Why does plato include myths in his dialogues

✨AI Mode

"Plato incorporates myths into his dialogues to serve several philosophical, educational, and persuasive purposes. While he often championed rational argument (logos), he used myth (muthos) as a vital supplement when reason alone reached its limits or when he needed to reach a broader audience. 🔗

"Key reasons for Plato's use of myth include:

• Educational Tool for Complex Concepts: Myths provide a vivid, narrative way to convey abstract and difficult philosophical ideas. For example, the Myth of the Winged Soul in the Phaedrus dramatizes the theory of recollection, helping less philosophical readers grasp the idea that 'knowledge is recollection.'
• Persuasion and Moral Guidance: Plato used myths to instill noble beliefs and influence behavior in those who might not follow a strict logical argument. The Myth of Er at the end of the Republic serves as a 'back-up' strategy to persuade individuals to live virtuously by depicting the consequences of their actions in the afterlife.
• Addressing Human Limitations: Some topics, such as the nature of the soul or the origin of the universe, are beyond direct human experience and cannot be empirically verified. In the Timaeus, Plato refers to his account of the cosmos as a likely story (eikōs muthos) because the subject matter is always in flux and cannot be fully known through reason alone.
• Political Legitimation and Social Unity: Myths can justify social structures and foster a sense of community. The Noble Lie (or Myth of the Metals) in the Republic is designed to make citizens care for their city and accept their roles within a just society.
• Literary Distancing: Myth provides a 'literary distance' that allows Plato to articulate visions of truth and meaning that might have seemed 'grotesquely out of place' or radical in the context of contemporary Greek society.
• Awakening Recollection (Anamnesis): Some scholars argue that the primary function of Platonic myths is to awaken the soul's memory of eternal truths that lie beyond the reach of the intellect. Bryn Mawr Classical Review +8

"Would you like to explore a specific Platonic myth in more detail, such as the Myth of the Cave or the Myth of the Metals?"

1. [Myths can justify social structures and foster a sense of community… How would this be relevant to Socrates whose whole career seems to be based upon exploding our cursory explanations of what is good for society?]
2. [Literary Distancing: Plato has already established literary distance by using Socrates (executed for being grotesquely out of place) as a character in a script with other characters like Timaeus in order to achieve literary distance…]
3. [To convey abstract and difficult philosophical ideas seems to elide the worth of abstract and difficult ideas themselves…]
4. [This ai_mode summary really begs the question by offering eternal truths that lie beyond the reach of the intellect as a reason to include myths…]
5. [I've attributed to instill noble beliefs and influence behavior in those who might not follow a strict logical argument to Plato's methods, myself, but it has always seemed an insufficient explanation to me, finally… for example, in the Phaedo, Plato offers three different arguments to substantiate immortality, ostensibly, to prevent Socrates' friends from falling into misology, but isn't that indicative of misology itself?]
6. [Things that cannot be empirically verified fall out of consideration when authoritative decisions are necessary…]
7. [The subject matter is always in flux and cannot be fully known through reason alone… Is this Plato, The Influencer?]
8. [He often championed rational argument because that was his job, duh…]
9. [The reasoning behind to reach a broader audience seems colored by our influencer "universe" and seems adulterated by our understanding of exposition "popularized" and seems to hinge on "butts in seats"…]
10. [That reason alone reached its limits as a concept would be strange to Socrates but perhaps not to Plato, the writer…]
11. [What do we feel or think about an explanation that includes myth? Does Plato think that we should settle for 'belief' or 'faith' as a replacement of a reasoned account alongside an authority's opinion?]
12. [I realize that ai_mode has lifted 'back-up' strategy from a source, but the notion that Plato had back-up tactics or strategies gives me cramps…]
13. [Plato's recollection theory of knowledge is a good starting and ending point because it accompanies the origins of myths… It explains by offering an internally trustworthy explanation aka 'if you already believe the myth than the myth provides a believable supplement…' likewise, if you are recalling something you already "know" than of course you know it…]
14. [Maybe Aristotle's alternative recollection theory might be that, 'We're carrying some baggage that helps us fit into our world.' For example, if a coincidence is dis/advantageous to you, you may call it 'luck,' but the condition of your dis/advantage already existed prior to the coincidence, thereby excluding many other coincidences unnoted by you… we even name things 'luck' or 'fate' without understanding the scope of the things we've named…]
15. [When do other myths contradict Plato's myths and have other scholars juxtaposed those myths against Plato's? One can see that the fruitlessness of this exercise obviates Plato's use of myth (as anything other than a dramatic device) for argumentation…]
16. [I can't remember Socrates giving credence to eternal truths that lie beyond the reach of the intellect because his profession in the agora was to confront eternal, accepted "truths"… he alluded to the "forms" but avoided attributes that would place the forms as extantiated, spatio-temporal objects because they would then be susceptible to reduction… forms can exist in the language game as things created in context to represent other things but sometimes do not return to an expected lexicon, but instead multiply as polysemy…]
17. [During the era in which Plato and Socrates lived, many philosophers were attempting and succeeding in determining things that were beyond direct human experience and cannot be empirically verified… by using geometry, for example… in fact, Socrates teaches a slave to use geometry in the Meno…]
18. [ai_mode shows "12 sites" as references…]
19. [the Myth of the Winged Soul is linked to a real website though prefaced by and indexed by Google… I have excised those 'indicators'…]
20. [Dotted underlining shows links to summaries… I substitute solid underlining…]
21. [Plato in first sentence links to: https://www.google.com/search?q=plato&kgmid=/m/05qmj&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiV4N25wcCTAxXVrokEHd7SNpAQ3egRegQIAhAC&biw=432&bih=809&dpr=2.5]
22. [Myth of Er, above, has link to another summary: https://www.google.com/search?q=myth+of+er&kgmid=/m/03znx6&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiV4N25wcCTAxXVrokEHd7SNpAQ3egRegQIBBAF&biw=432&bih=809&dpr=2.5]
23. [Noble Lie links to: https://www.google.com/search?q=noble+lie&kgmid=/hkb/-1105744542&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiV4N25wcCTAxXVrokEHd7SNpAQ3egRegQIBBAJ&biw=432&bih=865&dpr=2.5]
24. [Bryn Mawr Classical Review +8, above, links to text that ai_mode uses from bryn mawr website's article…]
25. [Chainlink 🔗 after first paragraph links to full box of references that ai_mode summarizes…]
26. [How does or did ai_mode know to separate discussions by neo-Platonists from those by philosophers of Plato? i.e., what gets left in or out of ai_mode's summary?]