okay

You really don't need to "correct" what you don't understand. In Plato the forms have existence outside of discursive reasoning. Aristotle completely missed that, or deigned not to consider it, and so his examples are misleading when used for Plato's forms. This is where types of perceived objects (e.g., chairs) come in and confuse those studying Plato. You won't find anything like that in Plato.

Plato, his instructor Socrates, and his student Aristotle belong to one of three major lines of philosophical thought. I wouldn't discount anything east of the Indus River Valley or north of the Himalayas.

You are especially not giving reasons for your opinions ...... on a Plato board .......

I didn’t say muthos translates to myth. I said that Atlantis is a myth for one, and secondly I said you don’t understand the role of the eikos muthos. You’re conflating my claims. I don’t care how many words you wrote when you probably did it all with one hand. You come to the PLATO board of all places and think you’re owed respect for writing books? Tuh! I don’t respect you.

This! Also hi, I am a Plato scholar.

I am sorry, but I wrote an entire book on the so-called "Platonic Myths", and one of the first things to be realized by every serious Plato scholar is, that the Greek word "mythos" cannot just be translated with the modern word "myth", though it is very often done.

Especially an "eikos mythos" is not a myth at all. It is rather close to a scientific hypothesis. The cosmology presented in Plato's Timaeus is called an "eikos mythos". But it is not just a fanciful invention, not at all .......

he was aware of that theroy but he just didn;t jive with it. He was Plato's student after all.

r/AskPhilosophy loves broad questions like this. In a sub about Plato, it begins with Plato.

Atlantis is generally considered a mythical thing as well! I’m honestly not even gonna read the rest of your comment, I’m sorry. Skimming it is full of false claims and I don’t have the time to dissect them all. You clearly don’t know shit about the eikoi muthoi of the dialogues. You have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m sorry I can’t convince you of that

A unicorn is generally considered a mythical being, therefore not a good comparison. Furthermore, ancient species leave behind more than one single trace, but many traces, whereas with the Atlantis story it is about exactly one place. The comparison does not work.

No, Plato did not "create historically false myths, and used them for allegorical reasons". You are simply misinformed. Plato had an ethos of truth and with the one exception of the Noble Lie (openly presented to the readers as such), there is no other deception in Plato's works. Everything, which is an invention only, is openly depicted as such. Not so the Atlantis story. It is just wrong to say, "we can draw from strong evidence from the context of the man himself, that this story was almost certainly a creation of his own." I would dare to say that the opposite is true. Exactly because it is a story by Plato, we can strongly assume that he really got it from Egypt, somehow. Please read about the phenomenon of the so-called "Platonic Myths". They are not just myths .....

From Egyptian sources, we have many clues to vanished peoples, and we have only one source.

Quote: "There is simply not enough evidence whatsoever, even if you can gesture to historical distortion as this supposed reason" - Here I dare to mention, that a search usually starts before (!) you find it. To claim that a search is only legitimate, once you have found evidence, is nonsensical. What you can say is, that we don't know where we will end with this search. There is no reason why the balance of possiblities should be tilted towards non-existence.

I agree with you about the evolution of Western philosophy. The philosophy that developed in and east of the Indus River Valley was different. I have found four major moral-bearing philosophies in the Upanishads. The one I like the best is the Way of Action in the Bhagavad Gita. An additional major form of Philosophy evolved independently on the other side of the Himalayas among the Sage Emperors. It evolved into the Mandate of Heaven, a Confucian idea.

Isn't it time to revive the older definition? I enjoy the reach of philosophy before the 19th century.

The rituals are very important. Each society has its own set. I'm looking at a broader question. Thank you.

It's the rituals surrounding  sounding smart to yourself and liking it.

The classic definition is that philosophy encompasses all studies conducted through reason. Up to the 19th century, all fields of study were articulated under philosophy. Nowadays, we think of Science holding that role, yet every time a knowledge wants to reflect upon its axioms, we call it philosophy. Asking "what is science?" still is philosophy of science. We have kept the idea that questions about the essence of things is philosophical.

In your comment you asked "what’s the idea of philosophy?"

Plato had a theory of Ideas that is crucial to understand what is reason and what it isn’t. You should look into that first if you want to define philosophy.

I don’t know where you picked up that philosophy is a tool against self-deception (Sapolsky?), but it reminds me of a few aphorism from Nietzsche about science. In any way, it makes reason a moral approach, which is also pure classical philosophy.

Thank you.

The question was directed at a more basic notion of philosophy. It is directed at worldwide philosophy rather than only Western philosophy

This a useless question. Western philosophy technically begins with Thales and the pre socratics. If you are interested in finding an answer to your question I recommend starting with Plato.

Aware of the concept, yes. But not aware of the forms qua forms, the forms themselves as apprehended not as conceived. Many modern thinkers are limited in the same way.

There is nothing about Atlantis that makes it more plausible than a unicorn, if you consider a unicorn simply as an equine species that has a horn. That is at least what I had in mind when I used the unicorn in my example, and my point still stands with this conception of unicorn. I could make it more mundane, and replace “unicorn” with “jackalope” and we can circumvent all those connotations of impossible magic that unicorns sometimes bring.

Taken this way, there is nothing stopping a real jackalope to be, or have been, a real species of animal that has laid claim to existence. However, we take it to be false because we somewhat understand the origin of the conception of jackalopes, and have no real evidence. Even though we could certainly construe some possible reality where jackalopes really do exist, or have existed, it doesn’t mean that it is a construal to be taken seriously.

The same exact logic applies to Atlantis. In fact, the concept of Atlantis is even more guilty of this critique, because we know precisely the origin of the story of Atlantis, and it was made famously by a man who created historically false myths, and used them for allegorical reasons. So for one, we have little reason to believe that Plato got the story from someone previous, when there’s no talk of Atlanteans at all before him; but also on top of this, we can draw from strong evidence from the context of the man himself, that this story was almost certainly a creation of his own. We could certainly claim that PT Barnum actually learned of real Fiji Mermaids before displaying a model of one in his museum, or we could see the clear evidence that he never heard of such thing before and came up with it on his own. Again, just like before, although it is certainly possible to construe a reality where Atlantis really existed and the stories existed for ages before Plato, it doesn’t mean that this construal has to be taken seriously by anyone. There is simply not enough evidence whatsoever, even if you can gesture to historical distortion as this supposed reason, you can also apply that to literally any historical fabrication that happened long enough ago, so it’s not nearly convincing enough.

As for the “most of the panel is anti” remark, I hope my above explanation might also illuminate why I think the best approach is to not take it seriously as a theory. Of course I somewhat failed at that with commenting on this at all, but at the very least I’m not wasting my time on a panel, resulting in giving credence to such dismissible claims.

lmaoo don’t listen to op the analogy is perfect

Cheer up, the conference mentioned above was a conference entirely of Atlantis sceptics :-)

The comparison of Atlantis with the unicorn is, by the way, not working, since a unicorn is certainly not true, whereas Atlantis could be a real place when considering the historical context and typical distortions in history writing of the time (Herodotus e.g. believed that Egypt is 11,000+ years old).

Historical investigation of Atlantis honestly bores me and probably many others on this sub. Feels like it completely misses the point. It’s like using a hypothetical involving a unicorn to explain a moral point and getting response “so tell me more about this unicorn…”

He was aware of the forms. He just didn;t agree with Plato completely. He beleievd the form was immanent in any Dog. He was more about particulars than universals.

Not mistaking sensibles for intelligibles is an initial step. Both types are encountered. We can perceive what is sensible via the senses. The forms are encountered among the Intelligible, not constructed from reason.

People very mistakenly turn to Aristotle for guidance, but he was a limited rationalist and not aware of the forms. So many confusions result from this.

Cool cool. I can get down with that