Phenomenology and the Mythopoetics of Nature Bryan Smyth Abstract: This contribution considers the relation between myth and phenomenology, and contends that there is a positive mythopoetic moment concerning “nature” (qua to- tality of reality) at the heart of phenomenology. (1) Smyth first outline how the question concerning nature and myth emerges from within phenomenology in general methodo- logical terms concerning the analysis of the horizonal intentionality of the lifeworld, and how this points toward a normatively-oriented generative understanding of phenome- nology. (2) Drawing especially on the work of Hans Blumenberg, Smyth then clarifies, in terms of “significance,” the epistemic character of myth as an ineliminable sui generis feature of experience in general, and shows that the relevant generativity concerning the lifeworld coincides with the mythopoetic “work on myth” that Blumenberg identified as an essential aspect of mythic experience. (3) Smyth then considers an argument by Steven Crowell, which is directed against phenomenology adopting a mythic view of nature as opposed to the Enlightenment ideal of disenchanted meaninglessness. Replying to this argument will serve to confirm the appropriateness of a generative approach, and that the decisive factor to consider is the normativity of the projected sense of nature. (4) Smyth then concludes with some brief remarks concerning the stakes involved in the rapprochement with myth to which phenomenology as a critical philosophical project is methodologically committed. Keywords: Horizons, Lifeworld, Generativity, Hans Blumenberg, Steven Crowell It goes without saying that phenomenology, understood in broadly Husserlian terms, is a major part of the “continental” tradition in philosophy, and so when thinking about myth within that tradition, it important to consider phenome- nology’s relation to myth. 1 In this contribution, I will examine this relation and make the rather unorthodox claim that phenomenology’s relation to myth in- volves an unexpected affinity in the sense that phenomenology ultimately rests methodologically on what I shall call a mythopoetics of nature. At first blush, phenomenology’s relation to myth would appear to involve two different aspects. On the one hand, like most other contemporaneous phil- osophical traditions, phenomenology in general tends to situate itself as part of the project of modern Enlightenment and thus to have a fundamentally dispar- aging and even hostile attitude toward myth. Precisely in conceiving itself as a kind of logos, phenomenology takes itself to be premised on a sharp break with 1 A shorter version of this contribution was presented at a conference on The Philosophy of Mythology in the Continental Tradition, organized by Gregory S. Moss in the Department of Philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in May 2022. Uncorrected Proofs Please cite published version basmyth@olemiss.edu