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The myth always wants to be true, and therefore real, otherwise it lapses and passes into the fictional sphere. The authority expresses its correctness, and in this regard, it is based on truth or it froms their truths in order to preserve its justification. Myths possess their own founding instances, which grant them credibility. At the same time, the authority may resort to myths, old or new, to maintain its status. The fact is that myths and authorities oftenly work together and in the same way, in the collective mentality. We find these circumstances in societies that have been formed and developed based on a vertical social construction of a defined hierarchy. The consequences of such a state of affairs can, in fact, be formulated in terms of social passivity, where the population is lacking intiative, all the decisions being made by the dominant classes (political, economical, intelectual), and system functionality can be inferred from the excessive confidence in those who maintain their authority by reassuring citizens of their righteousness through various forms of propaganda, in order to maximize the diminishment of the critical spirit. In the approach that follows, I propose to analyze, in a historical-philosophical perspective, the premises of mythical order found at the base of the political authority in Russian space. What was the relationship between philosophy and authority, and how much do we talk about contemporary myths and their functionality? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Image did not always have a privileged status, and imagination did not benefit of an increased attention till the invention of television. The faculty of imagination occupied a secondary role in man's life, most of the times being identified as a source of fraud or of the hidden truth. Nevertheless, imagination is a human ability which, consciously or not, has manifested its presence in man's existence and behavior. Together with the development of new informational technologies, that amplify the role of image, the imagination understood as creative force is reinstated and its value is acknowledged. In this context, the myth, seen once as imaginary story, appears as a form of thinking that oversees the connection between imagination and reality. Thus, in the present paper, I suggest an analysis of the relation between imagination and reality by means of the notion of myth, as constitutive element of human thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of myth has enjoyed a special attention in the twentieth century. In the vision of the new researchers, the myth ceases to be a simple fiction, invention or fable characteristic for primitive nations. There is a reconsideration of the signification that the myth has. It is no longer seen as an invented reality that doubles the real world. Myth does not open towards a new world, but towards a new way of being into world. The human being relates to its fellows and reacts to the circumstances of life by virtue of some common beliefs of its time. Our myths are the premises of our actions to the extent that they are not subjected to some critical exams on behalf of our conscience. The myths of our ancestors are no longer valid for us. However, they were seen as undeniable realities. Thus, our time has its own myths, which work for us in the same way. The possibility of talking about the myths of each age appears. By means of reunderstanding myth in its living aspect, it justifies and fundaments the human behavior and activity. It is enough to ask ourselves which are the criteria according to which we make the decisions and the preconceived ideas that guide our thinking in order to reach the issue of our myths. In this respect have the western researchers guided themselves in anthropology (Cl. Levi-Strauss, L. Levy-Bruhl, E.B. Tylor, Mircea Eliade), but also the followers of Russian symbolism (V. Ivanov, N. Berdiaev, V. Solovyov, A. Belyi, P. Florensky, A.F. Losev). Influenced by the Christian tradition, Russian thinkers will state the necessity to see the world by means of symbols. Following this branch, their studies on myth will develop in a different horizon from the Occidental one. Thus, for most of them, the world brings to the forefront symbols, and the myth is their living form becoming attitude and way of seeing the world. How they have tried to accomplish a perspective on myth to the extent that it works in our conscience as a reality or as a law is the stake of this study. The starting point of this demarche will be to resume the conversations on language and symbol from the beginning of the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]