探索频道英语听力 遗失的大陆-23

Skepticism is normal in science and ice is a very good preserver, and in the location that we are looking at, we are hoping that there is still something there, but who knows, ten thou...twelve thousands years’s a long time.

Only time will tell if technology will prove the ideas of 21st century Atlantis seekers like Ran Flanma or Jim Alan correct.

Throughout the ages, Atlantis hunters have diligently followed the clues laid out in Plato's 2000-year old description. But is it a description of fact or fiction?

"I think Plato used real characters, so that people would accept it as truth. I think, however, that Plato knew he was writing fiction, and Plato intended to write fiction. I don't think that Plato believed the word of it."

But what might have inspired Plato to invent such a story? In 399BC, Plato's revered tutor, the great philosopher Socrates was arrested in the dead of night. Dragged before an open court, he was charged with corrupting the morals of Athens, with his outspoken philosophical ideas, and sentenced to death, a fate he accepted without bitterness or regret.

Men of Athens, I honor, and love you. But understand that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times. For if you kill one such as I, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me.

Surrounded by his closest friends and disciples, Socrates calmly drank poison, and passed away into history as one of the great figures of western civilization. But Plato could not be consoled.

"Plato thinks of Socrates as the best and kindest and justest man ever lived. And he sees Athens the city he loves, turn against him and kill him. That I believe was devastating for him. So a lot of Plato's work is an effort to imagine alternative political and social organizations in which the horrible injustice that he sees having been done in the case of Socrates could never happen again. He would like ideally to create a world in which philosophy, in the person of Socrates will be forever safe.

----------------------
diligently: adj. 勤勉地, 坚持不懈地
disciple: n. 信徒，弟子
console: v. 安慰