Critias & Timaeus

This is a very small book, but then it contains all that Plato managed to tell us about the mysterious island nation of Atlantis. Very nice to have it all compact in one source. I wanted more, but then so have generations of people. A valuable resource.

I enjoyed this translation as well as the translator's commentary, found in an introduction to Timaeus and an appendix on Atlantis. I thought these sections were quite valuable and added greatly to the utility of this work in translation. Timaeus picks up in many ways where Republic left off (not quite right, but close) with Socrates recapping the basic ideas of an ideal society. The question is then posed: Would such an ideal society work? How would it work? What would it be like? A short interlude relating to a myth of Atlantis is presented and then the dialog moves on. The substance of Timaeus then follows which is an attempt to dissect the universe, the soul, and the human body. Plato's theories here are clearly related to Pythagorean thought, however I found them interesting on a number of grounds: 1) His solution to matter is to create large geometric patterns out of atomic particles of air, fire, water, and earth. In this way, he seems to offer a precursor to modern atomic theory. 2) There are elements of his ideas of the creation of the human body which seem to be interesting when compared to various traditional Indo-European healing charms, from the Vedas through Middle High German charms. There is a definite order radiating out, and it may be that Plato's work here may actually advance our understanding of Indo-European traditional concepts of the body. 3) His idea of the role of astrology is far more refined and sophisticated than most advocacy of the topic either in modern times or the ancient world (he suggests that the purpose of human sight is actually to study astrology, that we may better understand ourselves, but this occurs within a fairly sophisticated framework). All in all, Timaeus is an extremely important document to read to understand the history of ideas in Europe. The second dialog expands on the Atlantis story. While Critias is but a fragment so we don't really know how the story is supposed to go, the idea is clear-- the dialog will show a working Republic-stye society in war against an outside force (the Atlanteans) who because they are more sophisticated socially will win but that there will be catastrophes which destroy Atlantis and nearly destroy the protagonists: a primitive and mythical Athens. The introduction provides a great deal of insight into restraints of empirical inquiry in Plato's day and helps explain many of the discrepancies between modern science and Plato's ideas in Timaeus. It offers the right set of questions and insight to help the reader frame the work more clearly. Similarly the appendix on Atlantis provides information relating to possible and hypothetical source material that Plato could have used, as well as information on the history of the great Atlantis debates. Both these sections are also well worth reading. This is a great rendition of an important set of classics, with added insight supplied by the translator. I heartily recommend it to anyone.

This is a very concise summary that contains the info from Plato's writings that directly talk about Atlantis. You can read the entire book in about an hour. The author is wrong in saying in the introduction that Atlantis was not a real place. Many people are experiencing past life memories now and remembering their experiences on Atlantis. Fascinatingly it indicates that at the beginning the gods divided up the earth and Poseidon took what was to become Atlantis. Poseidon created Atlantis and another name for Atlantis is Poseidia. Poseidon's first born son was Atlas who the Atlantic ocean was named after. Sadly Atlas was turned into a mountain of stone by the witch Medussa if I remember my mythology correctly. The temple of Poseideon was beautiful but yet had a 'strange, barbaric appearance'. Fascinatingly Plato abruptly ends his writings at precicely the point where Zeus and the other gods have convened to talk about destroying Atlantis (and I think some other places). Why did Plato do this ? Was he perhaps afraid of misquoting 'the god of gods' ? Sadly we may never know. But most likely it was only through the intervention of the gods that Athens could have defeated Atlantis. I think the Atlanteans had nuclear weapons and other strange military technologies. I suspect that Plato was in fact the reincarnation of Poseidon. As Plato's student Aristotle said of Atlantis: "He who invented it also destroyed it." Jeff Marzano The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls: Unlocking the Secrets of the Past, Present, and Future The Giza Power Plant : Technologies of Ancient Egypt Edgar Cayce's Atlantis Edgar Cayce's Atlantis and Lemuria: The Lost Civilizations in the Light of Modern Discoveries Atlantis: Insights from a Lost Civilization Initiation

If there is one book to own, it's this one. Every night read sections 15 to 22 slowly. The rest of the book is important for other reasons, but sections 15 to 22 shaped the face of modern physics, philosophy, and religion in matters of cosmology and cosmogony. It's relevance today is still a matter of scholarly debate, but a few simple substitutions of modern terms for Plato's gives the reader a familiar set of problems, viz. those of modern physics, without being anachronistic to Plato in the least. The current "prime stuff" theory of space, is reached for by Plato in his discussion of space. The amazing success of mathematical description has its origin in Plato connecting the Platonic solids with the first theory of chemistry. Our modern notions of order and pattern emerging from complexity that we see in Mandelbrot and Wolfram are clearly stated by Plato in section 21. You'll see exactly where to place the concepts of quark or Kaluza-Klein, by careful re-reading of these sections. Of the most primary importance, is the unsolved problem of existence and reality as posed then and now. After reading it enough to know the ancient context from our modern one, of this last question one can ask just how far we have or haven't come in 2500 years.

This is the source of the whole tale. The translation is 19th century, so if you prefer a more modern style English, you should perhaps look for another book. But I like this old style, long sentences with lots of punctuation marks; kind of varies the pace more than the modern, boring way the language is written--don't you think? Another plus is that it has brought out only the parts from Critias and Timaeus that deal with Atlantis (adn Athens), making it compact.