The word myth is commonly thought to mean a fictional story, but few know that Plato was the first to use the term muthos in that sense. He also used muthos to describe the practice of making and telling stories, the oral transmission of all that a community keeps in its collective memory. In the first part of Plato the Myth Maker, Luc Brisson reconstructs Plato's multifaceted description of muthos in light of the latter's Atlantis story. The second part of the book contrasts this sense of myth with another form of speech that Plato believed was far superior: the logos of philosophy.

Gerard Naddaf's substantial introduction shows the originality and importance both of Brisson's method and of Plato's analysis and places it in the context of contemporary debates over the origin and evolution of the oral tradition.

"[Brisson] contrasts muthos with the logos found at the heart of the philosophical reading. [He] does an excellent job of analyzing Plato's use of the two speech forms, and the translator's introduction does considerable service in setting the tone."--Library Journal

Luc Brisson：1946年齣生，法國國傢科學研究院CNRS主任研究員，法國柏拉圖哲學研究領域最負盛名的學者，也被譽為在世的最偉大的柏拉圖和柏拉圖主義研究學者。組織瞭法語柏拉圖全集和普羅提諾全集的翻譯，翻譯瞭柏拉圖對話（逾二十部）以及普羅提諾《九章集》諸多章節法語譯本，著有《柏拉圖<蒂邁歐>本體論結構中的同與異》（Le même et l'autre dans la structure ontologique du Timée de Platon），《柏拉圖：語詞與神話》（Platon, les mots et les mythes）《古希臘羅馬時期不確定的性彆》（Le sexe incertain）等，他還主編瞭“國際柏拉圖研究係列”（International Plato Studies）和“柏拉圖研究文獻匯編”（Platonic Bibliography）。他是國際柏拉圖協會IPS（http://platosociety.org/）主要組織者之一，長期擔任副主席，2016-2019年輪值主席；同時兼任國際新柏拉圖主義研究協會（International Society for Neoplatonic Studies，即ISNShttp://www.isns.us/）常務理事。個人主頁