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Magic, categorization and folk metaphysics. Towards cognitive theory of magic

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Kajfosz J.
Český lid: etnologický časopis (Český lid: Ethnological journal)
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2008
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vol. 95
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issue 4
355-368
EN
It is the aim of this work to interpret magical thinking as a strong tendency towards categorization, towards simplification of an infinitely diverse reality and of its modifications, and its reduction to a limited number of static prototypes. In magical thinking similitude and contact (adjacency) are not only crucial principles of the human cognition; moreover they have their ontological dimensions: they direct the course of the world. Numerous examples of human conduct that are motivated by the laws of magic can be found not only in systems and their elements mentioned in canonical studies of magic (Frazer, Mauss) or in Eliade's phenomenology of religion, but also in texts concerning European medieval and folk culture (Gurevich) or contemporary popular culture (astrology, prophecies etc.). Different phenomena of magical thinking like recurring time, imitations of extra-mundane models or of the past deeds can be described and explained by means of cognitivism. Various forms of popular metaphysics are also based on the tendency towards categorization. It is a tendency to eliminate everything particular and variable, and to inspell what is general and certain. Magical thinking does not acknowledge coincidence or probability, since everything is considered here necessary and can be instantly explained.
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Obraz przeszłości w percepcji magiczno‑mitycznej, czyli pamięć w działaniu

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Kajfosz J.
Politeja : Pismo Wydziału Studiów Miedzynarodowych i Politycznych Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
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2015
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issue 4(35)
27-40
EN
The aim of the paper is to identify a specific type of cognitive conduct, which can be called magical-mythical perception and thinking. It is based on a relevant habitus and its principle is indistinctness (blending, blurring), where differences between diverse phenomena, memory images and notions disappear in perception and imagination, as well as between denotation and connotation. Such an indistinctness can have considerable impact on social memories. The author identifies in such a cognitive conduct the possible key to the following questions: How is it possible that we can perfectly adopt different representations of the past and internalize them as our past? How can we reconcile different representations of the past and how is it possible that diverse representations of the past merge in one social memory? Such amalgamations of various forms of representations and diverse scales of objectification can be clarified by means of the theory of magic and by means of Roland Barthes´ theory of myth. The main proposition of the paper is to identify, for the first, the unconscious structure (a habitus formed in the historical process), which defines a manner of experiencing the world, speaking about the world and making choices in that world. For the second, the criteria a person uses to select and evaluate narratives about the past.
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