1 From Knowing That to Believing In
In most accounts of knowledge, we are taught to distinguish belief from truth, and truth from justification. Knowing, in this model, is believing the right things for the right reasons — belief that p, where p is a proposition, and belief is judged epistemically valid if it corresponds with a fact and is formed through reliable means. This is the familiar territory of “justified true belief,” long considered the cornerstone of epistemology.
But something essential gets left out of this picture. There is another kind of mental orientation toward the world, one that shapes not what we claim to know, but what we hope for, desire, or commit ourselves to. This is the domain of desiderative meaning, and it asks not, Is this true? but What do I want to be true? or What must I act as though is true?
In this way, we can distinguish between:
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Belief that: a cognitive commitment, projecting propositions aligned with probability or usuality.
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Belief in: a desiderative commitment, projecting proposals aligned with obligation or inclination.
Both are semiotic processes, and both are central to human meaning-making — but only one is usually counted as “knowing.” In the relational view we’re developing here, this is an untenable divide.
Knowing with Desire
In the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), both knowing and desiring are types of mental process, and both project meaning. But they do so with different modal alignments. Knowing aligns with the domain of truth and likelihood, while desiring aligns with duty and want — two complementary axes of how we construe meaning potential.
Importantly, both kinds of mental process involve projection: we relate one clause to another in a way that constructs a secondary world — not the actual, but the possible, probable, obligatory, or hoped-for. In this sense, both “I know that it will rain” and “I hope that it will rain” are not just reports but acts of semiotic world-making.
So why has the cognitive dimension — knowing that — been treated as epistemology’s only proper concern?
A Lopsided Epistemology
The answer lies partly in the metaphysics of substance: if the world is made of fixed things and true facts, then knowledge must consist in aligning one’s beliefs with these facts. Desires, in contrast, are seen as subjective, internal, emotional — and thus irrelevant to the epistemic enterprise.
But this distinction collapses under relational scrutiny. If meaning arises through participation — if knowing is becoming-with — then there can be no sharp boundary between truth and value, or between cognition and commitment. Our acts of knowing are always already shaped by what we care about, what we fear, what we long for.
Belief-in, then, is not epistemic excess. It is a fundamental mode of participation in meaning.
Toward a Broader Epistemology
This series takes that proposition seriously. Over the coming posts, we will:
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Explore the modal dimensions of meaning — probability, obligation, inclination — and how they relate to knowledge.
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Re-examine myth not just as a cognitive schema (explaining the world), but as a desiderative structure (expressing hope, loss, longing).
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Recast the observer not as neutral recorder, but as participant, moved by desire as well as reason.
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And consider what it means to know not only about the world, but to know with it — in resonance, in commitment, in hope.
In short, we want to move beyond the epistemology of facts, and toward an epistemology of commitment. Not to abandon truth, but to enrich our account of what it means to be truthful — not only to the world, but to one another.
2 Mental Process Types and Modal Meaning
If our epistemology is to do justice to both belief that and belief in, then we need to take a closer look at how meaning is construed in language. Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) offers a powerful starting point through its categorisation of process types — the different ways that language represents experience.
Among these, mental processes are especially relevant to epistemology. They represent inner experience — what we perceive, think, feel, and want. SFL distinguishes four types of mental process:
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Cognitive (e.g. know, think, believe that)
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Perceptive (e.g. see, hear, notice)
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Desiderative (e.g. want, hope, wish)
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Emotive (e.g. like, fear, enjoy)
Each of these constructs reality in a different way, and each projects a different kind of clause — a different world.
What we know and think (cognitive processes) is not the same as what we hope or want (desiderative processes), and yet both types of mental process construct relations between subjects and projected meanings. These are not just private mental states, but semiotic acts — ways of making meaning.
Projection and Modality
In SFL, both cognitive and desiderative mental processes project a secondary clause — one that is not asserted directly, but posited as the content of thought or desire.
Compare:
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I think that it will rain.
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I hope that it will rain.
The projected clause is structurally similar, but modally distinct. One projects a proposition, evaluated for probability (likelihood), while the other projects a proposal, evaluated for inclination (want) or obligation (ought).
This distinction is crucial. It tells us that knowing and desiring are not only different mental orientations, but different modal relations to the world. When we believe that, we align ourselves with what we think is likely or true. When we believe in, we align ourselves with what we think is desirable, valuable, or necessary — regardless of its likelihood.
Modal Meaning as Epistemic Ground
Modality, in SFL, refers to a speaker’s orientation toward the validity of a clause. There are two broad types:
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Modalisation: concerned with propositions (statements), and expressed through probability or usuality.
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e.g. It will probably rain.
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e.g. She usually arrives late.
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Modulation: concerned with proposals (commands, offers, suggestions), and expressed through obligation or inclination.
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e.g. You must go now.
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e.g. I really want to help.
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In mental projection, these modal meanings get embedded in the subject’s interior world — not just what is, but what could be, should be, or must be, according to some inner compass.
And here’s the key: these modal meanings are not marginal. They are central to how we orient to the world, to one another, and to the future.
In privileging only modalisation — belief judged by likelihood — traditional epistemology narrows the field of knowing. It discounts how meaning is brought forth in the desire to act, to change, to hope, to belong. Desiderative mental processes bring modality to life in a different key.
The Semiotic of Desire
To recognise this is to understand belief-in not as epistemic failure or sentimentality, but as a different orientation to meaning. Desiderative mental processes construe a world not of facts, but of commitments — of what matters, of what calls us forth.
This is the neglected ground of much myth, religion, and ritual — not explanatory systems to be assessed for truth or falsity, but semiotic ecosystems of hope and obligation. We misunderstand them when we reduce them to propositions to be believed that they are true. What they do is help people believe in something — and thus to act, endure, transform.
And that, too, is a way of knowing.
3 Modal Worlds, Real and Imagined
Desiderative mental processes — like hope, wish, want, believe in — do not only reveal something about the speaker's interior state. They also project modal worlds: possible, desirable, feared, or idealised versions of the world that orient human action and meaning.
In this post, we explore how such modal worlds are not illusions or fantasies to be measured against a singular ‘reality’ but are themselves real in a different sense: semiotic realities that motivate, stabilise, and transform material life.
The Function of Modal Worlds
All social meaning is grounded in what we might call shared fictions — not because they are false, but because they are as-if realities: worlds that we orient to, negotiate within, and act upon.
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When someone says I believe in justice, they are not affirming a fact, but invoking a world — a world in which justice can be hoped for, fought for, and recognised.
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When someone says I hope to see my grandmother in the afterlife, they are not making a scientific prediction, but participating in a modal world whose structure is ethical, affective, and relational.
Modal worlds can be:
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Possible (It could happen)
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Desirable (I wish it would happen)
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Obligatory (It should happen)
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Feared (It must not happen)
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Enchanted (It always happens this way in stories)
These worlds are not secondary to ‘reality’; they mediate it. We move through life not only by perceiving what is, but by imagining what could or should be — and committing to it.
The Ontology of the Imagined
Our culture often contrasts ‘real’ with ‘imagined’ as if the latter is a diminished category. But from a relational and semiotic perspective, the imagined is not a retreat from reality, but an organ of orientation. It is part of how we live in time.
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We imagine futures to decide what to do.
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We imagine others' feelings to empathise.
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We imagine different selves to grow and change.
In this sense, imagining is a way of knowing — not just about the external world, but about what matters. Modal worlds are affectively charged, socially scaffolded, and historically inherited. They are not mere inventions of individual minds but shared and maintained by language, art, ritual, and belief.
To believe in something — whether it’s freedom, a better future, or divine grace — is to live as if that world is real enough to act on. And in that action, the modal becomes material.
Myth as Modal World
This is where myth enters not as primitive cosmology but as modal architecture. A myth does not need to be ‘believed’ propositionally to be meaningful. It evokes a world in which values are dramatised, orientations made visible, and life endowed with purpose.
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A myth tells us not just what happened, but how to live.
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It encodes not just facts, but desires, obligations, hopes.
To dismiss myth for lacking propositional truth is to miss its modality entirely. A modal world is not a false representation of what is; it is a relational invocation of what could be — a staging ground for ethics, emotion, and imagination.
Knowing Beyond Propositions
Modal knowing, then, is not concerned with likelihood alone, but with orientation — with how we situate ourselves in relation to possibilities. This is a kind of knowing that moves through hope, longing, promise, commitment. And it can be just as structured, just as meaningful, as propositional reasoning.
To believe in is not to deny reality, but to enact a relationship to it — a relationship shaped by values, desires, and the modal fabric of meaning.
4 Myth as Modal Architecture
In the previous post, we introduced the idea of modal worlds — possible, desired, feared, or idealised worlds that are brought forth by the desiderative mode of meaning. Now we turn to myth as a special kind of modal structure — not merely a story, but a way of orienting desire, value, and possibility.
Beyond Fact and Fiction
Myth is often misunderstood in modern discourse as a kind of failed science — an outdated attempt to explain the world before we had better tools. But this view presupposes that the purpose of myth is explanation in the propositional mode. From a relational perspective, this is a category error.
Myth does not aim to explain what is. It aims to enact what matters.
A myth constructs a world that:
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Shows what is worth striving for or guarding against.
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Dramatises the tensions between forces like love and power, chaos and order, sacrifice and survival.
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Positions the subject in relation to these tensions — as a hero, a pilgrim, a mourner, a supplicant.
In this sense, myth is modal architecture: it shapes the imaginative, ethical, and affective contours of the world we inhabit.
The Modal Grammar of Myth
Like any semiotic structure, myth has its own internal logic — not one of evidence and inference, but of orientation and enactment. Myths:
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Construe a beginning not to mark historical origin, but to set the terms of a world.
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Propose a telos — an end or aim — that is less about finality and more about value.
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Populate the world with forces, often personified, that represent modal oppositions: temptation vs duty, fate vs freedom, harmony vs transgression.
The result is not a static worldview but a living matrix in which meaning unfolds over time. Myths are dynamic: they are re-enacted, retold, ritualised — not to recall past events but to rehearse possibilities.
Belief in vs Belief that
When someone says I believe in the resurrection, they are not necessarily claiming a historical fact (belief that), but enacting a modal commitment (belief in). They are living toward a world in which death is not the last word. The difference is crucial:
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Belief that is cognitive, evidentiary, propositional.
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Belief in is relational, affective, ethical.
Myths operate primarily in the second register. They generate possibility spaces within which life can be oriented — and reoriented — in light of longing, loss, hope, or joy.
The Participatory Nature of Myth
To engage a myth is not to assess it, but to inhabit it. We do not stand outside it, judging its truth-value like a neutral observer. We enter it — not as dupes, but as participants in its drama.
This participation is not a matter of literal belief but of modal alignment. One lives as if the world disclosed by the myth is meaningful — and thereby brings it forth, not as delusion, but as semiotic reality.
In this way, myth is not a window onto an objective past, but a mirror that reveals what we value, fear, and strive for — and a map for orienting desire in a world of uncertainty.
Myth as a Technology of Desire
Modernity has sought to displace myth with method — to replace story with system. But desire cannot be methodically bracketed. It finds its way back through new myths: of progress, of nation, of romantic love, of personal branding. The question is not whether we live by myths, but which myths we live by, and whether we do so consciously or blindly.
A relational epistemology does not discard myth. It honours its role as a technology of desire — a way of shaping and sharing our orientations toward the possible, the good, the feared, and the sacred.
5 Literalism and the Violence of Interpretation
As we saw in the previous post, myth is not a statement of facts but a semiotic architecture for desire — a living map of possible worlds that orients meaning, value, and action. But what happens when this modal fabric is flattened? When the world of myth is no longer lived as if it were meaningful, but enforced as though it were fact?
This flattening is literalism, and its consequences are profound.
Literalism: A Collapse of Modal Awareness
Literalism is not simply a misunderstanding. It is a collapse of the modal distinctions that allow language — and life — to function relationally. Where myth opens a space of orientation and participation, literalism closes that space, reducing the polyphony of desire to a single voice of dogma.
In linguistic terms, literalism mistakes a proposal for a proposition, and a modal projection for a statement of fact. The mythic belief in becomes a propositional belief that — and this shift entails a profound change in the mode of knowing:
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The open-endedness of longing becomes a closed system of doctrine.
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The ethical encounter becomes an epistemic test of allegiance.
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The drama of transformation becomes a demand for affirmation.
The Violence of Certainty
This reduction is not neutral. It exerts a kind of epistemic violence, because it enforces a single interpretation as the only legitimate access to meaning. It denies the relational nature of understanding and replaces it with compliance. This violence can take many forms:
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Doctrinal enforcement: Believe that the story is true, or be excluded.
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Hermeneutic control: Interpret the text this way, or be condemned.
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Affective policing: Feel this way about the myth, or be accused of irreverence.
Literalism closes the gap between map and terrain — and then punishes those who notice the difference.
The Myth of Objectivity
Literalism is often defended as a form of reverence — fidelity to the truth of the tradition. But paradoxically, it is a modern deformation of myth, shaped by the same epistemic assumptions it claims to resist:
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It treats myth as information to be transmitted, rather than a world to be inhabited.
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It treats knowledge as possession, rather than participation.
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It confuses semantic fidelity (literal meaning) with modal resonance (relational significance).
In doing so, it imports the epistemology of science — clarity, certainty, reproducibility — into domains where ambiguity, multivalence, and transformation are essential.
Literalism, in this sense, is not too ancient but too modern.
Recovering the Relational Space
To move beyond literalism is not to abandon myth. It is to recover its modal power — its ability to orient and re-orient desire, not by force of fact, but by the ethical and imaginative pull of meaning. This requires:
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Holding myth lightly — not as an object of possession, but as a living practice.
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Honouring its affective force — its capacity to move, trouble, or transfigure us.
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Welcoming multiple readings — not as threats, but as invitations to deeper participation.
In this way, we can recover what literalism obscures: that myth does not demand belief, but invites us into a relation — a shared orientation toward what matters most.
6 Desire and the Ethics of Interpretation
Interpretation is never neutral. It is shaped not only by what we know, but by what we want — our desires, fears, longings, and ethical commitments. To interpret myth, then, is not just to assign meaning, but to position oneself in relation to meaning. It is, inescapably, an ethical act.
In this post, we explore the often-overlooked role of desire in interpretation — not only what the text means to us, but what we hope to find, fear to lose, or seek to preserve in the act of interpreting it.
Beyond Hermeneutics of Suspicion
Much modern interpretation, especially in critical theory, has been animated by what Paul Ricoeur called a hermeneutics of suspicion — an orientation that seeks to unmask hidden ideologies, false consciousness, or oppressive structures. While this approach has yielded important insights, it often presumes:
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That meaning is hidden and must be uncovered.
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That the interpreter stands outside the text.
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That desire is delusion or distortion, to be overcome.
But desire is not always a danger to meaning. Sometimes it is what opens the space of meaning in the first place.
Desire as Interpretive Horizon
Desire orients interpretation because it discloses what matters. It shapes not only what we notice in a myth, but how we respond to it:
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The one who hopes for redemption will read a myth of descent differently from the one who fears judgment.
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The one who longs for communion will interpret symbols of unity with different affect than the one who fears loss of self.
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The one who suffers will not read the promise of transformation as a mere metaphor.
Desire does not cloud meaning; it constitutes its relevance. We do not interpret despite our desires — we interpret through them.
Myth and the Ethics of Response
To treat interpretation as ethical is to ask not just “What does this mean?” but also:
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“What does this ask of me?”
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“What kind of world does this myth make possible or impossible?”
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“Who is excluded, harmed, or uplifted by this reading?”
This means recognising that:
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Some readings are not wrong, but unjust — they marginalise, erase, or oppress.
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Some readings are not true, but transformative — they enable life to be lived differently.
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Some readings are not authorised, but responsible — they bear the weight of care.
Interpretation is thus not merely epistemological. It is existential and ethical: it reveals who we are in relation to what we read.
Desire, Responsibility, and Participation
When we understand desire as an ethical horizon of interpretation, we recover the relational nature of knowing. We are no longer observers extracting meaning from myth, but participants co-creating meaning in light of our desires and responsibilities.
This calls for:
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Humility: Recognising the limits of one’s own reading.
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Reverence: Honouring the depth and affective weight of myth.
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Dialogue: Welcoming other desires, other interpretations, other worlds.
And above all, it calls for care — not only in how we interpret, but in how we live what interpretation reveals.
7 Myth as Transformative Orientation
In the end, myth is not simply a story we tell about the world. It is a way of orienting ourselves within the world — shaping how we perceive, how we feel, how we act, and what we become. It is a map, not of geography, but of possibility.
In this concluding post, we bring together the threads of epistemology, modality, and desire to frame myth not as static belief, but as a living orientation toward transformation — both individual and collective.
Myth as Modal Compass
Throughout this series, we have distinguished two modal grounds of myth:
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Epistemic: Concerned with truth, probability, evidence — “Is this what happened?”
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Deontic/desiderative: Concerned with values, obligations, hopes — “Is this the world I long for?”
When we treat myth epistemically, it becomes belief — to be confirmed or denied.
When we treat myth desideratively, it becomes orientation — to be lived into or resisted.
This shift reveals that myth is less a description of reality than a proposal for living. It does not merely represent the world; it opens worlds.
Myth and Transformative Knowing
A myth that truly orients us does more than tell us what is — it transforms what can be. It becomes:
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A way of seeing ourselves and others anew.
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A source of courage in times of despair.
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A frame through which action gains coherence and consequence.
Knowing myth, in this sense, is not a matter of having facts, but of being grasped — and moved — by meaning. It is a form of knowing-with: with the body, with the heart, with the community, with the Earth.
Myth and Ethical Becoming
Because myth shapes how we live, it bears an ethical weight. A transformative orientation is not just one that feels meaningful — but one that:
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Respects difference.
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Cultivates responsibility.
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Enables flourishing across boundaries of self and other.
In this light, the question is not “Is this myth literally true?” but:
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“What kind of person does this myth invite me to become?”
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“What kind of community does it imagine?”
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“What world does it make possible?”
Such questions restore myth to its relational role: as a medium of becoming-with — not just knowing-about.
Beyond Belief
If belief says, “I hold this to be true,” and doubt says, “I am not sure,” then orientation says, “I will walk this path.”
This is where myth lives: not in the certainty of facts, nor the insecurity of doubt, but in the courage of participation.
In a fractured world, myths that invite care, transformation, and solidarity are not optional luxuries. They are vital acts of ethical imagination — ways of opening what might yet be.
Closing the Series
This series has suggested that myth is not simply a mode of knowing, but a modality of living. To honour it is not to explain it away, nor to enforce belief, but to recognise how deeply it touches desire, guides becoming, and sustains relation.
In rethinking myth beyond belief, we recover its power as an ethical and existential orientation — one that enables us not just to interpret the world, but to live it otherwise.
Series Reflection: From Knowing About to Living With
This series set out to explore a deceptively simple premise: not all knowing is belief, and not all myths aim to be believed. What began as a distinction between epistemic and desiderative modalities soon unfolded into a deeper inquiry — into the nature of meaning, orientation, and the ethical stakes of what we know and how we live.
What Did the Series Reveal?
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Modal Plurality
The dominant Western tendency to treat knowledge as propositional belief blinds us to the rich diversity of mental processes. Desiderative modes — wanting, hoping, believing in — are not deviations from rational knowing but essential modalities of being-in-the-world. -
Myth as More Than Belief
When viewed solely through an epistemic lens, myth becomes a primitive hypothesis. But when viewed through a desiderative lens, myth becomes a participatory orientation — one that calls us, forms us, and transforms us. -
The Observer as Desirer
We are not just observers of meaning but desiring participants in meaning-making. Our longings shape what we notice, value, and commit to — and thus shape reality as lived. -
Myth and World-Making
Myth is not about returning to a fantasy past but about animating a liveable future. Its truth lies not in its literal accuracy, but in its capacity to call forth new possibilities for ethical co-existence.
How Has This Extended Our Epistemology?
The relational epistemology we’ve been developing is no longer just about knowing-with — it now includes hoping-with, believing-with, and becoming-with. Myth, from this view, is not merely a container of meanings but a relational process that unfolds between participants, desires, values, and time.
Just as belief seeks coherence with reality, hope seeks resonance with possibility. And both are shaped not in isolation, but in co-emergent relation with others — human and more-than-human.