Mythological worldview, its features, structure and specificity

Myth is the earliest type and form of consciousness and the display of the surrounding world in it. The peculiarities of the mythological world view are that the myth itself is the earliest historical form of awareness of the surrounding reality by the individual. In the myth, the initial knowledge of man, the norms of the regulation of individual and social thinking and behavior, as well as artistic and aesthetic criteria, emotional formulations and criteria for evaluating human activity are intertwined and bizarrely intertwined.

Mythology, in the opinion of a number of scientists, appears before a modern man, not just as a kind of oral creativity, the source of which is the human imagination. Mythology also has a motive not only for the simple satisfaction of human curiosity and the search for answers to the burning questions of life. Mythological worldview acts as an integral mechanism of social regulation of society, and an objective mechanism, because at some stage of its development, society begins to feel a strong need for such a regulator. In this capacity, the mythological worldview manifests itself as a way of preserving the natural and human harmony and psychological unity of people.

The specificity of the mythological worldview in this sense consists in the fact that it is generated and recreated in new generations not by rational logic and historical experience of previous generations, but by fragmentary pictures of the world that are of an exclusively individual and imaginative character. Within the framework of such a picture, nature, social phenomena are reflected and motivated to such reflection only insofar as the need arises for the people themselves in this reflection.

Mythological worldview at this stage of the formation of society is characterized primarily by ignoring the cause-effect methods of describing reality, as a result of which the picture of the world appears only in its spatial-temporal design (for example, in unrealistic periods of human life, their regeneration and resurrection in a different quality, etc.) .).

The main thing in mythological consciousness is the image, which, in fact, differs mythology from philosophy, where rational thinking prevails already. Nevertheless, the myth presents the world to man not just in the form of a fairy tale, but in a place where a certain supreme authority is unquestionably present . This factor subsequently becomes the basis for the formation of "pure" religions, distinguishing themselves from mythology.

Mythological worldview has one more feature - in myth there is always the presence of an undivided representation between a natural substance and the person himself. The social significance of this unity finds its embodiment in the principles of collectivism, which maintain that everything in this world is subject to the decision, if the problem is solved collectively.

Based on their specifics, it can be argued that the main function of mythological consciousness and worldview does not lie in the plane of cognitive activity, it is purely practical, and its main goal is to strengthen the monolithic nature of society or its part. Myth, unlike philosophy, does not generate questions and problems and does not require the individual to make a conscious-conscious attitude to the environment.

But with the accumulation of practical knowledge, there is an objective need for their systematization already at the level of rational activity, and, consequently, also theoretical. Therefore, the mythological consciousness first "dissolves" in the religious, and then yields to the philosophical priority, remaining, nevertheless, in the consciousness of each person in the form of mental representations of the ordinary level.