Another brilliant post. In the world of mythology, nothing is certain for sure. Now I believe I have developed a methodology of myth rationalization, not so different then what has been practiced for 2000 years. I am certain that most scholars would look at this "myth-rationalization" pratice as misinterpretation. Although Plato, via Socrates, seems to apply a similar practice in Protagoras. In fact part of the second half of Timaeus, these guys are running through Orphic Mythology, with Oceanus, etc... trying to interpret what they've read. And I'm sure I've got certain things wrong, and sure Plato did too(Tyrhenia/Aeolian islands, etc...)

Sometimes a myth is just a myth. The odds that I've gotten something right are probably less than 50%. And my methodology is largely trial-and-error... and I've made a lot of mistakes along the way.

"I still think it's as mythical as Harry Potter's Hogwarts."
-- Agreed.

"The focus of the story isn't a vanished kingdom."
-- Correct, otherwise more effort by Plato or Solon should have been made to locate the place. The location should be irrelevant; however, I've tied it to another myth Prometheus Bound, which forces the relevancy, because of Io. (if I've gotten the location correct).

Egyptologists have gone looking for this colony of Io in the past and have come up short. But I can't tell from the myths whether this is 20 people or 1,000 people (these Greco-Egyptians).

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"a storytelling framework for larger philosophical questions."
-- Hermione has quoted a source in the past and said something about the "ideal". Perhaps that would be a fun debate (where I "may" have a chance of defeating that argument. As for the phrasing "larger philosophical questions", I can't see a way to debate that, yeah, no question.

Note: It doesn't matter that Hermione quoted this argument, however, this ideal stuff is on of the reasons for making the Atlantis tale into the later writings of Plato.

It could be argued, perhaps unsuccessfully, that a linguistic review combined with a comparison of the participants, ie. Critias appears in Charminides and Protagoras, earlier writings. ... this evidence could be used to present these Atlantis tales in earlier writings, and not near the end, as is accepted by schollars.
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"it gets tangled up with prejudices and knowledge; what you know of the place and what you think of the inhabitants."
-- I have my biases, no question. Certainly any war, one guy is the good guy and the other is the bad guy, and if you read the history from the other side, it reverses.
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"Plato (or Socrates) says this explicitly in one of the writings... that if you want to make a tale, craft it in some place unknown to the audience."
-- Certainly reasonable. I don't remember the quote, though... I'll have to look for it.
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Byrd,
The interaction is great so far. You're doing a good job of letting me work this out, and contributing to a fun dialogue as well. Keep it up.
Rich

ps. Sorry for going off the deep-end here with schollarly stuff on Plato (perhaps, I'm trying to bring Hermione back into the discussion )



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/2009 11:08PM by rich.