How do you go from myth to philosophy?

Question

How do you go from myth to philosophy?

Answer 1

Man, summoning forth the will to start from within in order to understand the world around us.

Answer 2

I think it usually goes the other way around. Myths can be used to demonstrate a particular philosophy. It seems less likely that someone would first create a story and then say "well let's base a mode of philosophy on that."

Of course... there is the advent of flying spaghetti monsterism

Answer 3

Myths are old, discarded metaphors.  Philosophy can often seem to be the study of metaphors and seeks to improve our metaphors, leaving myths, as discarded metaphors, behind.  

To give an example in phenomenology of cognitive sciences we have dealt with the evolution of the metaphors we use to describe the relationship of the mind to the brain.

Starting with Descartes, you have the metaphor, which is now a myth, of dualism.  There are few dualist left today as the idea of a spiritual part of the mind is an absurd metaphor, that is, it is useless.  The few philosophers who are dualist are that way to challenge students to think and find fault with their positions.  Most students come from families that still believe in the myths of dualism in their religions.  But most reputable philosophers dismissed dualism a long time ago.

From there there was the phrenology in which it was thought that there was a relationship between the bumps on your head and your mental faculties and skills.

Phrenology was debunked effectively by Paul Broca in his important paper describing the localization of the ability to speak from his studies of patients with brain lesions to the third frontal convolution of the left hemisphere of the brain.  While it might seem that Broca was supporting phrenology, an error many people make, he effectively dismissed it.

Carl Wernecke followed with the metaphors of alexias and agraphias, in his study of cortical, subcortical, and transcortical aphasias in an associationist framework.

With the discovery of the genetic basis for life and the development of non-invasive techniques such as PET, fMRI, and, more recently, Diffusion Spectrum Imaging, the metaphors were modified into the ones some currently use to describe the mental faculties of the brain: innateness, localization, modularity, domain specificity, and other conceptual metaphors.

Others, such as Shaun Gallagher, have emphasized the metaphors of body image and body schema to describe the body, mind, brain in holistic metaphors.

The metaphors and myths continue to be tools to describe philosophical phenomenology concepts of the mind/brain problem.  Metaphors and myths serve the same purpose that a scientific theory provides to science.  It is a useful model of reality.  We fully realize that myths and metaphors are not absolute truths, they are not reality but models of reality.  But as we refine the metaphors we edge closer to what is and the discarded metaphors become the myths.

Answer 4

I'd like to think of it as cold warm and hot

myth being the cold

philosophy being the warm

and theory being the hot

all have different levels of truth

as cold, warm and hot all have different levels of warmth

Answer 5

Myth is the "what" part, philosophy is the "why".