Abstract

The essay provides a critical presentation of the link between myth and politics, in a theoretical and historico-conceptual perspective. While for the "Dialectic of Enlightenment" reason is already within myth, the Author suggests that myth is rather placed within the horizon of (speculative) reason. The dialectic between myth and "logos" anticipates the one between transcendence and immanence. Every legitimation entails a «mythical» excess, a presumption of sense and a mean productive of belief, primarily in the intrinsic value of political association. The Author argues that the persistence - or translation - of myth into "logos" has been politically productive also for mature modernity. Finally, the Author develop the question concerning the place of myth today, when the mythical core of western rationalism seems to have consumed both its propulsive forces and the symbolic resources for supporting autonomous political subjectivities.