Talk:Atlantis

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For older, archived discussion, see Talk:Atlantis/archive; Archive 1 (11/04-2/06); Archive 2 (11/05-5/06); Archive 3 (6/06-9/06)

Contents

[edit] Plato's Invention Hypothesis

In the article under Recent times, Dr. Julia Annas may be right about Plato's imaginative leaps into myth, but the 'more plausible' and 'highly respected' conclusion that Plato wrote historical fiction is in in itself a presumption. This theory implies that the writing of history is fallible, which I wholly support, in light of the work of postmodern theorists in knowledge systems (Foucault, Derrida) and cultural studies (Said) (see Orientalism and Eurocentrism). These postmodern theories can be applied to the interpretation of Plato's work, or Aristotle, or Lao Tzu, or Herodotus, or any writer speaking about a place and time and a cultural way of life. Julia Annas's important idea that trying to verify Atlantis through the work of Plato is unhelpful for scholars and armchair traveller's, and her invention hypothesis has a very postmodern approach to historical research; very important when considering the verity of Plato's sources of knowledge.

However; Where in Plato's work does he state that he is speculating, or creating an imaginative place (Atlantis), using a well documented person (Solon)(is he well documented? does Luce think so?), to assist in a philosophical study of morality (Atlantis as a cautionary tale: power currupts)? Forgive me, I haven't read enough of Plato in the Benjamin Dowett editions to know about his use of historical fiction for his narratives. And what reason would Plato have to fabricate a place, when he could have easily cited "contemporary events (Helike, Sicily expedition, Graeco-Persian wars, ...)"; and overtly indicated that "(Sparta, Syrakus, Persia, Carthage, ...)" inspired him (more or less)? And why is Plato implied to be myopic by the scholar John V. Luce "who argues that Plato himself saw an Egyptian account of the Thera eruption and took it for Atlantis"? Like Thomas Kuhn has suggested; reading Aristotle's concepts in Physics is not 'bad Newton', just a different worldview. Similarly reading Plato's or Herodotus's accounts of life experience is not like reading high school grade philosophy. Believing Plato to be an inventor of history for the convenience of telling a good story, creates a distrust of Plato accounts. I suppose one answer would be to locate the Pillars of Hercules, take some diving equipment, and take a look around. Take photos. Look for archaeological and geographical evidence. Plenty of people have tried. Apparently the ocean currents in that location are strong and the water is perpetually murky, so Plato's claims about 'the Pillars' will remain a mystery for a while yet.

In general, current geographical and oceanographic explorations for lost civilisations worldwide, I believe, are important to note in this article about a location hypothesis. Dr. Greg Little is one investigator actively doing this kind of search in Bimini Road. Would be nice to find an 'archeological digging group' independent of A.R.E. (who some deem to be fruitcakes), to show how this interest in 'locating' may start with Atlantis or Lemuria, and begin to find lost worlds of meaning. Maybe the moniker 'lost civilisations' is more appropriate than 'lost Atlantis'. Drakonicon 06:04, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

And what reason would Plato have to fabricate a place, when he could have easily cited "contemporary events (Helike, Sicily expedition, Graeco-Persian wars, ...)";
The answer is simple. Plato wanted to prove the supremacy of the his ideal state as detailed in Politeia. Since there has never been a state shaped like his perfect society, he had to create one (his ancient Athens). And for this "hero", he needed a "villain" as well (Atlantis). That's it. Athens beat Atlantis, which means: perfect society beats an overpowering opponent. Plato could have cited contemporary events like the Sicily invasion directly, but the Athens of his lifetime was the complete opposite of his perfect society and, further, didn't win the Peloponessian war, but lost it. --Bender235 20:34, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
If it really would be that easy ... :-) --Athenaios 21:19, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Classics rating

The WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome rating is for the article's importance "within classical antiquity". I don't think Atlantis is very important in classical antiquity; its popularity starts in the modern era, especially after figures like Kirscher and Donelly get a hold of it. But I really can't agree that within classical antiquity it's as important as articles like the Parthenon, the Persian Wars, etc. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Akhilleus (talk • contribs) --Bender235 20:19, 13 August 2006 (UTC).

That's a somewhat strange kind of way to measure importance; we are rating the importance like we assume that the people of ancient Greece would have done it for topics of their time. Wouldn't that mean that we should rate topics like "Athenian democracy" as of "low importance", because democracy itself wasn't about to become an important topic until modern times? --Bender235 20:19, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Athenian democracy was pretty important in classical Athens, and plenty of Greek literature was linked directly to the democracy. The oratory of Demosthenes, Lysias, etc. is the most obvious example, but Athenian tragedy and comedy was shaped by the democracy, the political thought of Plato and Aristotle is deeply influenced by the democracy, etc. Roman-era writers like Cicero and Plutarch return again and again to 5th and 4th century Athens in writing about politics, philosophy, and history. If the Greeks or the Romans were giving ratings to Wikipedia articles, I'm pretty sure they would have put Athenian democracy up pretty high.

In contrast, Atlantis is not very important within Greek and Roman culture. Even within Plato's own philosophy, the myth of Atlantis is not as significant as the myth of the cave, or the myth of Er. As an example of an idealized society, Atlantis takes a distant third place to the cities of the Republic and the Laws. Even if we just consider the dialogues which mention Atlantis (Timaeus and Critias), the cosmology of the Timaeus had far more impact on subsequent philosophy than Atlantis--Cicero translated the Timaeus (but not the Critias) into Latin, and the cosmology of the Timaeus had a deep impact on neoplatonic and medieval philosophy. Obviously, our article here tells us that Plato's Atlantis inspired later writers, but the impact of Atlantis is not as profound as that of the Timaeus, of the Republic, of Athenian democracy, or any number of topics one would care to name in classical antiquity.

Within classics as an academic discipline, Atlantis is also not a very significant topic; while you can find some very good articles on the Atlantis myth (and many are cited in this article), it is not a very prominent topic of research. The Timaeus attracts more attention, not to mention Athenian democracy, the Parthenon, Homer, and so on. Atlantis of course draws a huge amount of popular interest, but the popular interest has almost nothing to do with Plato's account or classical antiquity; the "Atlantis" that people are interested in is almost entirely a modern creation, based on fiction, the "research" of esoteric figures like Cayce, and TV shows. --Akhilleus (talk) 21:07, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

No, actually not, since basically all utopias by Renaissance writers, from Morus and Campanella to Bacon and Butler, are based on or inspired by Plato's Atlantis. Atlantis is not only important because of Donnelly. It's way more. But you're right, it was not that important in classical antiquity, and if we judge on that - what I would not, but I am not the one to decide - it is of "mid importance". --Bender235 22:04, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How this article should look like

Since there is a huge risk of redundancy with the Atlantis topic, I would like to suggest the following plan of how it should be spread in several articles in Wikipedia.

The article "Atlantis"

  • a summarization of Plato's description given in Timaeus and Critias. Main articles should be Timaeus (dialogue) and Critias (dialogue)
  • a comprehensive comment on the reception of Atlantis from antiquity to modern times, including the philosophical interpretation of the Atlantis myth (which does not exist yet)
  • a summarization of location hypothesis of Atlantis (as it is right now). Main article should be Location hypotheses of Atlantis
  • a summarization of the Atlantis theme in fiction (which does not exist yet). Main article should be Atlantis in fiction

Agree/disagree? --Bender235 01:07, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Agree, but what is missing: Criticism of current mainstream opinion in science about Atlantis. --Athenaios 17:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Re-Review and In-line citations

Note: This article has a very small number of in-line citations for an article of its size and currently would not pass criteria 2b.
Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 22:51, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The "location hypotheses" section

I just removed a bunch of text from the "location hypotheses" section that involved some dubious geology. I also added a bunch of "citation needed" tags. Some of the material I tagged gets fuller explanation in Location hypotheses of Atlantis, and so perhaps editors felt that it wasn't necessary to duplicate the citations. However, it seems pretty clear that we need citations for each hypothesis in both articles.

It might be good to weed out some of the hypotheses from this article, since we have a main article to list every single proposal for Atlantis' location. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:16, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The "Atlantis in music" section

I moved the material in this section to Atlantis in fiction, since that article is where appearances of Atlantis in literature, movies, tv, computer games, etc. are listed. I don't like the title "Atlantis in fiction" very much--"fiction" is a word with pretty broad meaning, but one of its basic senses is prose telling a made-up story, i.e., novels and short stories, but not poetry, movies, paintings, etc. I'd like to move Atlantis in fiction to something like Atlantis in art, literature and popular culture. Any thoughts? --Akhilleus (talk) 05:16, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This is a good article, but...

It is itself at odds with other things on Wikipedia about Atlantis. The idea that Atlantis was in charge of the E. Medit and met with enemies outside (from the West) seems crucial and central (and I certainly agree with it - it's the entirely rational way to look at the material, although there are sources within Plato - in The Laws, I think - that aren't used, they are rarely used - but still are consistent witih this article).

It's the other article on the location of Atlantis (hypothetical locations) that fails to open with the data presented here.Kaimiikekamaila 22:10, 28 October 2006 (UTC)kaimiikekamaila

[edit] I've completed my copyediting of...

...this. However, I copyedited a July edition on paper. I'll probably get around to uploading the edits themselves in the next few days. As it's a huge article, don't be surprised to see a template at the top of the article asking that you don't edit while I am to prevent edit conflicts. Thanks. Stuart says: Heweyeweyeweyeweyeweyewey... The Duke of Atlantis, Bow before me! You can't control me! I'm a P. I.! 00:55, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wasn't there some Discovery channel special about how someone found the physical remains of Atlantis?

I think you are refering to Discovery Channel Canada Raising Atlantis: an underwater Pompeii?. But that was broadcasted in 2002. There's also a discovery channel dvd titled Hunt for Atlantis - As Seen on the Discovery Channel [1]. -- Szvest Ω Wiki Me Up ® 14:38, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Lost Worlds: Atlantis aired on the History Channel and suggested that Santorini once was the home of an advanced civilization that fit Plato's description of Atlantis. The episode made a detailed argument supporting their arguement including a plausible explanation as how the Plato myth originating in Egypt. A full descripton of the episode can be found here: http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Episodes&content_type_id=50192&display_order=3&mini_id=50189 In short, the destruction of Atlantis is attributed to a volcanic eruption. The inhabitants had unknowingly buildt their main capital eithin in the center a volcanic calderra (term?) or on land previously created as the result of an eruption. Furthermore, it is suggested that they had multiple cities around the Mediteranean(sp?) which were wiped out as the result of tsunami caused by the eruption - hence it fell in a single day and night. Holled 01:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I removed the text "middle of the southern ", from the original text, which follows:

Fifty stadia inland from the middle of the southern coast was a "mountain not very high on any side."

In the Plato's account there is not such a reference.

Regards, Boris Spasov, bspasov@yahoo.com

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