Myths and False Dichotomies: A Detailed Study Guide
Myths and False Dichotomies: An Analysis by Hide Ishiguro (Source: Social Research, Vol. 52, No. 2, Summer 1985)
Page 1: Introductory Context
This page identifies the source and author of the article, "Myths and False Dichotomies" by Hide Ishiguro, published in Social Research, Vol. 52, No. 2 (Summer 1985), notably focusing on themes of 'Myth in Contemporary Life'. It provides administrative details about its download and usage terms from JSTOR.
Page 2: Defining Myth Beyond "False Beliefs"
Central Question: Can the concept of "myth" survive in a world where belief in interaction between human and divine beings has ceased?
Initial Thesis: Myths are not simply false beliefs. The author aims to explore how myths can and do exist today.
Agreement with Wittgenstein: The author partially agrees with Ludwig Wittgenstein's view that myth is not a false explanatory hypothesis. Instead, myth plays a "quite different role." This implies a functional distinction rather than a truth-value one.
Author's Insistence: Despite the functional difference, the author insists that many specific statements within a myth share the "same form and semantics as empirical statements." These statements often designate actual things (e.g., nations) and refer to existing kinds of things.
Compatibility of Thinking: The author emphasizes that distinguishing mythical thinking from empirical thinking is compatible with maintaining that the words used in sentences for both types of thinking have identical senses.
Analogy with Metaphors (Donald Davidson):
Understanding the literal meaning of words is crucial for grasping the point of a metaphor.
Reliance on the "literary sense" of words produces the "unexpected effect" of metaphor.
Attempts to explain metaphors by extending normal word senses or assigning new "metaphorical" senses undermine understanding their peculiarity and pungency.
Page 3: The Nuance of Mythical Statements
Parallel with Metaphors: Similarly, mythical thoughts and statements use words in their ordinary senses, but the function of these statements differs from empirical ones.
Dynamic Nature of Mythical Statements: These statements can "slip in and out of myths," requiring careful handling.
Suspension of Judgment: When statements belong to a myth, one must "suspend judgment about its truth and falsity," akin to how one would judge a work of fiction. The focus is on their illustrative or expressive quality, not factual accuracy.
Truth/Falsity for Causal Explanation: However, if these statements move "into the realm of causal explanation and prediction," their truth or falsity becomes critically important. This is particularly relevant for myths employed to bolster national identity or sexual differences.
Living with Myths: Engaging with myths is described as a "dangerous business" necessitating "skill and sophistication" due to the fluid distinction between their mythical and empirical interpretations.
Wittgenstein's Critique of Frazer:
Wittgenstein found James George Frazer's account of magical and religious notions in The Golden Bough unsatisfactory.
Frazer portrayed these notions as mere "mistakes," treating myths as flawed historical or cosmological explanations or hypotheses.
Page 4: Myth, Science, and Conventionalism
Frazer's View: Frazer, and many philosophers, anthropologists, and theologians, viewed myth as describing how the world developed or is believed to be, positioning it as a rival to science or philosophy (i.e., prescience or prephilosophy).
Wittgenstein's Counter-Argument: Wittgenstein disagreed, stating, "A whole mythology is deposited in our language" – a remark applicable to "our language," not just that of "tribesmen." This implies myth is intrinsic to human language.
Conventionalist Perspective: Some contemporary philosophers, termed conventionalists (e.g., Bas Van Fraassen), see science and myths as fundamentally similar. For them, science consists of explanatory stories (positing entities like quarks or black holes) to account for observable data. From this perspective, myths and scientific theories, both being "explanatory stories," differ little.
Science as a Myth (Conventionalist View): While conventionalists might acknowledge special characteristics of science (e.g., commitment to amendment or progress), they ultimately regard science as one myth among others.
Triviality if All Language is Mythical: If all language is theory-laden, and all theory is a kind of myth, then Wittgenstein's remark about mythology in our language, and assertions by Jaspers and Kolakowski that myth cannot be reduced, become trivial, as escaping myths would be impossible.
Page 5: Wittgenstein's Position - Myth as Expression and Illustration
Wittgenstein's Core Idea: A myth should be understood not primarily as an explanation of the physical world, but as an "expression of how reality seems to people," an "illustration of how things are to them" in terms of their "fears, wishes, and so on."
Belief vs. Expression: While feelings and wishes are connected to beliefs about reality, myth isn't an explanatory description of belief content. Rather, it visually portrays that content.
Umberto Eco on Superman: Professor Umberto Eco described Superman as a myth of a hero embodying an unthinkable degree of power that the average industrial society citizen lacks and desires. Readers/viewers are not taken to literally believe reality is being explained or described by these comics/films, but rather that a wish is being expressed.
Wittgenstein's "Fear of the Gods" Example: Wittgenstein posited that if he, an unbeliever in superhuman gods, meaningfully says, "I fear the wrath of the gods," it demonstrates he can express a feeling or mean something without literally believing in divine beings. The words convey a sense or emotion, not a factual belief.
Tribesmen's Understanding: The tribesmen described by Frazer might have been "seriously expressing something in telling their myth without literally believing what they said." Their tales are, in Wittgenstein's words, a "graphic illustration" or "perspicuous presentation" () of their (or our) worldview.
Frazer's "Insult": Wittgenstein implies that anthropologists like Frazer insult these tribesmen by assuming they are akin to "fundamentalists in our own society" who take myths as literal truths.
Page 6: Our Own Myths and Distinctions
Mythology in Our Language: Wittgenstein suggested that the language used by Frazer (e.g., "ghosts," "shades") to describe tribal views indicates a similar way of thinking within our own language. We are moved by Shakespeare's Hamlet, understanding talk of encountering ghosts. Similarly, our use of words like "soul" or "spirit" is "murky," not reducible to naturalistic statements, yet we understand what we mean. We possess "our myths" that enable understanding when we speak of the soul pining or the spirit soaring.
Not Relativism: The author clarifies that Wittgenstein's view is not relativism, where all beliefs or hypotheses are equally valid. Rather, it emphasizes crucial distinctions:
Causal Hypotheses vs. Illustrative Stories: Distinguishing between causal hypotheses or factual descriptions (which are true or false) and stories told to illustrate an aspect of reality (which can be apt, perspicuous, powerful, confused, or bland).
Acts to Bring About vs. Acts to Express: Differentiating actions performed to achieve a specific outcome from actions performed for self-expression.
Acknowledging False Beliefs: Both tribesmen and modern individuals hold many false beliefs. These are exposed "if we can make a man change his way of doing things by calling his attention to his error" (e.g., an island is farther or in a different direction).
Magical Operations vs. Mistaken Views: Wittgenstein distinguished between "magical operations" (expressive acts) and operations based on "false, oversimplified view of things and processes" (mistaken causal beliefs). People may perform both types of actions.
Page 7: The Myth of Reason and Sensibility Dichotomy
Central Question: Can the functional difference between myths and explanatory theories always be maintained without overlap?
Contemporary Myth: The author intends to examine the "central myths of our time" surrounding the concepts of "reason" and "sensibility," particularly the stories propagating their purported independent existence or opposition.
Lévi-Strauss and Binary Opposition: These stories align with Claude Lévi-Strauss's claim that "mythical thought progresses from the awareness of oppositions toward their resolution." This binary opposition has permeated popular thinking, especially in explanations of male/female or European/other people differences.
Manifestations of Dichotomy: The opposition appears in various forms: "thought" and "intuition," "rationality" and "emotion," "the verbal" and "the instinctive." The author notes that the precise meaning of these supposedly opposing terms is often unclear upon reflection.
Plato's Tripartite Soul as a Myth (in Wittgenstein's Sense):
Splitting the mind into parts is a long-standing figurative device.
Plato's tripartite division of the soul in The Republic is presented not as a literal hypothesis but as a "myth in Wittgenstein's sense" – an illustration.
Plato aimed to render "perspicuous the divided functions of the soul," not to propose a physical division like sectors of a population.
The view about divided functions might be a poorly formulated or wrong hypothesis, but the division itself was an illustrative story.
Page 8: Persistence of Dichotomies and Objections
Aristotle's Objection to Soul Partition: Aristotle immediately criticized Plato's picture, pointing out its pointlessness since one could partition the soul infinitely (as many parts as functions) rather than stopping at three (, bk. 3, ch. 9, 432 a 22).
Enduring Appeal of Partitioning: Despite Aristotle, the "picture of partitioning of the soul or of the mind" has continuously captivated people.
Otto Weininger's Claim (1903): Weininger controversially claimed that thinking and feeling are not separate in women, rendering them incapable of reflexive, conscious thought or being free ethical subjects, thus lacking a soul. Though he spoke of a "pure female" type, his views underscore the perceived importance of soul function separability.
Binary Opposition as an "Old Habit": Seeing things in dichotomies is an ancient habit, vigorously revived recently. The author clarifies that merely dividing things into those with a property and those without does not create a binary opposition (e.g., "not red" is not a common property). Advocates of true binary opposition seek to divide reality into things with opposing properties.
The Mind's Dichotomies: This habit leads to views of the mind composed of "reason and instinct," "the rational and the emotive," or "the articulate and the unconscious."
Philosophical Objections to Dichotomy:
Aristotle also objected to dividing the soul into rational and irrational parts.
Many philosophers who studied "imagination" (e.g., Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Heidegger, Sartre) noted its inseparability from both reason and sensibility.
Popular and Religious Persistence: Despite philosophical critiques, soul partitioning remains central to popular and religious vocabulary.
Page 9: Reinterpreting Pascal's "Heart has its Reasons"
Misinterpretation of Pascal: Pascal's famous line, "The heart has its reasons of which Reason knows nothing" ( , fr. 423), and his distinction between "esprit de geometrie" and "esprit de finesse," are often cited to support the opposition of reason and emotion. He is seen as championing knowledge through the heart alongside reason (, fr. 110).
Correct Interpretation: A careful reading reveals Pascal's examples of what is known "by the heart and by instinct" () are not emotional responses but fundamental principles of knowledge:
Knowledge of space, time, movement, and numbers.
He argues these are as certain as anything known through reasoning.
Example: "The heart feels that space has three dimensions and that the numbers are infinite, whereupon reason then proves that there are no square numbers such that one is double the other ."
Foundational Knowledge: Pascal means that all reasoning, even in mathematics, is based on foundational principles (of space, time, motion, natural numbers) that are accepted without further proof. These foundational truths are "known by the heart" and are no less certain for lacking further proof.
Faith and Mathematics: Pascal notes that accepting unproven givens is not unique to faith, applying equally to mathematics.
Page 10: Pascal's Esprit de Finesse and the Appeal of Binary Opposition
Pascal's Esprit de Finesse: This term, often mistranslated as "intuitive mind" (more accurately "subtle mind"), is far from unconscious instinct.
Pascal describes it as taking note of "all the principles that are in ordinary usage, there for all to see" (, fr. 512).
It requires "good sight" because these principles are subtle and numerous, making it easy to miss some.
Pascal suggests mathematicians would have esprit de finesse if they had good sight (to avoid false reasoning), and subtle minds would be mathematicians if they focused on geometry's unfamiliar principles.
Conclusion on Pascal: Pascal depicts two qualities of thinking rather than an opposition of thinking and something else, both involving a form of "instinct" in the sense of direct apprehension of principles.
Irony of Contemporary Thinking: It is ironic that popular thinking increasingly contrasts reason and sensibility, given that many philosophers (Brentano, Wittgenstein, Sartre) have argued for the inseparability of emotions from thinking or desires from beliefs.
Brentano: Revived intentionality, showing hatred is hatred of something, desire is directed to something.
Wittgenstein: Advised understanding emotions through actions and expressions, not introspective states.
Sartre: Claimed emotion is a way of seeing the world, not an internal state.
Reasons for Binary Opposition's Popularity:
Dialectics: The idea of "internal contradiction" as necessary for Aufhebung (resolution/improvement) tempts Hegelians/Marxists to see contradictions internally and externally.
Lévi-Strauss and Structuralism: Lent "binary opposition" added respectability by presenting it as a scientific, empirically checkable, and universally applicable method (like linguistic rules).
Broad Appeal: Concepts from I Ching, Jung, Buddhism, Lacan, and even quantum physics have been invoked to support or illustrate binary thinking.
Under this influence, the myth of independent and mutually opposing reason and sensibility has "grown and flourished."
Page 11: Embodiment of Mind Functions in Groups
Shift in Mythical Embodiment: Traditional myths placed divided or partitioned soul functions within each person. Contemporary stories, however, embody these opposing functions in different groups or sectors of the population.
Examples of Group Embodiment Myths:
Gender: Women are emotive or intuitive; men are rational and discursive.
Race/Culture: Africans are intuitive; Europeans are rational. Asians respond to nature through sensibility; Europeans through discursive understanding.
Origin in Desire or Norm: These stories often arise from a desire to express a norm or a wish. For instance, the idea that women should be emotive, or that Bushmen should be rich in instinct (distinguished from men/Europeans with conceptual understanding).
Motivations for These Myths:
Held by those who view other sexes/races with contempt.
Held by those who romanticize them.
Used by groups who feel marginalized to build a sense of identity or uniqueness.
Page 12: Mythology, Identity, and Pseudoscience
Weininger's Self-Hatred: Weininger's self-hatred was linked to the myth of his "typically Jewish way" of being sensitive, which he equated with a feminine characteristic (, pt. 2, ch. 13, p. 423).
The Japanese Myth: The author notes a persistent myth in Japan: Japanese people (as a nation/race) are emotive or sensitive, even if less logical than Westerners. This belief typically lacks comparative basis and serves as an expression of self-perception or wishes rather than an anthropological hypothesis.
Feminist Identity Myths: Some feminists promote what they consider "womanly characteristics" (e.g., being more personal and less abstract), not as virtues women should possess, but as qualities they do possess. These stories, like traditional myths, reinforce wishes and strengthen conviction about reality.
Comfort of "Chosenness": The belief in belonging to a "chosen race or chosen sex" is comforting, and supporting stories are elaborated, even if divine covenants are no longer part of them.
**Contemporary Myth's "Authenticity": **Modern myths forgo divine communication, instead importing elements of science or pseudoscience to lend authenticity. Examples:
Brain Hemispheres: Speculated dominance of different brain hemispheres in groups to explain intuitive/discursive differences.
Hormones: Once invoked to explain not only physical/psychological sex differences but also thinking styles.
Other Theories: Theories (true or false) about localized brain functions, blood types, or sociobiological evolution are woven into stories explaining why various groups embody separate mental functions.
Page 13: Compatibility of Scientific and Mythical Thinking & Expressive Acts
Wittgenstein on Frazer's Misjudgment: Wittgenstein criticized Frazer for failing to grasp the true "point" of tribal myths and rituals. Tribesmen, in recounting myths, were not making mistaken physical hypotheses.
Kissing a Picture Analogy: Wittgenstein noted that a "primitive" man burning an enemy in effigy is like us kissing a loved one's picture. Such actions are not based on a belief in direct causal effect on the object, but aim at "some satisfaction and it achieves it." Or more precisely, "it does not aim at anything: We act in this way then feel satisfied" (, p. 4).
Awareness of Distinction: We don't ascribe "fusion" principles when kissing a photograph. Similarly, tribesmen are aware of the difference between a representation and the represented thing, or between a myth and a factual description. The same "savage" who sticks a knife through a picture to 'kill' an enemy will still build his hut from wood and cut his arrow with skill, demonstrating a clear understanding of practical realities.
Expressing Hatred/Wishes: Sticking a knife through a picture can be seen as expressing hatred in the "correct" way, with a hope that a supernatural being might act on it. This is analogous to a Christian lighting a candle or saying a litany for a sick friend; they don't believe the candle or sound causes the cure like penicillin but express a wish to a divine figure for intercession.
Intermingled but Distinct: In our language, illustrative stories (expressing wishes/feelings) and factual descriptions are intermingled, yet we can keep them distinct. Many human actions are primarily expressive (e.g., Schubert's brother cutting scores into pieces for pupils, as noted by Wittgenstein).
Page 14: Wittgenstein's Scientific View and the Purpose of Myths
Not Naïve Realism: The distinction between myth and science, as proposed by Wittgenstein, is not based on a crude naïve realist or positivist view of science.
Wittgenstein's Early Views (Tractatus): Even in his early work, Tractatus, Wittgenstein was not a naïve realist. He saw Newtonian mechanics as imposing a unified form on world descriptions, but this form itself does not reflect reality.
Mesh Analogy: Describing a black pattern on a white surface with a square or triangular mesh demonstrates that the form of the "net" is optional. Different systems of mechanics are possible.
Choice, Not Arbitrariness: The choice of system is not arbitrary, as one system might describe the world more simply than another. This simplicity could reveal something about the world.
Theories Not Strictly True/False: Scientific theories, strictly speaking, are "neither true nor false." Truth or falsity is ascribed to assertions made within the framework of an accepted theory.
Conventionalist Echoes: Wittgenstein's views on particular scientific systems resemble the conventionalism of Poincaré and Duhem, as pointed out by Max Black (, p. 351).
Core Difference: The fundamental difference Wittgenstein identified between mythology and physics was not about the presence of human constructs or arbitrary elements (both exist in science); rather, it lay in the different points people were making when engaging with them.
The Question of Replacement: If myths and science play different functions, why have sciences seemingly replaced myths (e.g., astrophysics replacing mythical cosmologies)? This apparent replacement might suggest they play the same function, potentially contradicting Wittgenstein.
Page 15: The Complex Interplay Between Myth and Theory
Complexity of Belief and Action: The relationship between belief and action, even in recounting fiction, is always complex.
**Three Reasons for the Interplay:
Myth morphing into Explanation: Myths, initially told as graphic illustrations of feelings or wishes, can "gradually create the belief in the people who tell it that the world is explained by it." People are prone to eventually believing tales they invented.
Science affecting Mythical Imagination: New knowledge and theories about the world influence human wishes and feelings, thereby impacting mythical imagination. It is natural for the acceptance of new physical theories to diminish the appeal of certain stories if those theories alter how people feel about the world.
Important Caveat: However, this erosion of pleasure does not prove that the abandoned stories were originally intended as explanatory hypotheses, nor that the new physical theories now play the same role as the old stories.
Myths based on Biased Facts: Myths can also develop around a biased selection of historical or factual beliefs that happen to be true.
Page 16: The Japanese Myth of Cultural Identity
Norinaga's Cultural Identity Project (18th Century Japan): Japanese literary scholar Norinaga sought to define a self-conscious Japanese literary and cultural identity, distinguishing it from China.
The Tale of Genji as a Model: He focused on The Tale of Genji, an 11th-century psychological novel by a court lady. Its virtues, for Norinaga, were its "responsiveness to nature and perceptiveness of human emotions."
Gender and Sensitivity: Norinaga believed this trait was a crucial human feature, often better exemplified by women and children due to their lesser fear of being "taken in." He asserted that the best Japanese works expressed such sensitivity, not discursive thought (, bk. 2).
Lévi-Strauss Anomaly: The Lévi-Strauss dichotomy (female/nature vs. culture/male) doesn't perfectly apply here, as Japanese culture (even artificial literature) was seen as closely related to nature, and central classical works were by women.
Birth of a National Myth: From these historical observations, Norinaga established a norm for cherished Japanese heritage and laid the groundwork for the myth that this responsiveness was the "essence of the Japanese mind," contrasted with the "Chinese mind" ().
Page 17: The Evolution and Persistency of the Japanese Myth
Defining the "Chinese Mentality": Norinaga characterized the "Chinese mentality" (found in Sinophile neo-Confucian scholars of his era) as a propensity for moral judgments (good/bad, right/wrong) and rational definition of all things (, vol. 1, 1795). He selectively excluded admired Tang Dynasty poets or Taoist painters.
Historical Impact: This myth became powerful, influencing nationalists involved in the Meiji Restoration and Japan's opening in 1868.
Post-WWII Survival: The myth survived the abandonment of nationalism after WWII, though the contrast subject shifted from Chinese to "Westerners" (seen as judgmental, craving clear answers and consistency).
Persistence Despite Contradictions: Japanese continue to cherish their myth of being responsive to nature, sensitive, and illogical, even with:
Awareness of their own insensitivity (e.g., actions in prisons or occupied lands).
Extensive acquaintance with diverse Western art and literature.
Illustrative Examples of Persistence:
Oono Susumu (1978): A philologist wrote that Japan's mild climate prevented rigorous religious belief or logical consistency (achieved through hardship/struggle), leading people to find happiness in responding to nature and living emotively (, p. 169).
Tsunoda Tadanobu (1978): His best-selling book, The Japanese Brain, claimed Japanese sensitivity to natural sounds (e.g., crickets) was reflected in dominant brain hemisphere differences compared to non-Japanese. The author notes skepticism due to the false premise that non-Japanese don't generally respond to natural sounds.
Significance: The publication and sales of such books by respectable publishers highlight the enduring grip of the Japanese national myth, despite internal and external criticism.
Page 18: Wider Application of Myth-making and Watsuji's Influence
Watsuji Tetsuro's Influence: Oono Susumu's view on logical consistency through physical struggle has roots in philosopher Watsuji Tetsuro's 1935 book, Fudo: Ningengakuteki Kenkyu (Climate: an Anthropological Study) ().
Watsuji, like Gehlen, believed human nature is shaped by self-making in the historical social world, not just a fixed essence.
He linked three basic mental attitudes to three climate types: pastoral, desert, and monsoon.
Watsuji claimed the rigor of Judeo-Christian belief developed through exile and persecution in a desert climate, requiring strife to maintain uncompromising beliefs.
Universal Myth-making: Other countries and races engage in similar myth-making:
They select admirable features from within their group.
These features become a norm for what they wish to be.
Eventually, they come to believe they are all endowed with these features.
Examples: The conformist American believing in individualism, the earnest Englishwoman in her sense of humor, the confused Frenchman in Cartesian clarity of mind.
Irony of External Perception: The detailed Japanese example is used because, ironically, an almost opposite myth exists outside Japan: Japanese as formal, insensitive, competent, unemotional, and cruel – an image that would surprise most Japanese. Both internal and external myths are linked to the overarching belief in the opposition of sensibility and reason, the paper's core topic.
Page 19-20: Conclusion on the Nature and Danger of Myths
Myth's Composition: Myths contain many component sentences that can be adopted by empirical theories. The essence of a myth is not the peculiarity of its sentences or text.
Myth as Attitude: What makes a myth a myth is the "attitude it creates in the public who partake in them." It must be recounted and cherished as a story that illustrates an aspect of reality, allowing people to express wishes or feelings, while simultaneously being believed by the people to be fiction.
The Danger of Literal Interpretation: Crucially, a myth always carries the "possibility or danger that any part of it can be taken as a literal description of reality." This inherent ambiguity is precisely what makes recounting myths exciting for many.
Weininger Example Revisited: Weininger's assertion that women have no souls was a prejudice illustration. However, its "shocking and provocative flavor" came from the potential for some to take it literally.
Wittgenstein's "Mythology in Our Language" - A Careful Reading:
Wittgenstein's claim must be taken carefully; it doesn't mean myths become part of word semantics (e.g., water means , but the soul doesn't literally mean "that which is divided").
"Sensibility" gaining a mythical meaning (e.g., embodied by women or Bushmen) is not part of its official meaning.
Myths are Deposited: Myths are "deposited" in language; they are "left and laid on the language we use." We might say "the head controlling the heart," even knowing that both brain and heart are vital for both emotions and mathematical thought.
Trapping Beliefs: These illustrative ways of thinking can "fix the ways we talk and therefore trap us in certain beliefs." While cherishing myths is not inherently primitive, it carries the significant "threat of deteriorating into one" if the distinction between figuration and literal truth is lost.
Acknowledgements: The author expresses gratitude to Richard Wollheim, Mary Mothersill, Jessie Allen, Bas Van Fraassen, and Sidney Morgenbesser for their comments and discussions.