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Worth noting Atlantis wasn’t some widely known legend like Troy. We literally only know it from Plato, who used it as a moral fable. No Greek historian mention

• civilitty 3y ago
  A surprising number of the cultural myths that have entered western canon were born out of obvious fiction. The Holy Grail and Fountain of Youth being prime examples.
  • nicup12345689 3y ago
    That's why it's called myth, no need to point out the obvious?
• emblaegh 3y ago
  I'd be very careful about assuming the legend was made up by Plato just because it's not widely attested in writings of the time. It's likely that most of stories from oral tradition have never been put down to writing, and most of those who did were probably lost through the filter of time (along with the vast majority or ancient Greek literature).
  • andsoitis 3y ago
    Which do you think is more likely: - Plato conceived of it a as part of an allegory on the hubris of nations, OR - it actually was real and there’s zero evidence for it
    • rustymonday 3y ago
      Plato says that the story is absolutely true multiple times. I don't think we should blame Plato for what may be attributed to our own ignorance.
      • empath-nirvana 3y ago
        "Plato" absolutely does not say the story is true. "Plato" almost never spoke in his dialogues and you can't assume that anything that anyone says in one of his dialogues accords with his own beliefs, although frequently the closest speaker to Plato's beliefs is Socrates. The story of Atlantis is told by Critias, who heard the story second hand.
      • suoduandao3 3y ago
        Plato saying something is absolutely true actually makes me think it's more likely he's talking about an allegory, given his hierarchy of what he considered 'real'.
    • emblaegh 3y ago
      Third option, it was legend going around for generations (with maybe a kernel of truth), that Plato picked to make a point.
    • hnfong 3y ago
      Since you're trying to attribute subjective probabilities to things with "zero evidence", it seems the only disagreement here is about one's priors. You probably think your methodology is "evidence based" though.
    • weatherlight 3y ago
      There's is evidence for it. (Plato's account) Is it good evidence? that's up for debate clearly. whats strange is that plato's account of Atlantis is detialed with specific measurements and descriptions of the layout of the city, ( and its temples, and the organization of the society.) This level of detail interpreted by some as an attempt to describe a real place rather than a purely symbolic or allegorical one. Unlike other Greek myths (or allegories), the story of atlantis is not populated with gods interfering in the affairs of men, mythical creatures, or heroes of divine descent. Plato didnt have a track record of fabricating tales completely, especially since he presents atlantis in a matter-of-fact way within dialogues that are otherwise serious philosophical texts.
      • weatherlight 3y ago
        also, if you go and check out Homer's description of Troy, there isn't the level of detail that Plato provides for Atlantis, or at least his understanding of Atlantis. Whether or not Atlantis existed, it would seem to me that at least Plato thought of fit as a real place rather than an allegorical one. Usually when a mythical city is described, the author highlights their mystery, utopian qualities, or moral lessons they impart, rather than providing a blueprint of their layout and structure.
        • astrange 3y ago
          Some people have pointed out that the layout is similar to Syracuse, which Plato had recently been living in.
        • d0mine 3y ago
          There is a map of Middle-Earth. It doesn't mean the place is real.
          • weatherlight 3y ago
            The map of middle earth isn't in the middle of a philosophical treatise on understanding the nature of the physical world and the composition of the universe..... :/
    • ffgjgf1 3y ago
      It’s not unlikely that he based it on some (maybe even commonly know at the time) ancient myth. Plenty of civilizations had flood related ones (and there is some historical basis for it). Of course all the government/society descriptions were invented by him
• pyinstallwoes 3y ago
  Absolutely, need we not mention when maps mention something like Terra Australis which clearly denote a continent that hasn't been discovered by historians then it must clearly be a moral fable. May we trust in the dogma of the great interpreters of history. Example of the beautiful wash of mind (see talk page): > Terra Australis is a legendary/theoretical continent, not based on sightings of the real Antarctica Ah, such conviction for someone to have of a past that they never directly experienced. It's remarkable! Especially when the map is the same size of the object it represents. Lest you not think in haste, it is certainly not that which it is.
  • Cpoll 3y ago
    > Especially when the map is the same size of the object it represents. Which map? Most maps that have the hypothetical landmass place it with the South Pole at its center, with land spreading outward as far as will fit with the known landmasses. They also make it many times larger than Australia (usually to conform to the theory that the hemispheres should have equal landmass).
    • chatmasta 3y ago
      I'm guessing OP is referring to the Piri Reis map and the various claims around the identity of its "Southern Continent": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piri_Reis_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piri_Reis_map
  • ffgjgf1 3y ago
    Well.. for centuries going back to the Ancient Greeks at the very least some people believed that earth must be balanced and that land must be more or less equally distributed across its surface otherwise because.. I guess that how they thought physics worked. > Especially when the map is the same size of the object it represents. On an extremely superficial level.
• speak_plainly 3y ago
  The reason for the lack of Greek history on the topic is because it was a closely guarded Egyptian piece of knowledge, apparently. The story of 'Atlantis' as Plato knew it, came to him from Critias (the younger) through his father, Critias (the elder, also Plato's great grandfather), who got it from his father Dropides who received it directly from Solon, who learned of the story from his time in Egypt, specifically via priests in Sais who supposedly maintained an artifact from this lost civilization. It's clear that Plato's recanting of the story is embellished, he probably made up a great number or all of details to support his ideas and what he was trying to get across, but it's also possible that there are germs of truth in the story, such an ancient civilization being destroyed that Egyptians were aware of. It's not a stretch to imagine that Egyptians had knowledge of ancient civilizations, or that secret knowledge was revealed to Greeks, and it's not stretch that civilizations rose and fell all over the Earth. There isn't much to hang your hat on but I think we can charitably assume there was some real basis to the story that Plato based his writing on. Did ancient Egyptians poses knowledge of the Americas and encounter its population? Or was it a story about a local group of people? Or perhaps it was a general story of a pre-historic civilization and the associated cataclysms that ended it? Who knows, but I don't think you can say with certainty that it existed, or it didn't exist at all.
  • Sprocklem 3y ago
    We also have no surviving Egyptian accounts of Atlantis. It was not uncommon, however, for Greeks to attribute fictional and fabricated information to the Egyptians due to how relatively ancient – and therefore, wise – they were believed to be.
    • TheCleric 3y ago
      To be fair, if there were any Egyptian accounts, they could very well have disappeared with the Library of Alexandria. Not that it means that Atlantis WAS historic, just we can't use absence of evidence to infer evidence of absence.
      • ffgjgf1 3y ago
• weatherlight 3y ago
  > We might also ask where the fabled cave from The Republic is actually located. Certainly. Plato's Allegory of the Cave is clearly a metaphor for enlightenment, with no pretense of being a literal place. However, his depiction of Atlantis in "Timaeus" and "Critias" is detailed and concrete, lacking the overt symbolism of his allegories. This detail might imply that Plato intended for Atlantis to be considered as more than just a metaphorical construct, perhaps as a tale grounded in some form of historical tradition.
  • ffgjgf1 3y ago
    > grounded in some form of historical tradition. I’m sure that many cultures had some sort of ancient flood myths because of what happened after the last glacial period. But beyond that… > detailed and concrete, Which would be the opposite of one might expect? If we’re talking about thousand year old myths we should assume that anything “ detailed and concrete” must have been invented?
    • weatherlight 3y ago
      I'm not arguing that Atlantis was actually a real place, I'm arguing based on how it was written, based on his other works that use allegory, based on other works that are attributed to Plato and his use of allegory; I think Plato thought it was a real place. Plato mentions that the story was heard by Solon in Egypt, and transmitted orally over several generations through the family of Dropides, until it reached Critias( a dialogue speaker in Timaeus and Critias. ) Which is more likely, he completely made up Atlantis and all that detail in a very weird way, or he just reached for something that he thought was historically true that he came across during his life. Oral histories extremely important in the time that lead up to the time of Plato's life (and afterwards as well.) In the absence of widespread literacy and accessible writing materials, these oral narratives served as the primary medium through which historical events, cultural norms, legal statutes, and philosophical ideas were transmitted across generations. Socrates, Plato's teacher, famously never wrote anything down, his philosophy was preserved and passed down primarily through the oral accounts of his students. (Like Plato!) in "Phaedrus," Plato discusses the art of rhetoric and the importance of the spoken word over the written word, which can be seen as a nod to the value of oral tradition. So I don't think it's as binary as, fact or allegory. There are other facets, to how this description of Atlantis came to be.
• toltek 3y ago
  The name itself - Atlantis - was a late invention. There is more records under its older name - Lanka. And iirc, India has stories about Ravana - the last, rogue, king of that empire.
  • seanhunter 3y ago
    Do you have a source that Lanka was an older name for Atlantis (ie that it referred to the same specific place)?
    • sohex 3y ago
      So far as I’m aware the only link between the two is that they both refer to mythical island kingdoms that have since been lost. Any and all sources that I’ve seen with regards to connecting the two lean on the same sort of terrible pseudoscience and misunderstandings that underpin most conspiratorial thinking.
  • ffgjgf1 3y ago
    > about Ravana - the last, rogue, king of that empire. Maybe it’s based on the last capital of the Western Roman Empire, Ravenna? It was situated between swampland and flooding was certainly a threat.