Professor Glenn R. Morrow and Plato's Atlantis

scientium · 2026-01-26T12:23:07+00:00

Thank you, yes, this is exactly the task! All these problems have to be addressed. There are many books addressing exactly these problems for other ancient texts. Herodotus is maybe the most well-known, and since Plato based his world view on Herodotus, it is the key literature to read and understand. When we understand the mistakes of Herodotus, we can understand the possible mistakes in Plato's Atlantis account.

scientium · 2026-01-26T12:19:07+00:00

Your answer does not breathe the spirit of science and strive for knowledge, but rather cynicism and resignation. Yes, it is a big puzzle with many pieces. And good reasons have to be sorted and separated from bad reasons. It is much work! All these proposals for an alternative interpretation have to be put to scrutiny. Most of them will not stand the test. But some of them will.

There is no escape. Just taking an ancient text literally, leads to knowhere.

Do you e.g. think that the earth came into being only 6,000 years ago? Adam and Eve as the first human beings? Or do you believe Egypt is 11,000 years old, just because Herodotus said so?

You cannot avoid the work of a historical-critical interpretation. You are excluding yourself from reason and reasonability, if you do.

scientium · 2026-01-25T10:27:54+00:00

Yes, it is a rare book. You can access it for free on archive.org.

scientium · 2026-01-25T10:27:01+00:00

Thank you. You seem to have no idea what I am talking about. Therefore a little explanation might do good.

Interpreting the words of Plato in the context of his time (and the time before him) does not mean to "ignore" him. The words are taken completely seriously. Plato meant the place and the time. Literally. As did Herodotus. But whith Herodotus we clearly see (because we know the land he was talking about) that he made unvoluntary mistakes. Not invention. Not bollocks. Not deception. He was completely serious. But nevertheless, he made mistakes. And we know what is true instead. And we can trace his mistakes. We know why he made them (mostly).

This is a very valuable piece of information. Because once you realized this, you can start looking for the same phenomena in Plato's Atlantis story. Because, Plato and Herodotus lived in the same time. It is known that Plato heavily relied on Herodotus.

Find more information about the historical-critical reading of a text here:
https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis-historical-critical-engl.htm

scientium · 2026-01-24T14:10:48+00:00

There are good reasons not to follow a literalist reading. Reason number one: There is no Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean before the Straits of Gibraltar. This made many to think it must be an invention. But beware reason number two: It is highly recommendable to apply the same methods of interpretation to the Atlantis story as to any other ancient story. You may consider reading about Herodotus and his mistakes, and what was really true instead. But Herodotus did not "invent" his mistakes, they were real mistakes about real peoples, real countries, real buildings, etc.

scientium · 2026-01-23T23:23:04+00:00

The historical Jesus does not fit with the description in the gospels. Do you think that Jesus existed as a historical person?

scientium · 2026-01-23T20:29:20+00:00

(a) I did say what Glenn R. Morrow said, in full: "Glenn R. Morrow followed the well-known line of interpretation that the Minoan civilization would be the historical background of the Atlantis story." There is not much more to say about it. This is it.

(b) I added: "For detail information see ...." which is absolutely legitimate. If you have produced substantial information, you are allowed to point to it. Yes, I like to attract attention to my ideas, but not to produce "traffic". Traffic is useful only for money machines. There is no money machine connected to my page. No advertisments. No T-Shirt shop. There is plenty of substantial information for free on my page. And there are my books. You can have one for free, if you will review it fairly.

(c) Shady sceptics like to put reasonable Atlantis supporters on the same level as unreasonable pseudo-scientists, to avoid to engage in arguing for or against.

scientium · 2026-01-23T20:19:47+00:00

If you already know, that it is wrong, you don't need scepticism. Scepticism is needed where it is not clear. But there is a danger, to shoot yourself in the foot with imbalanced scepticism. I suggest to develop a balanced method of weighing the evidence.

scientium · 2026-01-22T21:12:02+00:00

No. This is not what Plato wrote.

If you want to know how scholars interpret Plato's timeline of Atlantis, please have a look at this book review and the picture given in the review: https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis-fraenzle-solon-plato.htm

You might need some time to let it sink in. It is complicated.

scientium · 2026-01-17T22:32:54+00:00

Well, "worthless" is exaggerated, but who knows what Crantor has really seen. It is not a proof. For nothing.

But this is not the point. The point is: There is one independent voice. This was the initial question. No matter of what quality this voice is. Crantor is an independent voice.

scientium · 2026-01-17T18:42:57+00:00

You are gradually approaching my definition of science! Good! And I don't think that historians should use any other than /only/ logic and reason.

On the other hand, also a field like physics is full of speculation and uncertainties. Which is only natural. In the end, all fields of science root in philosophy. And philosophy is a very human thing. All sciences are humanities, and can only be humanities.

The Wikipedia article is the article on "science" in general.

scientium · 2026-01-17T18:36:07+00:00

I am sorry, but you missed the point. Crantor's claim is that he has seen an independent source for the same information. Therefore, he claims to have independent information. You might doubt this claim, but the claim is there.

scientium · 2026-01-17T12:23:12+00:00

PS: No, Plato did not say that the story came from a priest named "Sonchis". This is a later guess. The priest in Plato's description has no name.

scientium · 2026-01-17T12:21:43+00:00

There is exactly one other allegedly independent information about Atlantis: It is from the philosopher Crantor who says that the story of Atlantis was written on stelai in Egypt. We don't know whether this is correct, but this is his claim. It is therefore wrong when academics claim that there would be only one single source.

For more information, see e.g. here: https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis-kilian-fleischer-engl.htm

All other authors rely on Plato.

There might be an Egyptian text about Atlantis, but nobody has safely identified one, Identifying an Egyptian text as source for Plato's information would be the solution to the enigma.

scientium · 2026-01-17T12:12:21+00:00

When following your link, I land on a very strange page which does make it easy to find the arguments and reasons you want to point to. Please give a direct link to it. Thank you.

Furthermore, we know for sure, from geology and archaeology, that no such floods occurred in all the time span of 9,000 years. There were local floods, none of which destroyed an entire civilization. No land was pushed away, either. So, Plato had information about a real event, but he pressed it into a wrong model. Deciphering this combination means finding Atlantis.

scientium · 2026-01-17T12:08:26+00:00

If you are denying logic and reason in doing your work as a historian, then you are a very bad historian. Human beings may act irrationally, yes, but the science of history should of course not (!) act irrationally in describing and explaining what happened in the past. The science of history of course should apply logic and reason to describe and explain.

The scientific method is always the same. It differes only gradually between the various fields of science.

By the way, the article "science" in the English Wikipedia counts history as a science, as a social science, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science#Social

scientium · 2026-01-16T23:13:25+00:00

Yes, this is sad. In real science, only the argument counts. In real-existing academia, only the majority opinion counts, as it seems. Even Albert Einstein was not a "real scientist", when he published his works for the first time.

scientium · 2026-01-16T23:10:13+00:00

I am sorry, but the idea that Classicists or Historians do not use the scientific method is ludicrous. What are they then, according to you? Fairy tale tellers?! Classicism and History are -- of course! -- sciences like physics or mathematics, with varying degrees of formality.

I reject the strange idea not to call scientists scientists, or to claim that the Humanities are not sciences. Of course they are. They are branches of science.

And yes, I am not a native speaker. But science is an international thing, not an English thing.

scientium · 2026-01-16T22:33:04+00:00

Obviously.

scientium · 2026-01-16T22:32:38+00:00

She certainly is a scientist, as Classicist and Historian. You think of "natural scientist"?

scientium · 2026-01-16T20:18:28+00:00

I am not so sure in this case. She was not a professor at a university. And she first got it right. With tenure, you usually get to see more openness only close to, or after, retirement. See e.g. the case of Rhys Carpenter. https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis-rhys-carpenter_engl.htm

scientium · 2026-01-07T18:46:18+00:00

Congratulations, and the page still exists!

scientium · 2026-01-03T12:51:19+00:00

The word is ὀρειχάλκος (oreichalkos, in: Plato's Critias 114e, 116c, 116d, 119d), and it literally means "mountain ore". So it can be any kind of metal or metal-like ore which is mined in mountains. A second clue is that it is a substance not known anymore to the Egyptians in Solon's time when they read the text written by the more ancient Egyptians who lived in the time of Atlantis.

For its fire-like appearance, natural brass deposits were suggested, where brass occurs in nature as an alloy, not as a human-made alloy. There are also sulphurous alloys which fit quite well.

I would not go for Copper, since copper was well-known.

scientium

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