Mythos-Debatte: Demitizzazione senza idolatria

This piece begins by presenting three different interpretations of myth (Blumenberg, Hübner and Kolakowski) from the so-called Mythos-Debatte that took place in Germany at the end of the twentieth century. Such hermeneutics regarding myth materialise around a critical tendency towards rationality, by which myth seems to have become a kind of counter-model to scientific rationality. This is true in that it seems to be able to give a voice to the kind of existential existences not catered for by scientific rationality. But this eulogy to remythologization inevitably has to reckon with the possible “technical” use of myth by ideologies that exploit its powers of persuasion. There appear to be two common forms of interpretation: the recognition, in a loose sense, of the inevitable grain of myth in every “political” decision in an attempt to render its reasons less fantastic, or the exposure of the unauthentic myth that leaves no space for the future, but instead presents foregone conclusions, by way of historical fulfillment.