Zeus and Phanes II: The Cosmic War of Atlantis

Ajouté : 2026-06-01

[00:00:01]Besides the question about the constitution, there was also the the narration of the war, the war of of Atlantis and uh and Athens. So, what does he say about that? He says, "The account of the war and the victory has symbolized for us the opposition that is fundamental to the cosmos, right?"

[00:00:26]Um So, here there's uh important term here, right? He uses symbolon.

[00:00:33]Right? And symbolon could be used in a technical way here.

[00:00:40]Um so, in Proclus's account of how Plato doesn't contradict himself when he praises Homer and also criticizes Homer, he draws a distinction between the images, eikones, right? Representations, and symbola, right? Also called synthemata, classes of symbols or signatures, and or tokens. Uh synthemata are sometimes called tokens.

[00:01:07]So, what are these things? So, a uh an image is something that is shares the same form, you know, embodies the same form as its original. And the case of a portrait is clear, but also for instance in the case of the gods, a myth that would be a good image of the gods would be one that obeyed all the Platonic uh canons for good mythology from Republic book two and three. So, for instance, the gods would always be good, and they would not um and they would not deceive people, they would not keep changing shape, they would only be causes of good, they would not be causes of uh um of evil, and they would always be in the best state and they would not uh act um you know, in un-virtuous ways.

[00:02:07]They would not give themselves over to excessive emotions and so on. Plato's myths are usually like this. And these are And these are good likenesses. These are good images or representations of the gods, right? So, they they follow um a a certain rule that we can understand that we can grasp through reasoning and intellectual insight about how these things have to be.

[00:02:38]And so the account of the perfect city, you know, we can say that the city in the Republic is an image of the world because they have the same structure, right?

[00:02:50]Okay, so that's that's an image. A A symbol, however, is supposed to refer to its its original it's referred to its referent, referred to its original not through a similarity of form but rather through a um a more direct connection, a connection of belonging to the same whole often, right? So, a symbol a a symbolon originally was something like a piece of ceramic that people um would after for forming an agreement, they would they would break in two and each party of the agreement would hold on to one of the uh broken ceramic pieces and then this would be a token, a symbol that um they were both parties to this agreement. So, that later at a later date they could prove that they were the um uh the party by bringing the two broken pieces together and having them fit, right? And of course, it could be that um the original people who formed that agreement had died at that point, and the people who were checking to see if it was, you know, if if they were talking to the right party, um um they were descendants of those original.

[00:04:14]Right? So, that is the function of of the symbolon. And the symbolon refers So, one half of the symbolon, right?

[00:04:22]Refer one half of the broken pottery, um refers to the other half, not because it is like it, but because it belongs to it.

[00:04:32]And why does Proclus um use this other way of signifying besides an image when he's discussing Homer? Well, because Homer presents the gods as acting in ways that are unbecoming to the gods, that are not rationally conform the idea of how a god is supposed to act as I laid out in um Republic book two and three.

[00:05:00]Rather, they are depicted as um you know, in obscene and immoral ways.

[00:05:07]Um so, more recently in my account in my Substack, I published a uh an essay on the episode of Zeus and Hera meeting on Mount Ida, which is an episode that's uh related in the Iliad where Hera seduces Zeus in public uh on Mount Ida. And it's uh a um an episode that is that is singled out for criticism by Socrates. And Proclus has and Proclus has a commentary and explanation of this. But he has a um and so he he interprets all the details of this episode as teaching us different things about the gods.

[00:05:53]However, the basis for being able to do this kind of interpretation is that okay, this is not a good image of the gods. However, it is a symbol. It's connection with the gods is of belonging to them in in a more direct way than having as it were the same structure or the same form.

[00:06:14]And why might this um uh why might the discussion of the war of Atlantis be a symbol? Well, Proclus explicitly says that um Plato tells the story what Plato discusses as the war of Atlantis is parallel to the um to wars of the gods that um Homer and Hesiod deal with. However, since Plato is Plato and he wants to construct a proper myth, one that does not violate his own rules, he moves the the discussion from a battle between gods to a battle between human beings. And that's why we get the war of Atlantis.

[00:07:13]And [clears throat] but but this is ultimately supposed to teach um about the fact that everything in nature is composed of opposites that are in tension with each other. Most and the and all these opposites relate to the basic uh um tension between limit, boundary, definition on the one hand, and infinity, unlimitedness, indefiniteness on the other, right? And so, these pairs of opposites, this opposition between limit and unlimited, is um what is constitutive of all things in nature.

[00:07:55]And that is what that um that war is about. And so, that war might really be, you know, it might have something symbolic in the technical sense for um uh for practice.

[00:08:09]So, And so, he says, "The account of the war and the victory has symbolized for us the opposition that is fundamental to the cosmos. It's this opposition between limit and unlimited."

[00:08:19]Okay.

[00:08:22]Then, um