In Praise of Polytheism
Über Monomythie und Polymythie) is an essay by the German philosopher Odo Marquard, which was held as a lecture at Technische Universität Berlin in 1978.
It also posits that the separation of powers and the individual have their origin in polytheism, and argues that people should embrace what Marquard calls "enlightened polymythical thinking"—the recognition of several stories in the modern world.
[4] They were inspired by the secularisation theorem associated with Carl Schmitt and Karl Löwith, which posits that there is a continuity between theology and secular politics or science.
[10] He thought it was crucial to recognise human finitude, promoted philosophical scepticism and pluralism, and opposed the absolutism found in German idealism.
Marquard believes when people recognise that myths are stories, it becomes possible to identify modern polymythical thinking, which exists in fields like the scientific study of history and in novels.
Marquard gave "In Praise of Polytheism" as a lecture at Technische Universität Berlin on 31 January 1978 as part of the colloquium Philosophie und Mythos (lit.
[26] He discussed his views on polytheism as a requisite for freedom and individuality in the 1988 essay "Sola divisione individuum—Betrachtung über Individuum und Gewaltenteilung" (lit.
[15] Gladigow wrote that the strong reaction to the subject resulted from a eurocentric and academic perspective, because among the world's population, only a minority adheres to nominally monotheistic religions.
[29] In 1983, Taubes published a response to "In Praise of Polytheism" where he wrote that Marquard should ask himself if he had not outlined a "philosophical choreography" for present-day "Kosmiker";[15][b] with this he referred to a group of mystics and neopagans with blood and soil tendencies, active in Munich at the turn of the 20th century.
[31][d] He connected Marquard's project to Alain de Benoist's book On Being a Pagan (1981) and thereby associated it with the neopaganism of the far-right Nouvelle Droite movement in France.
[33] He pointed to the neo-Kantian philosopher Hermann Cohen, who argued that the ego or soul originated with a development away from the "mythico-tragic view" of polytheism, and that this can be observed in Ezekiel 18.
Faber described the polytheism of ancient Greece as a self-destructive "oligotheism"—a theological oligarchy—that was destined to fail, and wrote that "pluralism has long become integralism (or rather: corporatism)".
[38] Due to the nationalist implications of Strauß' and Walser's texts, Schnurbein wrote that "Taubes' early critique of Marquard is not as far-fetched or one-sided as it might have seemed at the moment of its publication in 1983".
[38] From a Christian perspective, the Roman Catholic theologian Alois Halbmayr [de] wrote his 1998 doctoral dissertation as a response to Marquard's writings about polytheism and monotheism.
[40] The Lutheran theologian Klaus Koch wrote that "In Praise of Polytheism" is written in a "noble-philosophical diction" with the effect that "you don't know to what extent the matter is meant as serious", or if Marquard had been inebriated when he conceived it.
