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Relations Between Man and the World
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
Extract
The relationship man-world is of very great importance for the primitive man who finds himself perpetually (even when deeply engaged in mechanical or technical pursuits) in a state of subjective participation with his milieu. No distinction whatsoever exists for him between the self and the world, but rather a constant and intimate liaison, made real by a mythical behavior which leads us to consider the myth as the most archaic stage of knowledge (Leenhardt).
Prehistoric myths were prolonged in the cosmologies by which the civilizations of ancient Asia tried to contemplate the world under the category of totality. The procedure of their attempts was the opposite of that of contemporary science, whose attitude is extroverted. They accounted for phenomena by projecting upon them, lacking all objectivity, their own sensory, emotive, imaginative, or intellectual reactions as well as their own subjective notions, introverted in value, of hierarchy and order. Pushed on by an invincible anthropomorphic tendency, they constructed a humanized nature by means of analogical deduction.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © 1957 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
References
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11. Histoire des populations françaises et de leur attitude devant la vie depuis le XVIIIe siècle.
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