[jampekka]

Perhaps these are the "best thinkers that the world has ever seen" because they said stuff that was beneficial for (some) powers that be. E.g. Plato-Aristotle-line/myth is directly linked to Alexander the Great.

Worth noting that there were very influential thinkers and entire schools of thought that looked beyond their noses. A good example are cynics/Diogenes the Dog, who may well have been more influential than the Platonic line. E.g. (as per anecdotes we have left) Alexander the Great had great respect to Diogenes, who totally ridiculed Alexander's (and Plato's) position.

Also stoics (e.g. Marcus Aurelius) are quite direct descendants of cynics and not ashamed of this at all.

More I look into classical philosophy, or the "myth" of academia, more it seems that it's mostly a fabrication of perhaps scholastics.

[obedm]

This is a very important point. Maybe there were some great philosophers in their time that argued against it and were ridiculed or didn't reach us through time.

I'm curious what you mean by being a fabrication? Their ideas were real and they've shaped history throughout time one way or another

[jampekka]

Fabrication is perhaps too strong a term, but the separation between history and myth has not always been that strong. For example it was common (and accepted) to write stuff in some famous person's name.

I don't think it makes the content itself any worse, but it's difficult to know what was really historical.

I don't formally study this, but such problems become quite apparent when I try to e.g. find out historical sources for some philosophical statements or anecdotes. Probably not that different from how people attribute all sorts of "smart stuff" to Einstein.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudepigrapha

Edit: by "scholastic fabrication" I mean that scholastics spent a lot of time "interpreting" especially Aristotle (and tried to make it compatible with the Bible). I'm guessing a lot of what we think is "greek philosophy" may be from these interpretations.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism

[obedm]

Thank you for the clarification. I'll read more on the subject.

History is god damn hard. That's why it's useful to read the source material whenever possible.

I don't know how many times I've seen The Parable Of the Cave being used, but reading The Republic, really makes you understand what Plato meant with that story.

It's hard for most people to read that stuff though. I've only scratches the surface. It's easier to trust others to donor for us and distill the information.

And in each century, the lessons learned from the same material may be different too.

[jampekka]

It's usually next to impossible to read the real source material, as it's in literally ancient language and written in context and for purposes that are hard to understand.

For most things it probably doesn't matter that much. For example classical philosophy (or its common translations/interpretations) provides a sort of "shared language" for academia, regardless of how historical it is. That's why I tend to think it more as a myth unless there's something specifically historically intetesting.

Most of the classical stories, e.g. the Cave, have "transcended" the original context anyway, and are in a sense richer nowadays.