Mytho-poetic contributions to hermeneutics and the philosophy of communication

This essay begins from an understanding that the study of the of the psyche today is need of something. The ideas presented here are philosophical provocations suggesting by studying the psyche from merely a calculative perspective, we overlook the dynamic flow of language as an integral part of psyches. We wish to undertake the hermeneutic study of psyches, which is to say human beings in the fullness of their being-in-the-world. Language and the psyche are everywhere intertwined, yet how do we talk about these as collective phenomenon, rather than reducing them to separate, calculative functions of the brain? From our hermeneutic perspective we suggest that alternative discourses of myth and poetry are necessary for somehow twisting away from the privileged paradigms of empirical psychology and turning instead toward language. Thus, through our re-readings of the myths, Eros and Psyche, Echo and Narcissus, we demonstrate the inherent relationship between human beings and words. This relationship, then, will be essential for clearing the way for understanding our mytho-poetic orientation toward the world, liberating us from the rigidity of paradigm while still undeniably leaving us with the (loving) struggle for a fitting response to the world.