Plato`s Myths

Abstract

The article examines the question of Plato's concern with mythology. The author claims that Plato was an uncompromising critic of traditional myth and poetic myth-making, because such myths distorted the real images of the gods and their actions. Poetic myths do not reflect well on education, so their creators should, as Plato believed, be removed from a just state. The article draws attention to the fact that Plato himself was a significant mythmaker - he tells many important philosophical ideas precisely in the form of myths. The author analyzes the reasons for Plato's appeal to myth, defines the functions performed by myth in Plato's dialogues, the importance of Platonic myth-making for philosophy and mythology. It is noted that Plato uses myth as a tool of expressiveness, considers it as an effective means of persuasion. On the other hand, the article proves the thesis that the Platonic myth is a way to express the deep problems of existence that cannot be grasped by the human mind. Therefore, Plato's myths tell about what happens in the sky, under the Earth in Hades, in the distant past. The article concludes that a substantial reform of the entire ancient Greek mythology takes place in the Platonic myth-making activity. Plato combines myth with rational thinking, with the Logos. For Plato, a myth is a rationalized myth in which not only the cosmos acquires a divine dimension, but also man and his world, the polis. This is how the dialectician becomes a creator of myths. Plato, the article claims, becomes a mythmaker because it is extremely important for him to find a support for man in the human soul, as reliable and eternal as the divine cosmos of traditional myths used to serve.