MIRCEA ELIADE ET L’HERMÉNEUTIQUE PSYCHO-HISTORIQUE
MIRCEA ELIADE AND PSYCHO-HISTORICAL METHODOLOGY

Summary/Abstract: Mircea Eliade and Psycho-Historical Methodology. Starting from Thomas Kuhn’s seminal work on scientific paradigms, the venerable concept of Weltanschauung (world-vision) can be upgraded in order to reach a psycho-historical understanding of cultural evolutions. In this paper I intend to adapt to contemporary cultural hermeneutics a schema proposed by Nietzsche and developed by Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis. In this model, the relations between the individual consciousness and the unconscious offer the blueprint for describing the dynamics of the collective psyche. The model states that, when a culture (religion, etc.) has been overruled by a new dominant culture (religion), it remains active by way of survivals and reminiscences (Aby Warburg, Walter Benjamin) and eventually, after a period of persecution and censorship, it will re-emerge in a new form, transformed by the general principles of the dominant culture but nevertheless contesting and challenging it. I will attempt to show that such a psychohistorical dialectic has occurred six successive times in the history of European civilization.

• Details
• Contents