Morgan Kathryn A. Myth and philosophy from the Presocratics to Plato

Cambridge University Press, 2000. — 323 p. — ISBN: 0-511-03520-9.This book explores the complex relationship between myth and philosophy in writings by Greek intellectuals between the late sixth and mid fourth centuries BC. It shows how Plato and other philosophers used myth to express philosophic problems and traces a tradition of strictly rational and philosophical myth through two centuriesAcknowledgements
Introduction
Theoretical issues
Textualisation and the rise of philosophy
From mythos to logos
Some theoretical implications
Some PresocraticsThe exclusionary gesture: Xenophanes, Herakleitos, and Empedokles
Allegory and rationalisation
ParmenidesThe sophists and their contemporariesPhilology and exegesis
Mythological displaysThe Protagoras: Platonic myth in the makingProtagoras’ ‘Great Speech’
Why mythos? Structure and assumptions
Sokrates and Prometheus
Conclusion: Sophistic versus Platonic myth
The range of Platonic myth
Problems of vocabulary, problems of selection
Categories of Platonic myth
Exhortation, play, and childishness
Myth and the limits of language
Plato: myth and the soul
The Gorgias
The Phaedo
The Republic
The Phaedrus
Plato: myth and theory
The philosophical life and its mythological battles
Mythos and theory
Construction and reception in the Timaeus and Critias
Conclusion: was the myth saved?Bibliography
Index of passages cited
General index