Plato's Academy

The story

After Socrates

Plato was born in Athens between 428 and 427 BC into an aristocratic family. His father, Ariston, had among his ancestors Codrus, the last legendary king of Athens; his mother, Perictione, was descended, according to an ancient writer, from the lawgiver Solon. His real name was Aristocles. “Plato”, which comes from a Greek word meaning “broad”, was a nickname: according to tradition a gymnastics teacher gave it to him for the breadth of his shoulders, although others thought of his forehead or his style of writing.

As a young man Plato was close to Socrates, and when Socrates was condemned to death, in 399 BC, he was deeply affected. He devoted himself to philosophy and for some years travelled. Around 390 BC, according to tradition, he met in southern Italy the Pythagorean philosopher Archytas of Tarentum.

A journey that ended badly

In 388 or 387 BC Plato went to Sicily, invited by the tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius I. There he met Dion, the tyrant's brother-in-law, who became his pupil. But a quarrel arose between Plato and Dionysius. The story goes that Plato was put on a ship and sold as a slave at Aegina. He was ransomed by a friend, Anniceris of Cyrene. Modern scholars debate who was responsible and whether it really happened like this.

The park of Academus

Back in Athens, Plato bought a piece of land to the north-west of the city, outside the walls, near the village of Colonus. The place was a public park dedicated to the hero Academus, so that it was called “Hekademia”. Here, in 387 BC according to tradition, Plato founded his school, which took the name of the Academy. Legally it was a religious association dedicated to Apollo and the Muses.

It was not a school like ours. There were no classes and no marks. It was a community of teachers and pupils who lived and studied together, and the method was discussion, “dialectic”: a problem was put forward, different opinions were heard, and people tried to take them apart with arguments and build a better answer. They studied philosophy, mathematics, geometry, astronomy, optics. Among the scholars linked to the Academy were distinguished mathematicians, such as Theaetetus of Athens and Eudoxus of Cnidus.

The dialogues

Plato wrote a great deal, and almost all of it in the form of dialogue, that is, conversation between characters, of whom the most important is Socrates. The works that have come down to us number 36: 34 dialogues, the “Apology of Socrates” and a collection of thirteen letters. In the “Apology” we find Socrates' defence at his trial. In the “Republic” Plato describes what a just city should be like. In the “Symposium” each guest at a banquet says what love is. In the “Phaedo” it is argued that the soul is immortal. In the “Timaeus” he speaks of how the universe is made.

The central idea of his thought is the “theory of Forms”. For Plato the things we see with our eyes change and pass away, while the Forms, such as the Beautiful, the Just, the Good, are eternal and unchanging and live in a world he calls “hyperuranian”, that is, “beyond the heavens”. To know means to remember what the soul has already seen in that world, according to an idea he called “anamnesis”. These are difficult thoughts, but from them came many questions that we still ask today.

Two more journeys to Sicily

Plato returned to Sicily twice more. In 367–366 BC, invited by Dion, he tried to influence the new tyrant Dionysius II and to bring about reforms, but conflicts with the tyrant led to Dion's exile. In 361 BC he tried again, but once more without success: he broke off relations with Dionysius and left Sicily in 360 BC thanks to the mediation of Archytas. The dream of a government of philosophers did not come true.

The school after him

Plato died between 348 and 347 BC. Aristotle, who had come to Athens at 17, had studied in the Academy until then. The school was led after Plato by Speusippus and then Xenocrates. The Academy went through several phases, and with some masters, like Arcesilaus and Carneades, it took on a sceptical approach. The ancient site was destroyed by the soldiers of the Roman general Sulla during the siege of Athens (87–86 BC), in 86 BC. The school resumed later as the “school of the Platonists of Athens”. In AD 529 the emperor Justinian ordered its closure, and the last philosophers, among them Damascius, sought refuge at the court of the king of Persia. The Academy had lasted, in one form or another, about nine centuries.