Plato was never a mythmaker

[kavaris]

Where did the idea Plato wrote myths even come from?

(Warning: This is a long one, so bear with me) Do you know about this weird idea people have: "Oh, Plato was a mythmaker, he just wrote stories and created situations for people to play with.. he portrayed/interpreted situations the way he liked", like, in other words, Plato was out here creating Philosophy and writing myths at the same time. First of all, where did that idea even start, because Plato has never said he was a mythographer or someone who created stories (for the sake of...)

The entire purpose of the Theory of Forms was to separate "knowing something" from "opinion"~or to ground the notion of "how to know something" in some framework that others could look to. But in all of this, people who are suppose to be like, understanding Plato are out here like, "Oh, you know, Plato was writing lies and mythology for people to contemplate~stories about politics and imagined scenarios, cities and situations". Really?

That does not describe Plato in even the slightest way like, what are they talking about, first of all. Second of all, when has Plato ever written outside of his dialogue form, or rather, when has he ever gone outside of his usual writings or "accounts of what others have said"? Everything hes written has been as a Dialogue. Like that IS what Plato's work is, its dialogue. And that IS what Platos whole thing is, its to "get at the truth".

So when it comes to Plato, he is literally creating "Philosophy" as a counter to the "Sophists" of the time, hence "Philo-sophy", because the Sophists of the time did not care about truth. The point im trying to make here is that, Plato is not out here writing myths. Plato specifically is trying to portray his work in a dialogue format, and writing about it in a way where he can participate outside of "his own opinion", while more directly and forwardly emphasizing "direct accounts of", so that he can tell the tales as they happened, or he can say "what a person had said" or "how the argument went". THATS the whole point of the dialogue format.

That is what the purpose of dialogue IS! It is so that the writer does not have to rely on their own judgements or their own words. That isnt to say then that Plato doesnt have "constructed forms" of his own interpreted thoughtforms, philosophies or dialogues, for he requires an outlet for the Story/Myth of Er from Plato's Republic, about the afterlife and judgment, Phaedrus, which is on the structure of the soul, and then there's Atlantis, i.e., Plato's Timaeus / Critias.

But in regards to the notion of the story itself and the "political" connotation they often assoc. it w/, Plato has separate works dedicated to stuff like that, for the dialogue between Timaeus and Critias is more about like, philosophical authority and mathematics and the cosmos, et caetera

I mean, when we refer to some of Plato's constructed dialogues like the Myth of Er, we are calling it a myth, but myths and fictional stories are two different things. So that has to be the FIRST and foremost thing to understand, like. We cannot look at or interpret any other Greek text until we separate myth from fiction first and foremost.

Outside of Plato, there are others who speak in a more poetic and flowing style that uses myths for descriptive language reasons, but in PLato's texts, he is simply reporting on the language~the style that others had~or wouldve spoken in at the time. Its not pure construction, not at all, and certainly not in Timaeus and Critias. But again, thats not to say that he doesnt construct things into a form for his reasoning. But he has separate works for everything, thats all im saying, and thats all yous have to know right now.

The other main point was that myth does not equal fiction, nor does it equal a tale meant to introduce "imagined cities" or anything like that. In fact, "imagination" was seldom ever expressed in Ancient Greek texts. You mostly hear about things in story form, even outside of Plato and his dialogues. So if you consider "stories" to be works of imagination, even when they are of non-fiction, then thats fine. But then you have to figure out how to refer to things thereafter, cause it will be very confusing if everything is "a work of imagination" (such is the field of Philosophy~which is meant to help in discretizing some of these very knotted-up concepts and terms)

So lets continue. But before i describe that repetitive text in Timaeus and Critias, i want to explain Platos use of the following terms. This is what allows him to create distinctions throughout all of his writing, allowing the reader to be cognizant of what mode we're in so to speak. He is consistently distinguishing between: ἐπιστήμη, episteme, "knowledge", δόξα, doxa, "opinion" and μῦθος, mythos. And if you have read other works outside of Plato, there are many poets, many comedy/play writers, many involved in rhetoric/grammar as well as  early alchemists using myth for personification and such.

Many of them do include myths as a form of descriptive language~the same way we use similes and idioms for things, they instead would use mythology to help elaborate on ideas around a character, like to \*compare and contrast something. I could give you an example: Many writers of Ancient Greek are writing~centuries later~on the eye-witness accounts of those events on Alexander the Great and the situations surrounding him, and they might say something like~and im paraphrasing~"he exuded the idealized traits of Achilles" or something to that general effect. Thats the kind of comparison they would make for someone like him.

So let me just say, first of all, Critias is the only who has a connection to politics, mainly as a member of the aristocratic Athenian family, Ἀλκμαιωνίδαι or Alcmaeonidae, but hes not talking politics in the story. In the story, Critias is the one explaining to Timaeus~a Pythagorean philosopher from Locri, Italy, about the stuff that Timaeus is interested in, cosmos and the universe, like sortve like what we use Actualized dot.org for, things of this nature. And then he starts to lead into this thing (which im not gonna repeat, as yous now know it by heart), but i am gonna read to yous the part leading into it:

Priest says - "You Athenians are like children; your history is short, and you do not know the great events that happened long before you. Even we Egyptians, with all our records, do not fully remember our own past."

~"Solon, having heard this from the priests, recounted it to his family. I, Critias, received the story in turn and will now tell it to you " —

Where "tell it to you" means, Critias is now speaking to the other characters present, primarily Timaeus and Socrates, because Socrates presumably popped in the background like "Hey guys, i wanna be part of the story too, let me in the group circle!" And, that is me being silly. Humor exits the stage. \*Bub Hub!\*

Anyway, what was my point again? Plato knows how, like.. There's plenty of others who are speaking in this way (i call it a "mytholological" way, w/ two "lo's" in there to encode the secondary characteristic "of the mythologians"), so now... When we hear people talk about Plato, they want to try and conflate this notion of "fact v. fiction" with "descriptive language" or "the descriptive use of MYTH by the Ancient Greeks". People dont understand, that like, most of the time, the Ancient Greeks are speaking very plainly and rhetorically, and laying everything out as clearly as possible.

There are some fascinating aspects to those Ancient Greeks and the way they are preserving/presenting myths. For one, Greek myth worked like a memory system. Myths encode (and continue to encode) place names like Γάδειρα, Gades, and they are akin to echoes of events, like an invasion or collapse of a civilization, or thee subsequent migrations/displacements thereafter. They encode all types of knowledge transfer from older cultures (Egypt, Near East).

In conclusion, Greeks like Plato realize dhow important Philosophy was, and how it would help us communicate these difficult-to-phrase concepts. The same is true about the myths, as they used myths as stories~representing various things at once. ALSO, they could use them for compare/contrast, descriptive language, things like this.

So I just was trying to get yous to really understand that the myths have more to them then what meets the eye. The GREEKS themselves have more to them then what meets the eye; but until people start to really/truly understand Plato, they wont really see Plato and Ancient Greek in the right light; For Plato influenced how many areas of study? And now finally, we'll start towards those Ancient Greek texts (eventually, as it requires "time") and learning of others outside of Plato (theres SO many writers, i promise you), to demonstrate just how Greek myth works, both as a form of encoded history and as a tool for writing.

Edited yesterday at 04:04 PM by kavaris

[Joseph Maynor]

What inspires me about Plato is essentially he's an artist.  He's a dramatist.  The philosophy is presented thru drama.  What he shows is kinda the opposite of Descartes who thought philosophy could be done in an armchair or Aristotle who thought philosophy is an abstraction from voluminous facts.  Plato realized philosophy is a kind of performance art.  People miss this when they focus on the arguments in his work.  It's more like a dramatist exposing a philosophical set of plays than an analyst trying to make a point.   

[kavaris]

8 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

What inspires me about Plato is essentially he's an artist.  He's a dramatist.  The philosophy is presented thru drama.  What he shows is kinda the opposite of Descartes who thought philosophy could be done in an armchair or Aristotle who thought philosophy is an abstraction from voluminous facts.  Plato realized philosophy is a kind of performance art.  People miss this when they focus on the arguments in his work.  It's more like a dramatist exposing a philosophical set of plays than an analyst trying to make a point.   

Yes. Exactly!... AND i will give you one other element to boggle your mind. Plato was not the only one to mention Atlantis. You might know this, but Atlantis was being talked about like the way Athens is talked about. Diodorus Sicilus tells us, at some point, Atlantis was conquered by the Amazonians (not the Amazon of S.America) who i wanna say came in from Libya-And this tracks w/ Libya's relationship w. the area on/near the coast of Spain (historically) they have been at war for thousands of years. And so everything is there for us to be entertained by, but to realize the deeper aspect, which is how there is a truth, and underlying philosophy or theory or method waiting to be utilized for said interpretation of the truth (or else, what wouldve been the point of the myths, right?)

(p.s. u sometimes have these things where its like, describing more of an event thats like~geological/climate-related or a seasonal event~or something allegorical/philosophical as suggested by Derveni Papyrus - LDAB7049, but still using characters like Zeus, or Eros, Etc., characters like this, to represent aspects of the Earth and the Cosmos)

Hermes encapsulates the mean of interpretation: Greek ἑρμηνεύς, hermeneus, which means interpreter, translator, explainer; then there's hermeneutics, the theory or method of interpretation, and someone who's a "hermeneut" is someone practicing or partaking in said theory or method of interpreting. And then, theres also the meaning of "myth": There's whats called "etiological myth" (myths that specifically "give a reason for") and a "myth origin", which is a type of myth that explains the beginning on the natural aspect(s) of the world. A "creation myth" is one *type* of myth origin; As the term "myth" is specifically assoc. w/ "stories that start from the episode of a creation", therefore, a *myths* are quite different from folktales, folklore, legends and fairytales (as we dont realize)

So everything you are saying absolutely is correct:
"✔ The philosophy is presented thru drama"
"✔ Plato realized philosophy is a kind of performance art"
"✔ People miss this when they focus on the arguments in his work"
"✔ It's more like a dramatist exposing a philosophical set of plays than an analyst trying to make a point"

Edited 3 hours ago by kavaris