오늘날 인류는 인공지능이라는 새로운 차원의 기술 도약을 목도하는 ‘불확실성의 시대’를 살고 있다. 인간 뉴런의 작동 방식을 모델링한 딥러닝과 멀티모달 시스템을 기반으로 한 현재의 AI 시스템은 수천 년간 인류가 쌓은 지식을 습득해, 창작의 영역까지 넘보고 있다. 나아가 인간 수준의 범용인공지능(AGI)을 거쳐, 스스로 진화하며 인류의 지성을 아득히 초월할 초인공지능(ASI)의 서막이 눈앞에 펼쳐지고 있다. 이러한 거대한 기술의 격변 속에서, 우리는 어디에서 ‘인간다움’의 의미를 찾아야 할까? 기계와 알고리즘이 세상의 모든 것을 설명하고 해결할 수 있을 것처럼 보이는 이 시대에, 우리는 어떻게 행복, 기쁨, 잠재력을 발견할 수 있는가? 세계적 신화학자 조지프 캠벨의 『신화와 의미』(필로스 시리즈 47번)는 이 질문에 ‘신화’라는 오래된 지혜로 답한다. 저자는 ‘고대 신화’란 기계적 논리로는 닿을 수 없는 인간 무의식의 심연을 비추는 나침반임을 역설한다. 캠벨은 특유의 직관적인 통찰을 통해, 신화적 사유의 힘을 우리 앞에 펼쳐 보인다.
Authors
Joseph Campbell was an American author and teacher best known for his work in the field of comparative mythology. He was born in New York City in 1904, and from early childhood he became interested in mythology. He loved to read books about American Indian cultures, and frequently visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where he was fascinated by the museum's collection of totem poles. Campbell was educated at Columbia University, where he specialized in medieval literature, and continued his studies at universities in Paris and Munich. While abroad he was influenced by the art of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, the novels of James Joyce and Thomas Mann, and the psychological studies of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. These encounters led to Campbell's theory that all myths and epics are linked in the human psyche, and that they are cultural manifestations of the universal need to explain social, cosmological, and spiritual realities. After a period in California, where he encountered John Steinbeck and the biologist Ed Ricketts, he taught at the Canterbury School, and then, in 1934, joined the literature department at Sarah Lawrence College, a post he retained for many years. During the 40s and '50s, he helped Swami Nikhilananda to translate the Upanishads and The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. He also edited works by the German scholar Heinrich Zimmer on Indian art, myths, and philosophy. In 1944, with Henry Morton Robinson, Campbell published A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake. His first original work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, came out in 1949 and was immediately well received; in time, it became acclaimed as a classic. In this study of the "myth of the hero," Campbell asserted that there is a single pattern of heroic journey and that all cultures share this essential pattern in their various heroic myths. In his book he also outlined the basic conditions, stages, and results of the archetypal hero's journey. Throughout his life, he traveled extensively and wrote prolifically, authoring many books, including the four-volume series The Masks of God, Myths to Live By, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space and The Historical Atlas of World Mythology. Joseph Campbell died in 1987. In 1988, a series of television interviews with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, introduced Campbell's views to millions of people.
