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Precision or Reductionism: Whence Myth Studies?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Larry D. Shinn
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Religion, Oberlin College

Extract

Of the whole field of religious studies, one area of consistent interest and activity has been the study of myth; and if any one area has represented the wide variety of approaches scholars of religion have utilized, it is this one. Students of language and literature (e.g. F. Max Müller and J. Campbell), psychology (e.g. S. Freud and C. Jung), sociology (e.g. E. Durkheim and P. Berger), social anthropology (e.g. B. Malinowski, V. Turner and C. Levi-Strauss) as well as religion (e.g. M. Eliade and G. La Rue) have all offered interpretations of myth. An investigation of these various approaches to understanding myth seems to point to the conclusion that the history of the study of myth is a history of reductionism. That is, the heritage transmitted to scholars who would attempt to understand the nature and function of myth within a single discipline is one which most often limits the essential nature or function of myth to that discipline's underlying assumptions alone. Hence, myth is usually linked either to the social or the psychological dimension of human experience exclusively. However, even those theories of myth which combine social and psychological methods and assumptions have usually resulted in truncated conclusions which give pause to those of us who seek their application.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

page 369 note 1 This essay represents an expansion and defence of a thesis I originally suggested in a paper entitled ‘Current approaches to interpreting myth’ delivered at the American Academy of Religion's Annual Meeting, 30 December 1977, in San Francisco, California.

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page 371 note 1 A related notion to myth being ‘primitive’ thinking is the assumption that it is the product of fantasy (i.e. non-rational speculating or musing). For example, see O'Flaherty's, WendyInside and Outside the Mouth of God: The Boundary between Myth and Reality,’ DAEDALUS 109, 2 (Spring 1980), pp. 93125.Google Scholar

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