On the emergence of peoples: Schelling’s Philosophy of Mythology and Amazonian Cosmology

Abstract

In the Historical-Critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology, Schelling develops the intuition that what is common to all mythologies is the fact they are a theogony that narrates the actual becoming of Gods in consciousness. Mythology therefore has a commonality with nature, as it is a world closed off in itself, and to consciousness, it is that which has been formed in the past. Schelling postulates a relative monotheism as such past, preceding the polytheistic moment of the gods to which mythologies bear witness. This is understood as an inaugural moment in the formation of the consciousness of divinity, and the transition from relative monotheism to polytheism is seen as a necessary development towards absolute, non-mythological monotheism in the history of peoples. If we are to conclude that the positivity of mythology is the production of consciousness itself from a singular principle, we must ask whether it is not only necessary for this principle to assume that there is a relationship between consciousness and divinity, but also whether the "natural history of consciousness", and consequently the very emergence of peoples from a common humanity, necessarily unfolds according to this principle, or whether it is possible to suppose that radically different cosmological conceptions imply the emergence of other consciousnesses, whose theogony is radically distinct. Such experience is arguably found among Amazonian peoples, whose cosmologies reveals an understanding of the differentiation of human and non-human peoples according to the perspective in which oneself is in relation with those they share “humanity” and the others. To establish a comparison, we will examine the role of a presumed spiritual crisis at the root of the emergence of peoples according to Schelling’s account of mythology in general and in the account of the cosmology of the Yanomami people by David Kopenawa and Bruce Albert.