Myth in the Structure of Human Mind and Hermeneutics of Myth: on Possibility of a Hermeneutic Explanation of Myth

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the structure of human thinking by means of the concept “myth”. The starting points are several prominent theories on this subject which are in agreement that myth is neither a simple opposition to logos nor that it allows for separating strictly purely irrational and purely rational thinking. However, these theories demonstrate very different ways of understanding myth, its relation to logos and its functions in the structure of human consciousness. Therefore my paper aims at developing a systematic conceptual frame for the “myth” and the so called mythical thinking by means of convergence of several methods and forms of inquiry about the complex relations between theories of meaning and theories of myth. Its innovative character consists in the systematic examining structures of mythical thinking with help of conceptual tools coming from the nowadays largely forgotten hermeneutic tradition of Georg Misch und Josef König, which until now has not been applied to this subject matter. I will examine to what extent this theory encan be helpful for the understanding of myth and explanation of its role in thinking and life of modern humanity.