The Decline of the West is the theme for this essay and Campbell refers to a loss of form which was present in Athens but not in the larger social entities such as Rome, New York, London, and Paris. Freuds myth of the "Band of Brothers" is part of his conjectural history of the evolution of the civilising process and points to the taboo/law of equality. 1914 is the year Campbell believes the process of decline began but there is evidence that the process of decline began much earlier. Universities and their ceremonial rituals are not considered by Campbell.

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The discipline of Psychology is "trans-scientific" which might account for the "conceptual confusion" in the subject that Wittgenstein pointed to. In 1870 research in accordance with the definition "The Science of Consciousness" followed a reductionist program that truncated the broader concerns of Psychology. Sensations, feelings and behaviour replaced wider concerns for the idea of Psuché (forms of life)

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Science has a metaphysical (Philosophical) foundation which Campbell fails to recognise, preferring to focus instead of certain forms of technology not connected to the weapons of mass destruction the scientists have produced to solve essentially political problems. Freuds work and the History of Philosophy and Psychology are also marginalised by Campbells account

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Deciding to forget a traumatic experience involving violence such as the establishment of Athens might be a kind of sublimation of ones own anger at oneself. Such an act may have a cathartic aspect and as such be the last good act of a chain of evil consequences. The Historian, however, has a duty to remember that violence and be as accurate as they can be about the relevant events and their causes. The Angel of History bears witness to the accumulating faults of man with some trepidation.

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Freudian accounts of trauma and the compulsion to repeat until the trauma is "understood" and subjected to a process of catharsis are intimately connected to the themes of memory and forgetting. The Brain is obviously part of the material cause of the phenomena of remembering and forgetting but it is more the organisational structure of the brain more than particular areas that is the material substrate of even simple mental phenomena such as the perception of colours where, for example it is not distinct colours that disappear if damage occurs but rather the saturation of the entire colour spectrum.

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The work of remembering and the work of expectation are civilisation building and culture enhancing aspects of our "Being-in-the-world": the being in the world of the human psuché. The Bible, many philosophers argue including Spinoza, Kant and Wittgenstein, does contain a work of remembering but this might not be as complete as the more eschatological aspect of the work of expectation we encounter in Biblical texts, including the Gnostic Gospels.

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Nietzsche and the nihilstic force of the will to power and Collingwoods thesis that almost anything can be counted as historical evidence for anything sets the relativistic scene for Ricoeurs reflections. The categorical powers of understanding, judgement and reasoning are marginalised and called into question during Ricoeurs sceptical exploration of the trans-scientiifc discipline of History.

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The Work of remembering is not a work of the imagination but involves memory understanding, judgement and reasoning. Non Historical narratives may use the power of imagination to a greater degree when communicating aesthetic ideas of the artist via their works of art but here too there is a distinct presence of imperatively driven rational judgements.

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Delphic Podcast