Hans Blumenberg, Work on Myth: Part I, Chapter 1, "After the Absolutism of Reality"

Blumenberg sets out by focusing on the significance of prehistorical humanity's lack of mastery of reality. This is, he admits, not a situation about which we can adduce evidence. Rather, he proposes thinking about it through a a limiting concept, a predicament that he supposes must have been the case, in the way that social contract theory supposes a state of nature (status naturalis). This concept is the absolutism of reality.

Blumenberg notes that the earliest humans underwent a transition in their environment from rain forest to open savanna, and in their posture to standing erect. In the forest, our primate ancestors could flee and hide from threats. Once humans were standing in the open, however, they were more perspicuous. Though they were able to see further, they could also be seen. Threats could arrive more quickly from any direction, and immediate refuge was not at hand. They were exposed. This put pressure on humans to anticipate threats, and thus to give themselves time to prepare to flee or fight. In order to anticipate, they had to be in a constant state of alertness to whatever was on their horizon, or might lurk beyond it. This constant state of alertness was a source of anxiety, and even terror. Living this way was an overwhelming burden. Humans needed to reduce the burden of this anxiety.

In the first place, Blumenberg describes this reduction as a process of naming, which divided the undifferentiated mass of possible threats into specific ones which might be managed. He quickly moves on to discussing the stories and images as human means for managing reality.

I must entertain some doubt about how the actual transition to being a bipedal, plains-dwelling species could be related to the onset of myth-making. I would surely think this transition was pre-lingustic, and even predated language by eons. Of course, humans remained an exposed species from that time forward, so I suppose that the anticipatory pressure would still exist whenever language did come about, and that language could then manage the pressure in the manner that Blumenberg suggests.

In any case, Blumenberg sees myth as providing a field of symbolic action through which humans could manage what had seemed unmanageable, thus supporting a "beneficent illusion" (12) that humans were more capable of dealing with existence than was truly the case.

The polytheism of the myths is in this respect, according to Blumenberg, an essential feature rather than a defect. Polytheism manages the sense of facing overwhelming power by dividing it and perceiving each part as circumscribed and set against others. It creates a sense of separation of powers.

At this point, Blumenberg begins to focus on the reception of myth by Christianity and the Enlightenment. Christian writers focused on the immorality of the gods. This is a theme that the Enlightenment takes up, but also turns against Christianity. the Enlightenment critique gave special attention to the sacrifice of Isaac, which was compared to the sacrifice of Iphigenia by the Hellenes setting off for the Trojan War. In both cases, Blumenberg accuses the critique of mistaking the actual function of the stories, which was to provide an explanation for why human sacrifice, which otherwise would be seen as a necessary sign of complete dedication to a deity, would no longer be permitted.

Blumenberg, at this point, digresses into what seems like a crucial point: the essential place of emotion in the human economy of attention. He notes that an adapted stimulus-response mechanism had to be replaced when humans took leave of their original environment. The ability to pay attention filled this role, and emotion, above all, facilitated this ability.

Having reviewed the critique of poytheism by its successors, Blumenberg now considers, in a seemingly a priori manner, the consequences of monotheism. In the first place, he claims that replacing the Other with the Other One creates the possibility of the god having a character, of hawing a personality that can be trusted and negotiated with (although why this is not just as possible with polytheistic gods is not really made clear). Such a god is capable of promises, and capable of entering into a contract, which would limit His actions. Such a god would expect exclusivity (and in any case, since this god is self-limiting, the restraint of a separation of powers provided by polytheism would become superfluous). Blumenberg notes that there would be doubts about the reliability of this singular god, but, by making part of himself human, he could commit himself irrevocably to having an interest in humanity (thus deducing a kind of necessity of Christology). Finally, the one god would both reflect humanity and more fully occupy the conscience of human beings, while the polythesitic gods retained an essential foreigness to humanity.

The essential problem of medieval theology, according to Blumenberg, is that it cannot accept this God entangled with humanity. Having taken over an ancient metaphyics that saw the essence of divinity in being outside of influence (as he has already noted with respect to the gods of Epicurus).

Entwined with this discussion of the distinctive character of monotheism is another one focussed on the relationship between polytheism and theory. The departure point for the second discussion is Thales' observation that the world is full of gods. The suggestion is that myth had exhausted its ability to explain the world. And, theory, beginning with Thales' prediction of an eclipse, began to show its capability for explaing reality. Yet, in seeing myth only as an account of objects which it seeks to supersede with a better account, theory misses the 'work of logos' that has already been done by myth to constitute the field of objects and to provide the space and time to consider them.

The concept of the limit toward which the extrapolation of tangible, historical features into the archaic tends can be formally defined in a single designation: the absolutism of reality. What it means is that man came close to not having control of the / conditions of his existence and, what is more important, beleived that he simply lacked control of them. It may have been earlier of later that he interpreted this circumstance of the superior power [Übermächtigkeit] of what is (in each case) other [i.e., not himself] by assuming the existence of superior powers [Übermächten]. (3-4)

What is here called the absolutism of reality is the totality of this situational leap [note: from rain forest to savanna], which is inconceivable without superaccomplishment in consequence of a sudden lack of adaptation. Part of this is the capacity for foresight, anticipation of what has not yet taken place, preparation for what is absent, beyond the horizon. It all converges on what is accomplished by concepts. Before that, though, the pure state of indefinite anticipation is 'anxiety.' To formulate it paradoxically, it is intentionality of consciousness without an object. As a result of it, the whole horizon becomes equivalent as the totality / of the directions from which 'it can come at one.' (4-5)

In turn, while this attitude to reality can be maintained episodically for longer periods, it cannot be managed indefinitely. The generalized exitement and suspense must always be reduced, again, to the assesssment of specific factors. Put differently ... this means that anxiety must again and again be rationalized into fear, both in the history of mankind and in that of the individual. This occurs primarily, not through experience and knowledge, but rather through devices like that of the substitution of the familiar for the unfamiliar, of explanations for the inexplicable, of names for the unnameable. Something is 'put forward,', so as to make what is not present into an object of averting, conjuring / up, mollifying, or power-depleting action. By means of names, the identity of such factors is demonstrated and made approachable, and an equivalent of dealings with them is generated. (5-6)

It will be as a means of maintaining a position in the face of an overpowering reality, through milleniums, that stories, which could not be contradicted by reality, were successful. (7)

Homo pictor [man the painter] is not only the producer of cave paintings for magical practices relating to hunting, he is also the creature who covers up the lack of reliability of his world by projecting images. (8)

The boundary line between myth and logos is imaginary and does not obviate the need to inquire about the logos of myth in the process of breaking free from the absolutism of reality. Myth itself is a piece of high-carat 'work of logos.' (12)

[I]t will be incomparably more important to describe myth itself as already the manifestation of an overcoming, of the gaining of a distance, of a moderation of bitter earnestness. (16)