Research Catalog

Title

Plato the myth maker / Luc Brisson ; translated, edited, and with an introduction by Gerard Naddaf.

Author

Brisson, Luc.

Publication

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Naddaf, Gerard, 1950-

Description

lv, 188 pages; 24 cm

Summary

• We think of myth as a fictional story, and Plato was the first to use the term muthos in that sense. But Plato also used muthos to describe the practice of making and telling stories, the oral transmission of all that a community keeps in its collective memory. In the first part of Plato the Myth Maker, Luc Brisson reconstructs Plato's multifaceted and not uncritical description of muthos in light of the latter's famous Atlantis story.
• The second part of the book contrasts this sense of myth, as Plato does, with another form of speech that he believed was far superior: the logos of philosophy. Appearing for the first time in English, Plato the Myth Maker is a solid and important contribution to the history of myth, based on the privileged testimony of one of its most influential critics and supporters.

Uniform Title

Platon, les mots et les mythes. English

Alternative Title

Platon, les mots et les mythes.

Subject

• Plato
• Myth

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 159-168) and indexes.

Contents

Pt. I. Plato's Testimony: The Communication of the Memorable. 1. Information. 2. Means of Transmission. 3. Fabrication. 4. Narration. 5. Reception. 6. Imitation. 7. Persuasion -- Pt. II. Plato's Critique: The Discourse of and for the Other. 8. Myth as Discourse. 9. The Opposition between Myth and Falsifiable Discourse. 10. The Opposition between Myth and Argumentative Discourse. 11. The Utility of Myth. 12. The Repudiation of Allegorical Interpretation. 13. Plato's Derivative Use of the Term "Muthos"

ISBN

0226075184 (alk. paper)

LCCN

98008641

OCLC

ocm39313416

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries