May 30, 2023 Report of Irina Tatarovskaya within the framework of the scientific seminar "Culture and Society"
On May 30, 2023 at 12 noon, within the framework of the seminar "Culture and Society" of the Centre for History and Cultural Anthropology, a report was made by Senior Researcher, Doctor of Philosophy. Irina Tatarovskaya "Mythology as a source for studying the philosophical ideas of the peoples of Tropical Africa".
Myth is one of the main sources of philosophy. For several centuries, philosophy has been more or less influenced by mythology. She used her images, symbols, motifs, themes. Myth acts as a kind of philosopheme. It is known that philosophy studies the deepest foundations of existence (metaphysics) and ways of comprehending the true knowledge of reality (theory of knowledge). In modern conceptually reflective thinking, this is achieved with the help of methods of empirical and rational knowledge, concepts, judgments, and conclusions. In African mythology, there are myths in which issues that are the object of any philosophical system are considered in a visual form. These are ideas about the origin and essence of the Universe and Cosmos, about the essence of life and death, about some biological laws, about good and evil, about spiritual and material values, about the soul and body of a person, etc. The speaker tried to prove it using the example of the myths of the peoples of Tropical Africa, that mythology can act as material for the construction of philosophical forms of thinking. The task of the philosophical study of mythology is to find and reveal their rational, reasonable content behind the fantastic images of myths. In all the myths that were voiced by the speaker, there is a certain image, represented by any specific single object of animate or inanimate nature. In the meanings of these myths there is something similar to those ideas, thoughts and concepts that we encounter in conceptual and reflective cognition. This gives grounds, following G.-V. F. Hegel consider myths as philosophemes.
