Myth and Philosophy in Kathryn A. Morgan's reading

Abstract

This article is about myth and philosophy, as it is expressed in Kathryn A. Morgan's book Myth and Philosophy from the Presocratics to Plato. From the very beginning, she says that myth is not just the "other" of philosophy; it is crafted in the very heart of it, at least from the Presocratics to Plato.

      The philosophers from that time have used myth; nevertheless, they have opposed it. Morgan takes into account the doubts expressed by Plato in the Phaedrus, 274d-275b and the Seventh Letter about the ability of language ever to adequately express philosophical understanding.

      She avoids polemics, stressing, above all linguistics and epistemological aspects, leaving aside ethical aspect, dispite its importance. Hers is a balanced approach on myth-philosophy, even if she does not define myth, what brings some difficulties.

      Morgan turns to the complexities of Platonic myth, first tackling the functions of myth in the Platonic dialogues, when she approaches function of myth in his dialogues and clarifies the meaning and points toward the goal of platonic criticism of traditional myths (Rep., II, III, X). She states that philosophical myth achieves intellectual power by encouraging methodological reflection and self-consciousness about the status of philosophical discourse. She makes the point that the status of any given tale thus depends not so much on its content as its context.

      For her, philosophical accounts are liable to revision in the light of future investigations. This means that it is impossible having not in mind or refuting the presence of myth in Platonic dialogues, because even the most careful dialectical arguments, presented in the platonic dialogues are provisional. She is both against theories from those who make dialectic a perfectly stable form of discourse in contrast to 'unverifiable' myth as well as

those who see myth as some kind of special discourse that is able to express the ineffable or fundamental philosophic axioms that dialectic cannot handle. She warns, about "We must, however, guard against the notion that dialectic is in principle incapable of justifying philosophical axioms or that myth can be in any way a satisfactory substitute for dialectic. The philosophical project as Plato describes it is precisely an attempt to verify axioms and reach an unhypothetised first principle (Rep. 509d1-511e5)."

      She reassures that dialectic is the far and divine path; such journey is by far and large safer, while myth’s pathway shows an unsafe shortcut. She also states that Platonic myth is not just religious, but above all theoretical. She says that Platonic myths are not just metaphysical expressions of ineffable insights. As a matter of fact, they are present in several of his dialogues in order to express the philosophical method and to show how a thinker should philosophize.

      Morgan concludes her study with a look at the idea of 'saving the myth', a proverb that recurs in a number of Platonic dialogues. The account, be it myth or dialectic argument, must be brought to completion, the path must be followed to its end, in order for the account to be able to preserve us. Morgan brings her own study to completion by reinforcing the importance of myth within Plato's philosophic project. Saving myth means also saving logos, because if myth is lost so is logos, and knowledge and perception are the same thing (Protagoras, 164d8-9).

      Plato is faced with the impossibility of expressing his ideas about the nature of reality beyond the sensible world in the medium of language that is inescapably tied to the sensible, and then he uses myth, as he uses the dialogue form itself, to signal the imperfection of his accounts.