Frances to Listers... The idea of an intersection for myth and reality is an intriguing topic. The suggested 1998 book "Myth and Reality" by Mircea Eliade as translated from the original French would seem to be the closest to the subject sought, but it is reported to deal with the religious traditions of the world. The published description states it is an informative guide to modern mythologies, and deals primarily with societies around the world in which myths are "living" in the sense that they supply models for human behavior, and due to this supply the myths give meaning and value to life. It is claimed by the author that understanding the structure and function of myths in these societies serves to clarify a stage in the history of human thought, in that myths reveal that the world and man and life have a supernatural origin and source, and that this cause is significant and precious and and exemplary. If the basic thrust in the book is of mystical religious myths, then any corporeal reality emerging from their use might be fleeting. If this theory however is mainly of symbols, and if the symbols were to be placed within a pragmatist semiotic scheme as a kind of sign, then they would best fall under the first class of symbols called abstractors, of which all abstractors are presenters. All pragmatist symbols are either abstractors or singulars or mediators. They are all formally arbitrary and conventional, but abstractors are held to also have some existential connectivity to their referred objects. Furthermore, their expressive form is deemed to yield significant import as a meaning. Under abstractors there are arts and rites and myths. Symbolic arts for example would entail archetypes and arteforms. Abstractors are preparatory to singular emblems and heralds, and contributory to mediating formators and namors and ascriptors in languages. By making myths subordinate to symbols and then to signs, pragmatism makes myths more logical. It is my stance that if "myth" and "sign" are held to be widening polemic oppositions, then any gap between them could and should be bridged, and perhaps "reality" is the central mechanism that might pull them together. Alternatively, what would link myth to reality as poles might be signs. To pursue the status of myths as symbols and as signs, my suggested books for discussion would include those that are less magical in tone.
My suggested books for consideration are... Symbol, Myth, and Culture: Essays and Lectures of Cassirer -Donald Verene The Semiotic of Myth: A Critical Study of the Symbol -James Liszka The Modern Construction of Myth -Andrew Von Hendy Susanne Langer in Focus: The Symbolic Mind -Robert Innis Some books already suggested earlier are... Historico-Critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology -Schelling The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Mythical Thought -Cassirer Language and Myth -Cassirer Myth and Reality -Eliade Work on Myth -Blumenberg A Philosophy of Political Myth -Bottici PS: It seems to me that the first order of business might be to tentatively define what meaning the terms "myth" and "reality" should have for the purposes of discussion here. Such meaning would of course only serve as a starting point, to be modified in due course. There is after all much ambiguity and synonymy surrounding these terms. My initial preference would be to adopt any pragmatist meanings as an entry. --FCK
