Study on the Significance of the Myth in the Development of the Presocratic Philosophy

总的来说，据说前苏格拉底哲学家显然抛弃了神话式的表述，对宇宙的起源和本质给出了一种纯粹理性、逻辑和科学的解释。这一估计是将古希腊文明经历了从神话到理性或从神话到逻各斯的发展这一假设应用于希腊哲学领域的结果。然而，情况并非如此简单。诚然，前苏格拉底哲学家抛弃了人格化和拟人化的有神论的解释，但是，当我们不是历史地而是历史地或本体论地寻找哲学的起源时，甚至在吉尔伽美什的史诗中，我们也可以找到充分的哲学主题，例如，人类在宇宙中的地位，他们对宇宙的认识的性质和可能性。另一方面，所谓的第一哲学家，如巴门尼德和恩培多克勒，也仍然使用神话诗歌的形式来解释。因此，神话的元素常常在他们的思想的形成中起着重要的作用，他们所假定的宇宙的起源和原因的原理远远超出了我们的经验，但他们试图赞同它，并以某种方式描述它。正是这种神话般的表达使他们能够明确地表达出来。第一批哲学家被亚里士多德称为物理哲学家，但是，只要他们是自然神学家，他们似乎相信，他们可以以某种方式调和神话和逻各斯。

In general, it is said that the Presocratic philosophers evidently abandoned mythic formulations and gave a purely rational, logical and scientific account of the origin and nature of the universe. This estimation is the result of the application of the hypothesis to the field of Greek philosophy that the civilization of ancient Greece underwent a development from myth to reason or from Mythos to Logos. However the state of affairs is not so simple. It is true that the Presocratic philosophers threw out personification and anthropomorphic theistic explanation, but, when we seek the origin of philosophy not historically but a-historically or ontologically, even in the epic of Gilgamesh, we can find fully philosophical themes, e.g.the status of the mortals in the universe, the nature and possibility of their knowledge of the universe. On the other hand, the so-called first philosophers such as Parmenides and Empedocles also still employed the mytho-poetic forms of explanation. The mythic elements are thus often seen to play an important role in the very formulation of their thoughts, the arche(principle) they posit as an origin and a cause of the universe is far beyond our experience, but they try to assent it and to describe it in some way or other. And it is the mythic expression that enables them to represent it explicitly. The first philosophers are called physikoi by Aristotle, but, as long as they are natural theologians, they believe, it seems, that they can reconcile Mythos and Logos in a certain way.