History tells us how the passage from mythical thought to rational thought took many centuries to occur. Ending popular myths and beliefs by analysis, logic, and a scientific explanation was not fluid at all.
Mythical thought was the way that man used in ancient times to explain events in the environment, phenomena and mysteries that he could not solve.
This gave rise to a supernatural belief system, rituals, and mythologies. Everything was based on normally absurd explanations, which contributed to its subsequent decline.
The passage from mythical thinking to rational thinking
The change had its beginning in Greece, from the 8th century BC, during a social, political and economic crisis.
The boom in trade throughout the Mediterranean due to the crisis, allowed the exchange of merchandise, but also that of knowledge and culture. For example, trade with Egypt and Babylon bring with them knowledge of geometry and astronomy.
The dictation of norms of regulation of the intense commerce, gave rise to the adoption of the alphabetic writing. This, in turn, facilitated the transmission of knowledge.
In addition, beliefs and values began to intertwine, all of them a set of contrasts that led to criticism.
The creation of a city-state, the polis, resulted in a democratic government. In this city-state, any free citizen could discuss in the Agora (public square) and decide in the Assembly. Thus, politics had public participation.
Since Greek society was based on slavery, free citizens had more leisure time. This stimulated the exchange of scientific and intellectual research.
Origin of philosophy
Philosophy had its origin in the critique of the values of mythical thought and the beginning of a change of mentality.
The idea began to take shape that everything had a natural and rational explanation. That everything that was attributed to the will of the gods had an objective explanation.
In the passage from mythical to rational thought, the birth of philosophy played a fundamental role. This produced new knowledge, becoming a weapon to demolish old myths in the moral, political, theological, scientific and natural fields.
The mythical thought is a fantastic, absurd story, attributable all to some supernatural beings, (of doubtful moral). They decided on nature, life and death.
Instead, rational or philosophical thought, tried to find an explanation from the foundation and the demonstration. Questioning the ideas and pre-concepts accepted up to that moment, through discussion through different points of view.
Rational thought established by means of deduction a set of natural norms where phenomena occurred. Through this study, it was possible to predict when or why they could occur again.
It is believed that the first philosopher in history was Thales of Miletus, who defined water as the active principle of everything that exists (arché). I thought that everything proceeded and returned to the water. The dynamics of the cosmos was due to the movements of the water.
References
- Mythical thinking, rational thinking. (2011). Recovered from sergio-hinojosa.blogspot.com.ar.
- From mythical thought to rational thought. (2015). Recovered from prezi.com.
- Evolution of knowledge from mythical thought to rational thought «The logos». (2014). Recovered from imageneslatinas.net.
- The evolution of knowledge: From mythical thought to rational thought. (2009). Recovered from casadellibro.com.
- The conditions for the emergence of rational thought. From mythical to philosophical thought. Recovered from philosophy is the order.wikispaces.com.