Partially Examined Life

On Ernst Cassirer's An Essay on Man (1944), ch. 6-7, and Susanne Langer's Philosophy in a New Key (1942), ch. 6-7. Why do people produce ritual, mythology, and religion? According to our authors, these are spontaneous, symbolic modes of self-expression. They're not opposed to rational, scientific thought, but are necessary preconditions for it.
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[@johnbeaubien8826]

00:10:01 I can honestly say that after almost 30 years of my life participating in ceremony I have yet to see or hear of a rain dance. Perhaps there is one? I don't know. Its still a good book and a great topic. Am really enjoying Seth's analysis on the birth of morality, free will and the development of the individual in the world.

[@unnunn12]

i love yous lads

[@mr-peabody]

Seth: 00:44:33 ... _religion gave birth to the possibility of reason in some respect and that's just unnerving it's hard for me to to get my mind wrapped around it_ ... Not sure what is bothering Seth - it means consciousness has evolved ?

[@mr-peabody]

Susanne Langer's Philosophy in a New Key (1942), ch. 6-7. these are spontaneous, symbolic modes of self-expression. They're not opposed to rational, scientific thought, but are necessary preconditions for it. Mark (excerpt&paraphrased): 31:57 ultimately both of them are trying to say religion and reason are not in conflict in ……… there's a dialectical connection between them that what we might call … pre-rational …….. talking in terms of myth or taboo somehow doubt does not even enter the picture …………….. there's not a question of doubt because it's not being taken literally or what's literal and figurative or not distinguished in the primitive mind ………. what myth-making does is it appeals purely to the symbolic ......…….. representative of some fundamental reality and the myths are supposed to be good expressions of the character of that reality ….. Cassirer says or one of them says that it is neither the case that these beliefs are taken literally nor is it the case of like someone who knows better who's merely pretending ….. you're engaged in this ritual activity that is part of the self-expression part of the way that you're relating to the world and gradually as correlations to ...... the meaning of this thing ……….. as part of this incessant symbol making activity …. these forces of nature that we're supposedly appeasing by this ritual start gaining faces … exist as a correlate of this activity it is not primarily an activity of theorizing …… it's an activity of doing that is given some color by the presence of a (face of nature)

[@mr-peabody]

What I like about that is at the very end "an activity of doing that is given some color by the presence of a (face of nature)" You hear Mark use Apollo but that for me would be a reference much later. The primitive mind (pre-language?) is all about doing and then coloring in that doing. Wes: 34:54 .... although you know she does want to say right that the gods are not anthropomorphizations of nature Which is why I took out the Apollo reference - the first gods were probably not man-gods but animal gods.