this so? Why are things less real? Why is less real God, about which Descartes himself says that this is the clearest and most obvious, the simplest idea? Why is not there something else? Only because this is his own unconscious religious teaching, such is his own mythology, such is the individualistic and subjectivist mythology that underlies the New European culture and philosophy. Descartes is a mythologist, despite all his rationalism, mechanicism and positivism. Moreover, these last of his features are only explainable by his mythology; They only feed on it.

Another example. Kant perfectly correctly teaches that in order to cognize spatial things, one has to approach them already in the possession of representations of space. Indeed, in a thing we find different layers of its concretization: we have its real body, volume, weight, etc., we have its form, idea, meaning. Logically, the idea, of course, is before matter, because first you have an idea, and then implement it on one or another material. Meaning precedes the phenomenon. From this absolutely primitive and absolutely correct postulate Plato and Hegel concluded that the meaning, the concept - are objective, that in the objective world order, the logically different moments of the idea and things are woven into an inseparable real connection. What now Kant concludes out of this? Kant from this deduces his doctrine of the subjectivity of all cognitive forms, space, time, categories. His arguments empowered him only to ascertain the logical precedence of forms and meanings in relation to current things. In fact, any "formality", design, every comprehension and meaning for him are necessarily subjective. Therefore, it turned out that which could not have been proved and that was its original religious teaching and mythology. Rationalist-subjectivistic and separate-individualistic mythology celebrates in Kant's philosophy, perhaps, its maximum victory. Also, the early Fichte, the original unity of all comprehension, before the division into practical and theoretical science, for some reason treats not as simply the One that Plotinus did, but as I. Here too is a mythology that is not proved by anything, is not provable, and which doesn't need to be proved. And then there is nothing to be surprised at. So it always happens that the provable and the concludable is based on the unprovable and self-evident; And mythology only then is mythology if it is not proved if it can not and doesn't need to be proved.  So, under these philosophical constructions, which in the new philosophy were called upon to realize the scientific experience, there is a very definite mythology.

No less mythological is science, not only "primitive", but also modern and every. Newton's mechanics is built on the hypothesis of a homogeneous and infinite space. The world has no boundaries, that is, it has no form. For me it means that it is formless. The world is an absolutely homogeneous space. For me it means that it is absolutely flat, inexpressive, and non morphological. With incredible boredom radiates such a world. Add to this the absolute darkness and inhuman cold of interplanetary spaces. What is this but a black hole, not even a grave, or even a bath with spiders, because both are more interesting and warmer, and still speak about something human. Clearly, this is not a conclusion of science, but a mythology, which science took as a religious teaching and dogma. Not only schoolboys, but all respectable scientists do not notice that the world of their physics and astronomy is quite boring, sometimes disgusting, sometimes just a insane haze, the same hole that you can also love and honor. Holepraying, they say, are still there in remote Siberia. And I, for my sins, can not understand in any way: how can the earth move? I read the textbooks, once I wanted to be an astronomer myself, even married an astronomer. But I still can not convince myself that the earth is moving and that there is no sky. Some kind of pendulums and deviations of something somewhere, some parallaxes ... Unconvincing. It's just somehow fluid. Here the question of the whole earth is asked and you swing some pendulums. And most importantly, all this is somehow uncomfortable, all this is some kind of non-native, evil, cruel. I was on the Earth, under my native sky, I heard from them about the universe, "It can not move" ... And then suddenly there is nothing, no land, no sky, no "it will not move." They thrown that somewhere into some kind of emptiness, and even escorted that with foul language. "Here is your homeland, to spit and smudge!" Reading the textbook of astronomy, I feel like someone is expelling me out with a stick from my own house, ready to spit in my face. For what?

So, Newton's mechanics is based on the mythology of nihilism. This corresponds to the specifically new European doctrine of the endless progress of society and culture. Confessed often in Europe in such a way that one era does not make sense in itself, but only as a preparation and fertilizer for another era, that this other epoch does not make sense in itself, but it is also manure and soil for the third era, Etc. . As a result, it turns out that no era has any independent meaning and that the meaning of this era, as well as of all possible epochs, is moved further and further, in endless times. It is clear that such nonsense should be called the mythology of social nihilism, no matter with what "scientific" arguments they surrounded it. It is also necessary to include here also the doctrine of the universal social equation, which also bears all the signs of mythological-social nihilism. The theory of infinite divisibility of matter is also completely mythological. Matter, they say, consists of atoms. But what is an atom? If it is material, it has a shape and a volume, for example, a cubic or circular shape. But the cube has a certain side and diagonal length , and the circle has a certain length of radius. And the side, and the diagonal, and the radius can be divided, for example, in half, and, therefore, the atom is divisible, and moreover, divisible to infinity. If it is indivisible, it means that it does not have a spatial form, and then I refuse to understand what is an atom of matter that is not material. So, either there are no atoms as material particles, or they are divisible to infinity. But in the latter case, the atom, in fact, does not exist either, because what is an "indivisible" atom , which was divided to infinity? It is not an atom but an infinitely thin dust which boundary size is zero and it is scattered and dispelled into the infinity of matter. So, in both cases atomism is a mistake, possible only because of the blind mythology of nihilism. To every sane person it is clear that the tree is a tree, and not some invisible and almost non-existent dust of unknown, and that the stone is a stone, and not some haze and a haze of what is unknown. Yet atomistic metaphysics was always popular in modern times until the last days. This can only be explained by the mythological creed of the new Western science and philosophy.

So: science is not born from myth, but science does not exist without myth, science is always mythological.

However, two misunderstandings must be eliminated. - First, science, we say, is always mythological. This does not mean that science and mythology are identical. I have already refuted this position. If the mythological scientists want to reduce mythology to primitive science, then in no case will I bring science to mythology. But what is that science that is truly non-mythological? It is an absolutely abstract science as a system of logical and numerical laws. It is a science-in-itself, a science on its own, pure science. As such it never exists. The science that exists really is always mythological in one way or another. A pure abstract science is not mythological. Newtonian mechanics, taken in its pure form, is non-mythological. But the actual operation with Newton's mechanics led to the idea that the idea of a homogeneous space underlying it was the only significant idea. And this is a creed and mythology. The geometry of Euclid itself is not mythological. But the belief that there really are no other spaces than the space of Euclidean geometry is mythology, for the positions of this geometry do not say anything about real space and the forms of other possible spaces, but only about one definite space; And it is not known whether it is one, whether it corresponds or does not correspond to all experience, etc. Science on its own is not mythological. But, I repeat, this is an abstract science that is not applied to anything. As soon as we started talking about real science, that is, about something that is characteristic of this or that particular historical epoch, then we are dealing with the application of pure, abstract science; And here we can act in one way or another. And here, we are governed solely by mythology. So, every real science is mythological, but science in itself has nothing to do with mythology.

Secondly, I can be objected to: how can science be mythological and how modern science can be based on mythology, when the goal and dream of any science was almost always the overthrow of mythology? To this I must answer so. When "science" destroys the "myth", it means only that one mythology is struggling with another mythology. Previously believed in werewolves. Note. Human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf. End of note. Or rather - had the experience of werewolves. "Science" came and "destroyed" this belief in werewolves. But how did it destroy it? It destroyed it with the help of a mechanistic worldview and the doctrine of a homogeneous space. Indeed, our physics and mechanics do not have such categories that could explain the werewolves. Our physics and mechanics operate with another world; And this is the world of a homogeneous space in which there are mechanisms mechanically moving. Having put such a mechanism in place of turnover, under quotation marks "science" celebrated its triumph over werewolves. But now a new, or rather very old, ancient doctrine of space is resurrecting. It turned out to be possible to think how the same body, changing its place and motion, also changes its form and how (under the condition of motion with the speed of light) the volume of such a body turns out to be zero, according to well known Lorentz's formula relating speed and volume. In other words, Newton's mechanics did not want to talk about werewolves and wanted to kill them, which is why it invented such formulas in which it does not fit. By themselves, abstractly speaking, these formulas are flawless, and in them there is no mythology. But scientists do not use only the one that is contained in these formulas. They use them so that there is absolutely no place for other forms of space and corresponding mathematical formulas. This is the mythology of European natural science, - in the confession of one favorite space; And from this it always seemed to her that it "disproved" werewolves. The principle of relativity, when speaking of inhomogeneous spaces and the construction of formulas relative to the transition from one space to another, again makes werewolves and, in general, a miracle thinkable, and only the ignorance in the subject and ignorance in science in general can refuse to accept mathematical side of this theory as Scientific. So, the mechanics and physics of the new Europe struggled with the old mythology, but only by means of its own mythology; "Science" has not refuted the myth, but simply just a new myth crushed the old mythology, and - nothing more. Pure science has nothing to do with it. It is applicable to any mythology, of course, as a more or less particular principle. If science really disproved the myths associated with werewolves, then a completely scientific theory of relativity would be impossible. And now we see how scientific passions are by no means flaring around the theory of relativity. This is an age-old dispute of two mythologies.

And it was not by chance that at the last congress of physicists in Moscow they came to the conclusion that the choice between Einstein and Newton was a matter of faith, and not of scientific knowledge in itself. One wants to spray the universe into a cold and black monster, into an immense and immeasurable nothing; Others want to assemble the universe into a finite and expressive face with morphological folds and lines, with lively and clever energies (although most often neither of them understand or are not consciousness of their intimate intuitions, which make them think so, and not otherwise).So, science as such can not destroy the myth from any side. It only realizes it and removes from it a certain rational, for example, logical or numerical, plan.

Having sketched these brief thoughts about the relation of mythology and science, we now see their entire opposite. The scientific functions of the spirit are too abstract to lie at the base of mythology. For the mythical consciousness, there is absolutely no scientific experience. It can not be persuaded of anything. On the islands of Nicobar, there is a disease from the winds, against which the natives perform the ritual of "tanangla". Each year this disease occurs, and each time this rite is performed. Despite all its apparent uselessness, nothing can persuade these natives not to commit it. If there existed at least a minimal "scientific" consciousness and a "scientific" experience, they would soon understand the futility of this rite. But it is clear that their mythology has no "scientific" meaning and in no way is "science" for them. Therefore, it is "scientifically" irrefutable.

In addition to "scientific" meaning, this mythical-magical act can have many other meanings that Levy-Bruhl did not dream of, citing this act as an example of the meaninglessness of mythology. For example, this rite may even not have any utilitarian and medical goals. Perhaps the northeastern monsoon is not considered here as an evil and harmful principle. One can imagine that the natives experience it as an act of just punishment or wise leadership on the part of the deity and that they do not at all want to escape this punishment, but want to accept it with worthy reverence; And, perhaps, this rite has such a value. And how can one know meaning of this rite if he doesn't stand on a ground of actual mythology? Researchers like Levi-Bruhl, for whom mythology is always a terribly bad thing, and science is always a terribly good thing, will never understand anything in rituals like "tanangla." From their point of view, it can only be said that this is a very bad science and helpless children's thinking, a senseless heap of idiotic manipulations. But this means that Levy-Bruhl and his fellow researchers do not understand anything exactly in mythology. Tanangla did not pretend to be scientific. It would be wild and stupid to criticize Beethoven's sonatas for their "unscientificness". By writing down a simple fact of "tanangla" and giving its "scientific" interpretation, these scientists not only do not themselves provide a significant disclosure of the myth, but also prevent us from doing this ourselves, for how do I know the true mythical content and meaning of "tanangla", if neither did i saw it, nor did the author disclose this content to me, offering me instead "criticism" of the rite with its own, conditional for me, "scientific" point of view ? So, the myth is non-scientific and is not based on any "scientific" "experience".

They say that the consistency of the phenomena of nature should have been compelled to interpret and explain these phenomena from the very earliest days, and that the myths, therefore, are these attempts to explain the natural pattern. But this is a purely a priori representation, which can be replaced with the same success by the opposite. In fact, why, in fact, does permanence play a role here and precisely this role? Once the phenomena are constantly and invariably (like the change of day and night or seasons), what is there to be surprised at and what exactly will make up a scientific and explanatory myth? Mythical consciousness rather, perhaps, will reflect on some rare, unprecedented, spectacular and individual phenomena, and rather gives not their causal explanation, but some expressive and pictorial image. The constancy of the laws of nature, and thus the observation of them, does not mean anything either about the essence or the origin of the myth. On the other hand, in this explanation of the origin of the myth as a kind of primitive science, again is hiding the conditional heterogenetic point of view on the subject, and not the opening of the immanently substantial content of the myth. In the myth about Helios, there is absolutely no astronomy, even if we make a less than believable hypothesis that this myth was coined to explain the constancy in the visible movement of the sun. In the Bible's account of the seven days of creation, there is absolutely no astronomy, no geology, no biology, no science at all. Absolute bad taste and absolute pointless must be considered any attempts by theologians to "unravel" the story of Moses from the point of view of modern scientific theories. Commonly known are the free exercises of, under quotation marks "theologians", in the "interpretation of the Apocalypse." Despite the fact that the classical patristic has diligently avoided such an interpretation, in spite of the fact that hundreds of historical facts can be substituted for the complex images of the Apocalypse, nevertheless the number of these "apocalyptic" does not decrease, but, perhaps, even increases. Usually,one among the "believers" who does not know how to think philosophically and dialectically-dogmatically, he is engaged in "the interpretation of the Apocalypse", for it was always easier to dream than to think. They do not want to understand that the myth must be treated mythically, that the mythical content of the myth itself is deep enough and subtle, rich enough and interesting, and that it has value in itself, without needing any scientific and historical interpretations or solutions. In addition, the Apocalypse is a revelation. What kind of revelation would it be, if instead of a literal understanding of all these amazing apocalyptic images, we grant the right to everyone to substitute images from Apocalypse with any historical epoch or event?

Let us ponder the concept of pure science once again and try to more precisely formulate its essence; And - we will see how far pure mythology is from pure science.

A)           What is needed for science as such? Do we need, for example, a belief in the real existence of its objects? I affirm that the laws of physics and chemistry are exactly the same under the condition of the reality of matter, and under condition of its unreality and pure subjectivity. I can be completely convinced that physical matter does not exist at all and that it is the product of my psyche, and still be a real physicist and chemist. This means that the scientific content of these disciplines is completely independent of the philosophical theory of the object and does not need any object. Secondly, there are a number of departments of knowledge, which, despite their full empirical significance, are deduced absolutely deductively, such as mathematics and theoretical mechanics. Secondly, if empirical research and even experiment is necessary for a particular science, then nothing prevents such a scientific experimenter from thinking that all this only seems to him, but in fact nothing exists, neither matter, nor experiment on it,nor himself. So, science is not interested in the reality of its object; And the "law of nature" says nothing about the reality of itself, not to mention the reality of things and phenomena that obey this "law." Needless to say, the myth in this respect is quite the opposite of the scientific formula. Myth is completely and completely real and objective; And even in it there can never be raised the question of whether or not the corresponding mythical phenomena are real or not. Mythical consciousness operates only with real objects, with the most concrete and real phenomena. True, in mythical objectivity, we can state the presence of different degrees of reality, but this has nothing to do with the absence of any moment of reality in a pure scientific formula. In the mythical world we find, for example, the phenomena of werewolves, the facts connected with the action of the Cap-Invisible, the death and resurrection of people and gods, etc., etc. All this is the facts of different intensity of being, facts of various degrees of reality. But here it is not non beingness, but the destiny of the very beingness itself, the play of different degrees of the reality of being itself. There is nothing like this in science. Even if it begins to talk about different voltages of space (as, for example, in the modern theory of relativity), then it is not interested in this very voltage, neither the very being itself, but the theory of this being, the formulas and laws of such a heterogeneous space. The myth is the very being itself, reality itself, the very specificity of being.

B) Next, is it necessary for science to have a subject of research? We said that the content of any "law of nature" is something that does not say anything at all about objects. Now we must categorically state that it also does not even say anything about the subject of research. Individuals accustomed to unconscious metaphysics and bad mythology will immediately attack me and repeat the boring truth a million times, from which for a long time I have felt a feeling of slight nausea: how could science have appeared and developed, if there were no objects of research, or very those who conduct a research? From these objections, I'm just nauseated and my head hurts. I will not discuss these questions here. I will only say that in no "law of nature" I can not subtract features of his erudite creator. Here is the law of falling of the bodies. Who invented it and brought it out? When, where and how did his author live? What is the character and what is the personality of this author? I do not know anything at all. If I did not recognize this from other sources, then this same "law" will not tell me anything about it. The "law of nature" is the "law of nature". In its semantic content, there is absolutely no indication of any subjects or objects. Two times two are four: try to show me the author of this arithmetic position! Myth, and in this respect, of course, is quite the opposite of the scientific formula, or "law." Every myth, if it does not point to the author, is always a very subject itself. Myth is always a living and active person. It is objective, and this object is a living person, and a pure scientific position is both out-objective and out-subjective. It is just some kind of logical design, a kind of semantic form. And one must be a very narrow and specific metaphysician to think that pure science is material or, on the contrary, subjectively-psychic. This, of course, does not mean that, for its actual implementation, it does not need things or does not need creative subjects. But does science need little for its actual implementation?

C) But if we look further into the essence of pure science, we will find that its pure semantic content, strictly speaking, does not need even a comprehensive and complete truth. In order for science to be a science, only a hypothesis is needed and nothing more. The essence of pure science is only to put the hypothesis and replace it with another, more perfect, if there is any basis for that. Of course, we talk all the time about science as such, about pure science, about science as a sum of certain semantic regularities, and not about real science, which, of course, always carries on itself numerous properties that depend on this historical epoch, on persons actually creating it, from the whole actual situation, without which science is only an abstract, timeless and non-spatial construction. Scientist who realistically works and creates is always more complex than his pure abstract scientific positions. And so, the metaphysics of modern times almost always led to the fact that, for example, the concept of matter was hypostatized and projected outward in the form of some real thing, the notion of force was almost always understood in a realistic, naturalistic way, that is, in essence, was no different from Demonic forces of nature (as we find in different religions, etc.), but only with obvious signs of rational degeneration. Does science needs all this as such? Absolutely not necessary. It is a matter of the physicist to show that there is such a dependence between such and such phenomena. Is there really such a dependence and even the phenomenon itself, whether or not this dependence will always exist, all the time and forever, whether it is true or not in the absolute sense - nothing of this physicist as a physicist can and should not say. All these endless physicists, chemists, mechanics and astronomers have completely theological ideas about their "forces", "laws", "matter", "electrons," "gases," "liquids," "bodies," "warmth," "electricity "Etc. . If they were pure physicists, chemists, etc., they would confine themselves to drawing out only the laws themselves and nothing else, and even the most basic and unshakable laws, would be interpreted exclusively as a hypothesis. This would be pure science. Here the Neo-Kantianism is infinitely right, destroying the theological prejudices of modern pseudoscientific problems. But, of course, we must remember that here we are talking only about pure science and that there is never really such a pure science, that this is not an analysis of real historical science, but only its theoretical and semantic bases and structures. From this side, mythological force in modern science from its naive "practitioners" and from all its experimenters and workers who do not think philosophically, becomes evident, and also the complete dissimilarity of the essence of science from the essence of mythology.

The myth is never just a hypothesis, only a simple possibility of truth. Why does the scientist need absolute truth or even absolute being? So I came up with some improvement in the phone, introduced some important corrections to the theory of the motion of the planets, or, finally, as a philologist, traced the history of some term or type of the word, the syntactic forms in a given language, what does it have to do with the absolute being? And the myth always has an emphasis on facts existing exactly as facts. Their being is an absolute being. I derived the law of expansion of gases from heating. For what needs would I consider my law to be an indisputable reality and unchangeable truth? It is only a hypothesis, even if everyone recognized it and it existed for several centuries. Of course, you can believe in its "correspondence of true reality". But this, your faith, does not add anything new to the "law" itself, and therefore it is not necessary for it. The hypotheticallness of science does not prevent it from building bridges, dreadnoughts, or flying airplanes. The truly scientific, purely scientific realism lies in this hypotheticallness and functionalism, in this pan-methodism. That is not real science, not the real life and, therefore, not a mythology. Myth is not hypothetical, but factual reality, not a function, but a result, not a thing, not an opportunity, but a reality, and yet vital and specifically felt, working and existing.

Another very important explanation, and - we can consider the question of delimiting mythology from science in principle clarified. Namely, the opposite of mythology and science can not be brought to such an absurdity that mythology does not have exactly any truth, or at least a regularity. To such absurdity brings his doctrine of the myth of E. Kassirer. According to his teaching, the object of mythical consciousness is the complete and fundamental indistinguishability of the "true" and "ostensible", the total absence of degrees of reliability, where there is no "foundation" and "Founded". Further, according to Cassirer, in the myth there is no difference between "Imagined" and "real", between "essential" and "nonessential". This is his complete opposite with science. Cassier is right, if we mean the "scientific" opposition of "true" and "ostensible", "Imagined" and "real", "essential" and "nonessential". In myth there is no "scientific" opposition of these categories, because myth is an immediate reality, in relation to which no abstract hypotheses are constructed here. But Cassirer profoundly distorts the mythical reality, when he denies in it every possibility of the just indicated oppositions. The myth has its own mythical truth, mythical authenticity. The myth distinguishes or can distinguish between true and ostensible and Imagined from the real. But all this is not  happening in scientific, but mythical way. Cassirer was very carried away by his antithesis of mythology and science and brought it to the complete absurd. When Christianity struggled with paganism, wasn't there, in the minds of Christians, really no evaluation of pagan myths, did the mythical consciousness here not separate myths from others from the point of view of truth? What was this struggle then? Christian mythical consciousness struggled with pagan mythical consciousness for the sake of a certain mythical truth. Of course, there was no struggle for scientific truth; Especially if science is understood in principle and abstractly, as we did, and how Cassirer is right in that. But the myth has its own, mythical truth, its own, the mythical criteria of truth and credibility, mythical patterns and systematicness. Having taken any mythology, we, after sufficient study, can find the general principle of its construction, the principle of the relationship of its individual characters. Greek mythology contains a certain structure, a certain method for the emergence and formation of separate myths and mythical characters. This means that this mythology is leveled from the standpoint of one criterion, which for it is both specific and true. To them it differs from any other, as, for example, the pagan mythology from the Christian, even if in isolation we found some similarity and even identity in the laws of myth formation. Also, the struggle of Gnostic mythology with the Orthodox Christian or Protestant with the Catholic could be only because the mythical consciousness is characterized by a category of truth. If for any myth the question of "reality" and "imaginary" was completely indifferent, then no struggle within the mythic consciousness itself would be possible.

The general result: the myth is not a scientific and, in particularly, not a primitive scientific construction, but a living subject-object interconnection containing in itself its own, out-of-science, purely mythical truth, reliability and principle credibility and structure.



The above excerpt is available in the description of this youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeATTkjyZHM all credits are his