In The Masks of God, Joseph Campbell recounts a curious phenomenon of animal behavior. Newly hatched chickens, bits of eggshells still clinging to their tails, will dart for cover when a hawk flies overhead; yet they remain unaffected by other birds. Furthermore, a wooden model of a hawk, drawn forward along a wire above their coop, will send them scurrying (if the model is pulled backward, how...

As in statistical physics, the concept of universality plays an important, albeit qualitative, role in the field of comparative mythology. Here we apply statistical mechanical tools to analyse the networks underlying three iconic mythological narratives with a view to identifying common and distinguishing quantitative features. Of the three narratives, an Anglo-Saxon and a Greek text are mostly...

Plato, as a poet, employs muthos extensively to express his philosophical dialectical development, so the majority of his dialogues are comprised of muthoi. We cannot separate his muthos from his philosophical thought, since the former has great influence in the latter. So the methodology of this paper is first to discuss the dialogue Theaetetus to find out why he compares Socrates to the Greek...

The article's primary purpose is to analyze the problems of emergence philosophy against background myth and correlation mythical philosophical styles thinking. author substantiates question theories that do not consider bearer's inner conviction mythological thinking in absolute reality events characters described myths. main features as most ancient form social consciousness are revealed: sub...

"It all started with the doubt (perhaps exaggerated) that the Gods do not know how to talk". The author presents the situation and tendencies in contemporary mythological research. The article starts out from the mythos-logos antithesis and from the twofold conception of the myth as both a fabricated and a sacred story. The allopersonages as characters of different names, who function as marker...