Aarhus Lectures – Fourth Lecture: The Very Idea of a Philosophy of Mythology in Contemporary Philosophy
Abstract
In this fourth, concluding part of the Aarhus Lectures, I want to make sense of some features of Schelling’s positive philosophy in light of the fundamental idea of a philosophy of mythology. I believe that it is at least worth inquiring to what extent something like the so-called scientific world-picture – as well as the associated prominent insistence on normativity as a potential mark of autonomous mindedness as opposed to blind law-governed natural events – is embedded in a mythology. Genealogical points of this form are typically invoked in order to make room for an alternative. In Schelling’s case, the ultimate alternative (revelation) consists in overcoming the mythological condition of human consciousness as we know it altogether. However, like later modern eschatologists of a similar stripe (such as Heidegger and Derrida), he does not flesh out the alternative without creating another mythology, which is why in the second part of his positive philosophy, the Philosophy of Revelation, he resorts to revelation as a counter-myth to mythology, to an event that is not under the control of any kind of theory-building. Be that as it may, in the preparation of his triumphalist story about revelation, Schelling offers resources for a critical account of modernity’s constitutive mythology that he brings to bear in his critique of Hegel in ways not yet sufficiently explored in contemporary philosophy.
Acknowledgements
A draft of this lecture was also presented at the Third Annual Meeting of the North American Schelling Society at Bard College in New York City. Thanks to the participants for discussion. Special thanks to G. Anthony Bruno, Alex Englander, and Andrew Cooper for discussing various subsequent drafts.
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