From Sacred Origins to Philosophical Fictions

In From Sacred Origins to Philosophical Fictions: Myth, Truth, and the Religious Imaginary in Plato, the author reconsiders the deep interrelation between myth (mythos) and reason (logos) in Plato's thought, arguing against the conventional narrative that presents philosophy as a rational departure from archaic myth-making. Drawing on key Platonic dialogues (Timaeus, Phaedrus, Phaedo, Republic, and Laws), the work demonstrates how Plato reconfigures myth not as an irrational residue but as a symbolic and necessary mode of philosophical discourse. Myth, according to the author, serves as an imaginative medium that articulates metaphysical, ethical, and cosmological truths beyond the limits of dialectical exposition. Through engagement with figures such as Homer and Hesiod, and interpretive frameworks drawn from Luc Brisson, Pierre Hadot, and Jean-Pierre Vernant, the book situates Platonic myth within the broader poetic and religious traditions of ancient Greece. It reveals how myth operates in Plato as an ontological and pedagogical instrument-guiding the soul through recollection (anamnesis), ascent (anagōgē), and return (epistrophē) to the intelligible realm.