The myth is the earliest type and form of consciousness and the reflection of the surrounding world in it. The peculiarities of the mythological worldview are that the myth itself is the earliest historical form of awareness of the surrounding reality by the individual. The myth brings together and intricately intertwined the initial knowledge of a person, the norms of regulation of individual and social thinking and behavior, as well as artistic and aesthetic criteria, emotional design and criteria for evaluating human activity.
Mythology, according to a number of scientists, appears before a modern person, not just as a kind of verbal creativity, the source of which is the human imagination. Mythology also has a motive not only for satisfying human curiosity and for finding answers to burning questions of life. The mythological worldview acts as an integral mechanism of the social regulation of society, moreover, an objective mechanism, since at some stage of its development, society begins to especially feel the need for such a regulator. In this capacity, the mythological worldview manifests itself as a way of preserving the natural and human harmony and psychological unity of people.
The specificity of the mythological worldview in this sense consists in the fact that it is generated and recreated in new generations not by rational logic and historical experience of previous generations, but fragmentary pictures of the world, which are of a purely individual and figurative nature. Within the framework of such a picture, nature, social phenomena are reflected and motivated to such a reflection only to the extent that there is a need for the people themselves in this reflection.
The mythological worldview at this stage of the formation of society is characterized mainly by ignoring the cause-effect methods of describing reality, as a result of which the picture of the world appears only in its spatio-temporal design (for example, in the unrealistic terms of people's lives, their degeneration and resurrection in a different quality, etc..).
The main thing in mythological consciousness is the image, which, in fact, differs mythology from philosophy, where rational thinking already prevails. Nevertheless, the myth presents the world to a person not just in the form of a fairy tale, but in such a way, where a certain higher authority is indisputably present. This factor subsequently becomes the basis for the formation of “pure” religions that distinguish themselves from mythology.
The mythological worldview has one more feature - in the myth there is always the presence of an undivided representation between the natural substance and the person himself. The social significance of this unity is embodied in the principles of collectivism, which argue that everything in this world is subject to, if the problem is solved collectively.
Based on these characteristics, it can be argued that the main function of mythological consciousness and worldview does not lie in the plane of cognitive activity, it is purely practical, and its main goal is to strengthen the solidity of society or part of it. Myth, unlike philosophy, does not raise questions and problems and does not require the individual to have a consciously conscious attitude to the environment.
But as practical knowledge accumulates, an objective need arises to systematize it already at the level of rational activity, and, therefore, theoretical. Therefore, the mythological consciousness first “dissolves” in the religious, and then gives priority to the philosophical, remaining, nevertheless, in the consciousness of each person in the form of mental representations of an ordinary level.
