One is almost tempted to say that the language itself is a mythology deprived of its vitality, a bloodless mythology so to speak, which has only preserved in a formal and abstract form what mythology contains in living and concrete form.
Interpretation
Language can be seen as a lifeless version of mythology, stripped of its vibrant essence.
Schelling suggests that language, while it serves as a vessel for mythological concepts, lacks the vitality and richness that original mythologies possess. In his view, language reduces the lively, dynamic nature of myth into a mere abstract representation, thereby losing the depth and experiential quality that makes mythology so powerful and engaging in its living form.
In practice
In a lecture on the importance of storytelling, one might use this quote to emphasize how language can fail to capture the essence of lived experiences.
The fear of speculation, the ostensible rush from the theoretical to the practical, brings about the same shallowness in action that it does in knowledge. It is by studying a strictly theoretical philosophy that we become most acquainted with Ideas, and only Ideas provide action with vigour and ethical meaning.
Nothingness cannot be defined; the softest thing cannot be snapped.
I sink down into my body as into a swamp, fenland, where only I know the footing…. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping. Inside it is a space, huge as the sky at night and dark and curved like that, though black-red rather than black.
Developing our sympathetic compassion is not only possible but the only reason for us to be here on earth.
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.
Size is not a reality, but a construct of the mind; and space a construct to contain constructs.
When I grew up in the South, I was taught that segregation was the will of God, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I was taught that women were by nature in inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.