Silly title! The only truths we can talk about are human truths. But we can imagine that other intelligent beings in our universe might construct different truths. Notice “construct.” No way around this. All truths are mental constructions in consciousness, human or otherwise.
The news tells us what’s happening: bubbles rising in a pot of boiling water. Why? Because the pot is being heated. What’s heat?
Everything that happens in social reality first happens as a thought in someone’s mind. One way humans make sense of things is by creating abstract entities and categories. We’ve been consciously and methodically doing this for only three thousand years.
All of the millions of different kinds of stuff we interact with physically can be modeled as just a mixture of three different kinds of particles: electrons, protons, or neutrons. We can do the same for cultures: many thoughts are just a mixture of mythos and logos. We can mentally model each of these separately, and also how they mix and interact. For any culture in any given period, which of these, mythos or logos, is dominate? My take at the moment is that American culture is dominated by mythos. What’s your take?
Recently I asked the free version of ChatGPT:
It seems to me that there are just two fundamental ways that humans think they know truth: one is via fantasy, e.g., gods/God or other imagined supernatural forces; the other way is via rational thought, either through pure logic or logical/mathematical explanations of observed phenomena. Do you agree? Disagree? Give references.
Edited excerpts from ChatGPT’s reply:
Your distinction between fantasy-based and rational-based truth corresponds roughly to two enduring modes of human cognition and culture: mythic and rational thought.
1. Your Core Claim
You suggest there are two fundamental ways humans think they know truth:
-a. Fantasy-based knowing — via imagination, myth, or belief in supernatural forces (gods, spirits, fate, etc.).
-b. Rational knowing — via logic and empirical reasoning about observable phenomena.
2. Supporting Traditions and Thinkers
a. The Greek Origin of the Split: Mythos and Logos
.- The ancient Greeks were among the first to articulate this divide.
Mythos conveyed truth through stories about divine or supernatural order.
Logos pursued truth through reasoned explanation of nature.
.- As Karen Armstrong writes in The Battle for God (2000), mythos “was not concerned with practical matters, but with meaning,” while logos “was the rational, pragmatic thought that enabled people to function effectively in the world.”b. Enlightenment Rationalism
.- Philosophers like Descartes, Spinoza, and later Kant elevated rational thought as the only reliable path to knowledge — rejecting revelation or myth as subjective and unverifiable.
3. Challenges and Complications
However, many thinkers argue that human ways of knowing truth are not just two, and that even “rational” knowledge depends partly on imagination or intuition.
a. Myth as Psychological Truth
.- Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell both saw myths as expressions of psychological truths, not mere fantasy.
So, fantasy-based “knowing” might encode symbolic or experiential truths, even if not empirically verifiable.
b. The Role of Intuition and Emotion in Rational Thought
.- Antonio Damasio (Descartes’ Error, 1994) and Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow, 2011) show that even scientific and logical reasoning relies on emotional and intuitive processes. -- Human rationality is “bounded” and deeply entangled with affect.
Mythos
Description
Truth via:
.- narrative
.- meaning
.- revelation
Examples
.- Religion
.- Poetry
.- Myth
Strengths
.- Inspirational
.-Meaningful
Limitations
.- Not empirically verifiable
Logos
Description
Truth via:
.- observation
.- logic
.- mathematics
Examples
.- Science
.- Philosophy
.- Logic
Strengths
.- Predictive
.- Self-correcting
Limitations
Can neglect:
.- meaning
- values
**end ChatGPT reply
It seems to me that human brain/minds are so constructed that it is impossible for any of us to have any thoughts that are totally free of any emotion, although we can describe some of our thoughts in emotion-free language, and even convince ourselves that we are being purely rational. But inescapably, our emotions are the driving force behind any “emotion-free” utterance or transcript. Thus, in attempting to understand the implications that all human thought can be characterized as either mythos or logos we can ignore the omnipresence of emotions. It seems to me that tension between mythos and logos is endemic to any individual’s attempt to construct a truth about objective reality. Likewise, for any thesis any group posits as true.
The rubber meets the road in any deliberate action. Of no such action can we be absolutely certain of achieving the intended result. However, the probability of success increases the more the action is based on logos rather than mythos. This assertion is true because except for logical truths about imaginary worlds, logos truth arises from our experience in physical reality, which is where all action happens.
All human history is a dance between mythos and logos. In most periods either mythos or logos dominates. For most cultures, past or present, mythos has dominated. Logos is a new kid on the block. Currently in America, public policy and action are based mainly on mythos. In the short run this focus serves the interests of the powerful because they can most effectively initiate/promulgate myths that serve their goals at the expense of the common good. The nature of the game is such that they have a good chance of neutralizing any effective push back before objective reality bites back; certainly, before the faithful can figure out that the game has been rigged. Many of the faithful would, in their minds, choose death rather than relaxing the myths that form the foundation of their subjective realities.
Recognizing that most of my thoughts can be characterized as a mixture of mythos and logos enhances my own understanding and gives me a handle of seeking to strengthen logos when it, rather than mythos, would better serve me.
Your take?
Dear Frank,
Mythos and Logos are rather like M.C. Escher's 1948 lithograph "Drawing Hands". To engage in rational thought requires the mythos of rationality, to engage in mythos requires the logic that holds stories together, round and round, without end, stories and logic, logic and stories, and all of humanity woven in between.
Also: I dispute your robot's accusations against Kant - he did propose that rationality was essential to securing knowledge, but Kant did not desire to cast out mythos as the robot's wording suggests (this is a better description of Hume than of Kant). Kant well understood that there were important ideals that could not be expressed rationally, and although he believed in 'rational religion' (as did many of the Founding Fathers of the US) he understood that ecclesiastical faith (mythos) was the essential vehicle through which rational religion propagates and establishes its symbolic languages. Kant did not talk in terms of 'mythos', but his writings do not presume everything worthwhile is rational, not by a long chalk.
All in all, the robot's ugly precis is built upon the sort of lazy back projection that dominates contemporary thought, so it is hardly surprising that a Large Language Model cannot see beyond the idle chatter it has aggregated from online texts. Since literally all it can do is make maps of what people are saying and then export sentences implied by those maps, they make a great thesaurus but a lousy encyclopaedia! 😂
With unlimited love,
Chris.
Interesting post Frank. Thanks for sending it.
I think that my older daughter, Clara, lives much more in the mythos world than I do. She refused to engage in arguments about things. She just loves us and believes what her heart tells her.
I wonder if Trump engages in both logos and mythos. In Constitution of Knowledge, he tells a reported that he purposefully ridicules them, so that when they say bad things about him, people won't believe them. Unfortunately, I think this is working for him. I'd say that he engages with mythos when he communicates with his base.