Mythos and Logos
Karen Armstrong is so anxious to distinguish mythos from logos that her account of Paleolithic religion would seem obviously to be in sharp contrast with the “intellectualism” of theorists such as Tylor and Frazer, true? Explain.
Throughout history there have been numerous theories to our origin as well countless questions and theories to answer such questions of our existence, why certain things happen in such a way or where we come from or where we may go after our deaths on Earth. Some of the earliest explanations of our existence in history are of the people within the Paleolithic Era through mythology. Karen Armstrong’s believes that mythology embodies the spiritual and actual world of the early civilizations; in contrast E.B. Frazer and Edward Tylor both believe mythology is separate of the secular world and more importantly an inferior belief system and was the predecessor of religion as well as animism.
Mythos and logos, by definition have very different meanings. Both forms of thought were very important to people in early history. It wasn’t until more recent history that people began to view the two terms in a different light. In present day we (referring to the Western people) view mythology as tall tale stories involving vain and mighty gods and demi-gods. Mythos, from Armstrong’s point-of-view, was very similar to the practice of psychology. People used myth to make sense of their lives and wanted to know the cause of the events that happened in their lifetimes. Logos is a much more practical and scientific way of explaining the causes of events throughout pre-modern history. Logos needs facts to function and unlike myth, logos looks to explain the future and did not give reason to a person’s life.
First, understand the use of mythology in pre-modern civilizations. As discussed previously, Armstrong talks of myth as being something of an early form of psychology. Like psychology, myth helped in understanding people’s daily activities as well as
Throughout history there have been numerous theories to our origin as well countless questions and theories to answer such questions of our existence, why certain things happen in such a way or where we come from or where we may go after our deaths on Earth. Some of the earliest explanations of our existence in history are of the people within the Paleolithic Era through mythology. Karen Armstrong’s believes that mythology embodies the spiritual and actual world of the early civilizations; in contrast E.B. Frazer and Edward Tylor both believe mythology is separate of the secular world and more importantly an inferior belief system and was the predecessor of religion as well as animism.
Mythos and logos, by definition have very different meanings. Both forms of thought were very important to people in early history. It wasn’t until more recent history that people began to view the two terms in a different light. In present day we (referring to the Western people) view mythology as tall tale stories involving vain and mighty gods and demi-gods. Mythos, from Armstrong’s point-of-view, was very similar to the practice of psychology. People used myth to make sense of their lives and wanted to know the cause of the events that happened in their lifetimes. Logos is a much more practical and scientific way of explaining the causes of events throughout pre-modern history. Logos needs facts to function and unlike myth, logos looks to explain the future and did not give reason to a person’s life.
First, understand the use of mythology in pre-modern civilizations. As discussed previously, Armstrong talks of myth as being something of an early form of psychology. Like psychology, myth helped in understanding people’s daily activities as well as