The Two Serpents. A Short Essay on Generative Phenomenology as Comparative Mythology
The Two Serpents. A Short Essay on Generative Phenomenology as Comparative Mythology

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to provoke a reflection on a specific phenomenological problem: does culture shape perception and how? If we admit that it does, it seems that we should consider and study myths as a significant part of thatcultural shaping. Phenomenology as an exploration of experience needs to take intoaccount its transgenerational aspects. Aesthetic objects like mythical narrations,which transcend time without depending on technologies of image-materialisationcontingent to our era, are in this sense especially important. In phenomenologicalanalysis, myths can be brought back to two fundamental phenomena: the phenomenonof the image and the phenomenon of empathy. I will hence divide this essay into threeparts: first, an introduction through pictures, second, an outline of generativephenomenology as aesthetic phenomenology, and finally, a comparison of the Greekmyth of the Caduceus and the Mapuche myth of Treng Treng and Cai Cai Filu. Fromthis analysis a relevant horizon for the phenomenology of the cultural shaping ofperception will emerge: if the question of who we are can be translated to the questionof what place we think we have in the cosmos, perhaps it is relevant to try tounderstand the mythical images we have of the cosmos we inhabit.

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