Message #264121

[Hermocrates]

Today's ingredient; Critias' statement: In the Critias dialogue, Critias states; "All that is said by any of us can only be imitation and representation."

What are we to make of the words, "Imitation" and "Representation," as it relates to the tale of Atlantis being told to Socrates by our dynamic trio? 

What are you trying to tells us, my dear Plato, master of prose and philosopher extraordinary? Who do you think you're fooling? This tale of Atlantis and your ancient Athenians is like a flip of a coin; head, it's true, or tail, it's a myth. All has to make sense, or there is nothing in what you tell us; no ifs, buts, or maybes as all these clever people make it out to be anything but your very Atlantis.  Just as the gods do not fool mankind, as Socrates told us in his Republic, neither can men who are godlike, such as philosophers of the caliber of a Socrates or yourself, my dear Plato, his devout and loyal disciple and pupil. We know that Socrates, and you too, are wanting us to understand and seek the will of the Good.

Just what, who, where, and when my dear Critias, and your two friends, Timaeus and Hermocrates, are meaning to "imitate?" And what is this imitation a "representation" of?

The Grand Passion of Atlantis leads us all to wonder and speculate. However, there are no true hunters to be found, as none have picked up the real "sense" for the hunt. All I can say to those scholars and non-scholars alike, who, with their books and essays, have made Atlantis to be either nothing, or anything and everything, and just about anywhere in place, and in some other time than Plato intended, "you are nothing but hound dogs, crying all the time and you are no friends of Plato." You, those with your suppositions, speculations, and imaginative creation of an Atlantis that never "is" Plato's very own, have never caught the rabbit, Atlantis!

Good will hunting!