La filosofía del mito de Karl Kerényi en el horizonte de la morfología de Goethe

Zusammenfassung

The purpose of this research is the systematic study of the works of Karl Kerényi from a philosophical standpoint and in the context of its relationship with the holistic-morphological model of Goethe’s science. Kerényi not only puts forward an interpretative model of the ancient Greco-Roman world, but conducts an anthropological reflection that falls within the scope of the existential. We proceed by presenting the author’s object of study, the issues concerning the ancient interpretation of the human existence embodied by Myth and Mythology, in the most general and complex level possible, with the consecutive bind to how they relate to Kerényi’s work. Then, alongside this background, by a specific study of his rational-existential method, indebted to the Goetheian notions of wholeness and plasticity, and of the nuclear themes of Kerényi’s thought: his idea of man as a being in relation, of Humanism as the model for knowledge, of religiosity as a structural dimension of man and of the inherent transcendence of the experience of life. This is accomplished through the consideration of Kerényi's work as a whole, emphasizing the evolution of the author’s thought throughout his life, and linking it to its historical context –presented as a complex and transdisciplinary intellectual landscape, relevant today– and the implications concerning the questions about Myth and Mythology. A special attention is given to the project of the School of Cultural Morphology, resulting from Goethe’s scientific proposals. We conclude by showing how, for Kerényi, the Sciences of Antiquity are disciplines whose object is existential and whose methodologies are to be projected from a morphological conception of Culture. As well, Mythology is a privileged spot for the depiction of the existential experience of man, for the reason that any interpretation of the divine implies simultaneously an anthropology. Keywords: Philosophy, Myth, Mythology, Karl Kerényi, Cultural Morphology, Archaeology, Philology, Romantic Science, Goethe.