Articles

Waarom de mythe geen antwoorden geeft: Hans Blumenbergs alternatieve benadering van het mytheonderzoek

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Abstract

When Marcel Detienne in l'Invention de la mythology (1981) convincingly
argued that the concept of myth is no more than a modern semantic construction,
to which no real genre corresponds, he dealt the fatal blow to the
already languishing structuralistic myth research. Since then, the mythological
field of study has not recovered; it seems nor to have been able to adapt to
the paradigmatic shift to poststructuralism. Yet, the work of the philosopher
and philologist Hans Blumenberg might provide us with such a poststructuralist
alternative. In Work on myth (1979) he develops a new and non-essentialist
approach to myth. By means of the limit concept "absolutism of reality"
he presents myth not as a product, buc as a process. This article aims to
introduce Blumenbergs thinking, to situate him in the recent impasse of myth
research and to demonstrate how his alternative methodology allows a way
out of it.

How to Cite:

Sels, N., (2007) “Waarom de mythe geen antwoorden geeft: Hans Blumenbergs alternatieve benadering van het mytheonderzoek”, Handelingen - Koninklijke Zuid-Nederlandse maatschappij voor taal- en letterkunde en geschiedenis 61, 237-253. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/kzm.v61i0.17429