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Very clear account of the source of myth, firstly, in the conflict of the organs of a body which give rise to fantasy and imagination and secondly in a particular social order that postulates certain ideals or ideas to live by. Myth, Campbell argues are the organised fantasies and ideas of a particular community. This is clearly hylomorphic. Aristotle argued that human psuché or the human soul has its source in the particular constellation of human organs that constitute a human being: one of the most important organs is of course the human brain with its layers of functions including instinctive and emotional functions and sensory-motor-language centres in the cortex. Thought, then, is a higher function connected to many other functions in the brain but especially to language. The sensory-motor functions are also, however of central importance given the importance of intentional action (the will) in the life of humankind. The Kantian elaboration upon hylomorphic Philosophy suggests that we conceptualise the mind in relation to what we can know about the the holistic effect of the brains function, namely thought, and Kant categorises the mind into three faculties: sensibility, understanding/judgement, and reason. The powers of affect, imagination and fantasy , sensory perception and memory all belong to sensibility whilst the faculty of understanding/judgement are regulated conceptually by Categories. Reason, both theoretical and practical, is regulated by ideas such as God, psuché (the soul) freedom and equality where principles such as the principle of noncontradiction and sufficient reason are not merely regulative but constitutive. Campbell of course does not interest himself particularly in these higher mental processes because his primary concern is with te power of the imagination and fantasy. If he has a Philosophical position insofar as these higher mental powers are concerned it is more likely to be Plato rather than Aristole. Plato we know divided psuché or the powers of the soul into three, namely appetite or lower desire, Sprit, and Reason. Mythology is a spiritual exercise stretching back to a period in mans history when reason had not been subjected to critical investigation. Campbell claims with considerable insight that the organs constituting our various powers conflict with each other and this plays out at the level of the imagination rather than the level of higher mental powers. He mentions our erotic and aggressive impulses and the disturbing effect these can have on the trajectory of a life aiming at long term happiness. He does however touch upon these higher powers when he refers to the ideas or ideals of thought processes which give life value. Plato we know however objected strongly to the view that images (even at the level of “spirit”) could be reliable guides to leading a good-spirited flourishing life. For Plato it was the Higher mental power of principles or “Forms” that enabled us to lead worthy virtuous (areté) lives. Campbell does not, however, engage with such Philosophical questions.
Rather Campbell claims:
“The function of mythological imagery is to harmonise these conflicting impulses and coordinate the energies of our body, so that we can live a harmonious and fruitful life in accord with our society”
Myth, then not only guides us to harmonise with our society but also with Nature which is both external to us but also within, because our organs and their particular constellation are products of nature responsible for giving us our human “form”. Myths also, Cambell argues guide us through the various phases of our life from childhood through adolescence to adulthood and finally to old age where it helps us to confront the one inevitabilityof life, namely death. The interviewer elaborates upon this by claiming that behind the narratives of myths there is contained:
“some kind of deeper truth about life”
Campbell assents to this with the qualification that mythology is “a systematic organisation of fantasy in relation to a given social order”. The concept of Truth, as Campbell realises, has more universalistic intentions. Whether or not this intention is realistic is a question even Philosophers have asked themselves but certainly at least both Plato and Aristotle believed that truth had both universal and necessary characteristics. Cambell however counters with one universal and necessary characteristic of myth by claiming that every early organised society possessed a guiding mythology.
The interviewer refers to one of Campbells last works, namely, “The inner Reaches of Outer Space” in which it is maintained that we are approaching a stage of globalisation such that it is no longer possible to think of the human race in terms of competing tribes. Campbell illustrates this thesis by the conflict one could see at that point in time in Beirut between the three major competing montheistic religions, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Each has its own “truths” contested by the others. Campbell does not discuss whether this state of affairs is directly related to the medium of communication of myths, namely images and affects, rather than concepts arguments and principles which is the medium of truth and knowledge in the arena of Philosophy. Campbell rather attributes this failure to the failure of the leaders of these religions to realise that the role of their respective mythologies has been merely to support their particular societies. The belief that their Religion was the True Religion obviously prevented the kind of toleration necessay for these “tribes” to live together. This is where the oracular advice to know thyself would have been useful to all concerned. Kantians would instead refer to the Categorical Imperative which challenges men to treat each other as ends-in-themselves, a law that underlies the concept of Human Rights which includes the right to believe in the God one chooses to believe in. Also, the Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle were addressing this very problem of believing in the images of particular myths and religions when they formulated their respective Philosohies and appealed to non-relativistic universal and necessary priciples of sufficient reason and noncontradiction. Historically, therefore , it can be argued tht Philosophy grew out of mythology but left the world of image fantasy, and miraculous events behind in favour of concepts, categories, principles and arguments using the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason.
Cambell correctly uses the Philosophical Psychology we find in Aristotles works on psuché (soul) and acknowledges a self actualisation process where the constellation of human organs cooperate to produce the first actuality of the body which is its life. Many sensible and intellectual powers emerge from this actualisation process over a long childhood and many poentialities are actualised including that of discourse and rationality which build the one upon the other. Given the Aristotleian requirement that all parts of psuch´s must possess features of the whole we can expect to see reason permeating even sensible activities such as perception and imagination as well as regulating the motor system by the will.
Campbell insightfully argues that there are two types of mythology: one in which the individual is inducted via particular procedures into his group or community and aggression is projected to whatever lies outside that group. It is perhaps this use of the defence mechanism of projection of aggression which led Freud to diagnose religion as psychotic. The second type of mythology are instantiated by the Eastern Meditative religions in which it is recognised that the Gods are within one and it is the task of mythology to illustrate the presence of the kingdom of god within us by projecting it outward, sometimes in the form of miraculous events. The extent to which the believer understands the mechanism of his “projection”: understands, that is, that the objects of his projection are merely analogies of what is within, is the extent to which the projecting subject “knows” what is happening and therefore “knows” himself. Perhaps though it is only very few believers who are capable of this form of belief. In this category of religions Campbell mentions buddhism the enlightenment religion which like Plato urges us to seek for the consciousness within rather than using our consciousness to explore via the senses the external world. Campbell sees a deep affinity here to those Christians who seek to find the Christ within us. Both religions also emphasise the relevance of the world in which one must joyfully participate in its sorrows.
Science is discussed in terms of its inward psychological input, the material of which, of course, is that which we find in the external world. Campbell claims that Biblical stories about ascending to heaven do not fit in with contemporary science and have to be therefore be either discarded or reinterpreted. There is, however, Campbell argues in correlating the gods within gods and cosmic cycles within consmic cyles of Hinduism with modern science. All myths , on the other hand reveal the potential for spiritual development which is ongoing in spite of the negative view Campbell has of contemporary politics. We do not yet have a world-mythology that can transcend human differences although modern science may have the potential to provide us with such a mythology insofar as the mysteries of the universe are concerned. One mystery that of birth–the biological phenomenon of a new being coming into existence at the moment is not fully appreciated by local mythologies. Marriage too and its significance is not fully understood. If the individual is fortunate it will find a consciousness which reflects the divine within us and such a being will realise that the body, the vehicle of consciousness, can pass away without being experienced as a loss. The possibility of ones death, then, ought to involve transcendence of the loss of the physical body. Ascending to heaven or resurrection are examples of miraculous events that science cannot endorse as real events, as described in the various mythologies. The heavens, for example are vast and difficult for the imagination to form a comprehensive idea of. The Image of Christ Campbell argues is this side of the truth and needs to be transcended if one is to fully embrace the mystery of consciousness within. For Kant it was not such an image that enabled one to reach a state of transcendence but rather knowledge of the moral law within which enabled one to lead a fruitful good spirited meaningful flourishing life. This, plus the starry heavens filled his mind with awe and wonder. The moral law, as we know is something arrived at through understanding, judgement, and reason in the ontological domain of action where the agent is attempting to make something of the world he lives in, rather than allowing the world to merely “happen” to him, which of course can happen in death. Images, then, may fall into the category of what happens to us as is the case of those images we experience in sense perception. Campbell at one point in the interview claims that thought is important in the mythical process but then immediately transitions to images as if he believes images are thoughts—thoughts can happen to us but usually they are part of an active process directed by the will. One thought of importance in mythological thinking involves of course understanding that life and perhaps what Campbell calls Christ-consciousness is not unique to me but shared with all other human life forms. It is this understanding that allows us to see the world from another persons point of view (what Piaget called decentering). It is this Campbell claims that is the universal value of the image although the thought looks more like it is claiming something about something conceptually, rather than picturing something as abstract as such a Truth. Campbell speaks in terms of “metaphorical” images such as the ascension to heaven but the question remains here of whether what is being referred to here is something conceptual. A series of images, ofcourse, could perhaps picture some form of ascent into heaven but the heavens are vast and such a filmed sequence of images might still be playing out whilst it is still indeterminate as to the ultimate destination of the “ascent”. What then can this image be symbolising, whatis it an image of? Campbell realises that the term “metaphor” is a linguistic entity and as such words can be said to have both denotation and connottion and he claims that this image’s connotation is not to be confused with its denotation. This suggests that although language might picture what it denotes if the sentence is of the declarative form, it is rather the conceptual meaning of the word which brings the meaning of the image to us. This territory of theories of meaning may then not pertain to images but rather to concepts which are combined in sentences in which we say something about something which aims at the Truth. This is the territory of Philosophy and not Mythology. Mythological narratives use conceptual truths as well as images in their attempt to communicate their message.
The final question of the interviewer to Cambell concerns what advice he would give to young persons beginning their professional journeys. He speaks of “enthusiasm” which he says means “inspired by the gods” and suggests that these young people follow whatever inspires enthusiasm in themselves.