Work · Socialism, Anarchism, Marxism & Critical Theory
The Presence of Myth
Even rational culture depends on myths that give the world meaning and value; written in 1966, published in Paris in 1972.
Introduction
Kołakowski wrote the essay in 1966, two years before his dismissal from the university; it was published only in 1972, by the Instytut Literacki in Paris. He argues that even a culture committed to science depends on myths, understood not as false stories but as ways of giving the world meaning: the belief that values have a ground, that the world is intelligible, that history has a sense, that love and personal identity persist. Such beliefs cannot be proved, yet every attempt to do without them produces new myths. Reason and myth are thus not simple opposites but answer different needs. The book marks his turn from the critique of religion to an inquiry into the sacred and its place in culture; German (1973) and English (1989) translations followed.
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