Understanding Human Nature: From Myth to Reason

Posted on Mar 19, 2025 in Philosophy and ethics

Humanity’s first attempts to explain the origins of human nature were irrational, relying on magic and myth. Magic sought a theoretical justification for practical problems. It employed rituals, spells, and gestures to dominate the supernatural forces governing nature, relying on hidden knowledge accessible only to certain privileged individuals. The basis of magic is a belief in animism.

Myth, on the other hand, is a sacred narrative or symbolic legend that recounts important events concerning natural and social phenomena. Myth, aided by imagination, tells how, thanks to the exploits of supernatural beings or exceptional individuals, reality came to be, and defines the individual’s place within it. Myth justifies actions, values, and human customs, serving as a model. It is accepted by society based on the authority of tradition. The main purpose of myth is to provide a full, ultimate, and justifying explanation of the universe and the individual.

Phases of Mythological Explanation

  • Fetishism or animism: Attributes to material objects a life essentially analogous to the human, but more powerful.
  • Polytheism: The ultimate explanation lies in various supernatural beings superior to humans and able to influence their world.
  • Monotheism: All phenomena depend on a single, omnipotent, supernatural will.

In Greece, around the 6th century BC, mythological narratives served as an explanatory model. Knowledge was based on mythological tradition; stories were transmitted orally. However, arbitrariness also prevailed in mythological explanations because everything happened by the will of the gods. There was no way to connect a natural phenomenon to a supernatural one. Finally, these explanations had a symbolic character, resorting to symbolic representations such as anthropomorphic gods.

The Rise of Rational Knowledge

Consequently, there was an effort to move beyond pre-rational knowledge and embrace rational understanding. This gave rise to the ambition to explain and justify reality using reason, searching for an immanent, coherent, and rational explanation. Human reason replaced imagination, questioning why things are (essence) and what produces them (cause). Reality contains something permanent and constant—substance—despite the changes perceived by the senses.

Rational knowledge allows explaining a phenomenon (A) by another phenomenon (B), and likewise reaching B from A. This possibility is what is called a method; therefore, it is testable. Reason uses two faculties of knowledge: the senses and reason itself. This allows recognizing nature as it truly is, in contrast to how knowledge was based on the supernatural in mythology. The logos does not need to rely on anything external; its explanation of reality is necessary, with regularities and not by pure chance, because nature is immanent and not transcendent. Finally, this rational knowledge is not symbolic, but rather realistic, as it is shown in nature, without resorting to symbolic representations.