Mythopoesis And The Modern World

Mythopoesis is a Greek-derived word that means "myth-making." Mythopoeia was used by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien in reference to creative art about "fundamental things." Mythopoesis is, therefore, the creation of myth by means of the higher imagination. Thus, the creation of myth is also one of the highest forms of storytelling. In this way, myths and myth-making are a source of meaning for human consciousness, which exists at the junction of two vast worlds or realities: the external world known to science and empirical observation and the inner world described in myth, art, imagination, and phenomenology in general. This inner world, the world of mythopoesis, is present in popular culture, such as novels, television, cinema, comic books, and computer games, in which archetypal themes have been re-shaped according to the understanding and worldview of contemporary authors and readers. The inner world is not just an epiphenomenon of the brain. It is as extensive and autonomous as the outer world. To use the terminology of esotericist scholar Henry Corbin, it is an "Imaginal World," which is the intermediate or transitional reality between the mundane or everyday reality on the one hand and spiritual, noetic, and transcendent reality or realities on the other. Mythopoesis and the Modern World draws inspiration from various authors, including (but not limited to) J. R. R. Tolkien, Henry Corbin, Joseph Campbell, Carl Gustav Jung, Sri Aurobindo, Mircea Eliade, Ken Wilber, and Jean Gebser. The book also studies mythopoesis and archetypes in the science fiction and fantasy genres in relation to mythological and metaphysical narratives.

Trends of the last few years, including global health crises, political division, and the ongoing threat to social-environmental survival, have been continually obscured by disinformation and misinformation and therefore created a need for stronger global technological media policy. It is no longer acceptable or moral to support a global communication network based only on market factors and propaganda. The Handbook of Research on Global Media’s Preternatural Influence on Global Technological Singularity, Culture, and Government views preternatural healing of the media-sphere from a variety of perspectives on the dynamic of heart-coherent entertainment. Specifically, it addresses the subject of a healthy media from a variety of fractal perspectives. Covering topics such as collective unconscious, mediated reality, and government media trust, this major reference work is an essential resource for librarians, media specialists, media analysts, sociologists, government employees, communications specialists, psychologists, researchers, educators, academicians, and students.

Making Sense of Myth and Mythopoeia stands out for its unique and holistic treatment of mythmaking in the current set-up. Renowned mythopoeic writers Anand Neelakantan and Anuja Chandramouli offer deep insights into the genre thereby making the book an unputdownable must-read for myth lovers. The book also houses revisionist texts by Swarnalatha Rangarajan and A.V. Koshy. The subtitle is justified in The Editor's Workshop where the editors offer key pointers for interpreting a mythopoeic text. In the section titled The Critic/ Researcher, research papers by academicians serve as illustrations of what goes best into exploring a revisionist rendering. Sujatha Aravindakshan Menon offers a wide-ranging theoretical framework that applies to mythological renderings. Things don't end here. Readers and myth lovers discover the ‘Goodreads’ to fan their passion for generative/ adaptive renderings in the section Book Reports/ Reviews.

Mythology for centuries has served as humanity's window into understanding its distant past. In our modern world, storytelling creates its own myths and legends, in media ranging from the world of television and cinema to literature and comic books, that help us make sense of the world we live in today. What is the "Mytharc"? How did it arise? How does it inform modern long-form storytelling? How does the classical hero's journey intersect with modern myths and narratives? And where might the storytelling of tomorrow take readers and viewers as we imagine our future? From The X-Files to H.P. Lovecraft, from Lost to the Marvel cinematic universe and many worlds beyond, this study explores our modern storytelling mythology and where it may lead us.

ARTICLES: Patrick BRISSEY, Reasons for the Method in Descartes’ Discours Abstract: In the practical philosophy of the Discours de la Méthode, before the theoretical metaphysics of Part Four and the Meditationes, Descartes gives us an inductive argument that his method, the procedure and cognitive psychology, is veracious at its inception. His evidence, akin to his Scholastic predecessors, is God, a maximally perfect being, established an ontological foundation for knowledge such that reason and nature are isomorphic. Further, the method, he tells us, is a functional definition of human reason; that is, like other rationalists during this period, he holds the structure of reason maps onto the world. The evidence for this thesis is given in what I call the groundwork to Descartes’ philosophical system, essentially the first half of the Discours, where, through a series of examples in the preamble of Part Two, he, step-by-step, ascends from the perfection of artifacts through the imposition of reason (the Architect Example) to the perfection of a constituent’s use of her cognitive faculties (the Wise-Lawgiver Example), to God perfecting and ordering reality (the Divine Artificer Example). Finally, he descends, establishing the structure of human reason, which undergirds and entails the procedure of the method (the Laws of Sparta Example). Hanoch BEN-YAMI, Word, Sign and Representation in Descartes Abstract: In the first chapter of his The World, Descartes compares light to words and discusses signs and ideas. This made scholars read into that passage our views of language as a representational medium and consider it Descartes’ model for representation in perception. I show, by contrast, that Descartes does not ascribe there any representational role to language; that to be a sign is for him to have a kind of causal role; and that he is concerned there only with the cause’s lack of resemblance to its effect, not with the representation’s lack of resemblance to what it represents. I support this interpretation by comparisons with other places in Descartes’ corpus and with earlier authors, Descartes’ likely sources. This interpretation may shed light both on Descartes’ understanding of the functioning of language and on the development of his theory of representation in perception. Osvaldo OTTAVIANI, The Young Leibniz and the Ontological Argument: from Rejection to Reconsideration Abstract: Leibniz considered the Cartesian version of the ontological argument not as an inconsistent proof but only as an incomplete one: it requires a preliminary proof of possibility to show that the concept of ‘the most perfect being’ involves no contradiction. Leibniz raised this objection to Descartes’s proof already in 1676, then repeated it throughout his entire life. Before 1676, however, he suggested a more substantial objection to the Cartesian argument. I take into account a text written around 1671-72, in which Leibniz considers the Cartesian proof as a paralogism and a petition of principle. I argue that this criticism is modelled on Gassendi’s objections to the Cartesian proof, and that Leibniz’s early rejection of the ontological argument has to be understood in the general context of his early philosophy, which was inspired by nominalist authors, such as Hobbes and Gassendi. Then, I take into account the reconsideration of the ontological argument in a series of texts of 1678, showing how Leibniz implicitly replies to the kind of criticism to the argument he himself shared in his earlier works. Joseph ANDERSON, The ‘Necessity’ of Leibniz’ Rejection of Necessitarianism Abstract: In the Theodicy, Leibniz defends the justice of God from two impious conceptions of God—a God who makes arbitrary choices and a God who doesn’t make choices at all. Many interpret Leibniz as navigating these dangers by positing a kind of non-Spinozistic necessitarianism. I examine passages from the Theodicy which reject not only blind (Spinozistic) necessitarianism but necessitarianism altogether. Leibniz thinks blind necessitarianism is dangerous due to the conception of God it entails and the implications for morality. Non-Spinozistic necessitarianism avoids many of these criticisms. Leibniz finds that even necessary actions should receive certain rewards and punishments as long as they necessarily lead to a change in future behavior. But Leibniz rejects even non-Spinozistic necessitarianism on the grounds that it is inconsistent with punitive justice. Whether Leibniz successfully avoids necessitarianism, it ought to be clear that he sees his own position as significantly distinct from necessitarianism and not just Spinozism. REVIEW ARTICLE: Dana JALOBEANU, Big Books, Small Books, Readers, Riddles and Contexts: The Story of English Mythography [Anna-Maria Hartmann, English Mythography and its European Context. 1500-1650, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, x + 283 pp.] CORPUS REVIEW: Andrea SANGIACOMO, Raluca TANASESCU, Silvia DONKER, Hugo HOGENBIRK: Expanding the Corpus of Early Modern Natural Philosophy: Initial results and a review of available sources BOOK REVIEWS Diego LUCCI Ruth Boeker, Locke on Persons and Personal Identity, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Michael DECKARD Stefano Marino and Pietro Terzi (eds.), Kant’s ‘Critique of Aesthetic Judgment’ in the 20th Century: A Companion to its Main Interpretations, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021. Doina RUSU Jennifer M. Rampling, The Experimental Fire. Inventing English Alchemy 1300-1700, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2020.

This book, written by Andrew Lang, on the study of modern mythology is a captivating exploration of the ways in which myths are created in the wake of significant events. He discusses the process of mythmaking, examining how the stories and symbols that emerge out of a time of upheaval or trauma can shape our understanding of the world and provide a powerful source of meaning and connection.

I have long admired the mythopoetic tradition in curriculum studies. That admiration followed from my experience as a high-school teacher of English in a wealthy suburb of New York City at the end of the 1960s. A “dream” job—I taught four classes of 15–20 students during a nine-period day—in a “dream” suburb (where I could afford to reside only by taking a room in a retired teacher’s house), many of these often Ivy-League-bound students had everything but meaningful lives. This middle-class, Midwestern young teacher was flabbergasted. In one sense, my academic life has been devoted to understanding that searing experience. Matters of meaning seemed paramount in the curriculum field to which Paul Klohr introduced me at Ohio State. Klohr assigned me the work of curriculum theorists such as James B. Macdonald. Like Timothy Leonard (who also studied with Klohr at Ohio State) and Peter Willis, Macdonald (1995) understood that school reform was part of a broader cultural and political crisis in which meaning is but one casualty. In the mythopoetic tradition in curriculum studies, scholars labor to understand this crisis and the conditions for the reconstruction of me- ing in our time, in our schools.

A book on modern mythology