Chapter 5 Collective Memory and Common Imagination – Archetypes in the Perspective of the Theory of Sign
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Abstract
In this paper the archetypes are explored as signs of cultural discourse which constitute both the collective memory and common imagination. From this perspective, the archetypes, as primordial images, which give the world the anthropomorphic stamp, and as psychoids which compose the matter of human consciousness and unconsciousness given by human biological nature, are mega-signs of any epistemological model and any cultural narration. Archetypes are pivotal in commemorating the past and inventing the future.
The archetypes are unveiled in anamnetical exploration of collective memory; that leads to revealing the structure collective unconsciousness. They are creations of common imagination. They have a heterogeneous and dialectical nature: archetypes are at the same time natural and cultural phenomena, expressed and perceived by everyone in very personal way, and on a common level by using collective media. An archetype is something which is to be perceived and recognized only by the presence of contents that are capable of conscious perception. So it is clear that archetype is dialectic in another way as well: it is something which has roots in an unconscious layer and something which creates the stratum generated from both the conscious experiences and unconscious feeling. Archetype is dialectic because it is something which should be consciously expressed in signs of a language and symbols of beliefs, and which could only affects the level of associations of subconscious and unnamed emotions.