Michael Hemmer: Final Takeaways and How I View Myth Now

     This was my first semester taking a philosophy class. I'm not sure what I expected, but I definitely enjoyed the experience. Thinking mythically is fairly intuitive for me, so I really enjoyed defining and identifying the purpose of myth as well as our exploration of the phenomenology beneath it. I had read some C.S. Lewis before the class, but came to a much better understanding of how he thinks and communicates in his fiction. I had also never read the full Narnia series so that was a joy to read all the way through. I had wondered why C.S. Lewis would use pagan ideas to communicate what he viewed as Christian truth in some of his works, but understand why he used myth as a means of communication. Now I view myth as a means of communicating truth through storytelling. This can afford the creator many advantages as they can manipulate the story to represent truth better than history sometimes does. This class was my fourth lecture of the day, but still always managed to be engaging and worthwhile even though it was 3 hours long. Thanks for a great semester Dr. Redick!

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