Plato’s Academy Athens – First University in the World

 

 

One of “The Big Three”, the philosopher, Plato, who was a student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, founded the Platonic Academy of Athens.

 The Academy of ancient Athens, the turning point in ancient Greek education, established by the Philosopher Plato (c. 427-423 B.C), in around 387 BC, was the first centre of higher education in the Western world, many of which today still bear the name Academy.

 

 

Up until this time, education for Athenian children and adolescents was basically, reading writing and arithmetic.

 After that, the only other choice, apart from “The school of hard knocks’, that is; from life itself, was, for a price, to learn the art of persuasive speaking from the Sophists; the wise ones, who considered this the be all and end all, if you wanted to get on in life.

Plato’s Academy was not an institution teaching philosophical principles, as you would have expected, nor for teachings people how to think.

 

 

The concept of the school was how to teach people to think for themselves, based on Socratic questioning; the art of debate; questions and answers, which was to be expected as Plato was a follower of Socrates.

It was not as universities and colleges are today, with a rigid timetable, rather it was a much more informal affair, a sort of society for affluent intellectuals.

 

Plato’s Way of Thinking

 

 

In his youth, Plato, whose aim was to better society, briefly considered entering into politics, however, as he saw Athens becoming a hotbed of political corruption, he realized the only thing to help his city and Greece in general, was for politicians to understand the meaning of justice.

Plato was not a fan of democracy and holds it responsible for the downfall of Athens and for the death of Socrates, who was accused of corrupting the youth of Athens and sentenced to death.

 

 

 In Plato’s way of thinking, only philosophers should be leaders, or leaders should become philosophers.

Thus was born Plato’s “Philosopher King”, in his work “Republic”

 

Plato’s “Republic” (345 BC.)

 

 

Maybe no other book has caused such divided opinions between great historians as Plato’s “Republic”.

For some, it was plain common sense, for others, it was an impossibility; far-fetched and delusional.

Some considered it the ancient Greek equivalent of Thomas More’s “Utopia”, or “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley.

 “Republic”, is part analogy, part genuine policy proposal and part criticism of the existing systems and policies of the day.

The book opens with a meeting between Socrates (the main character of the book) and his pals, who are discussing the question of what is justice, what makes one just and what makes one unjust and would everybody be unjust if they thought they could get away with it?

 

Kallipolis :

The Perfect City State

 

 

Socrates, to back up his arguments creates an imaginary city; Kallipolis (the good city), ruled by philosopher-kings, who have been educated for fifty years before being allowed to govern the city.

All men and women are considered equal, there is no gender discrimination and all children receive the best education, appropriate to their natural talents.

Families no longer exist; children are the result of state-approved marriages and brought up by the state and any imperfect children, or children produced by below average parents, are put to death.

No social climbing is allowed for adults, children, however, may move up or down the social scale, according to how well they fared in school.

The custodians and military classes; the ones who rule and protect the city, are prohibited from owning personal and private property but live in communal housing, paid for by taxes collected from the lower classes.

To make sure truth is maintained, all poets are sent into exile and all books, plays and other works of culture, must be approved by the governors.

Order is preserved by a progressively totalitarian series of laws and regulations, which keep the city running as smoothly as possible with little or no concern for the wishes of the people.

The stability of the system is made possible by using a “noble lie”; γενναῖον ψεῦδος, gennaion pseudo, a concept thought up by Plato and described in the Republic.

 

 The Noble Lie

 

 

In politics, a noble lie is a myth or untruth, usually of religious nature, developed by the elite to maintain social harmony or advance an agenda.

The myth put forward in Plato’s Republic, is that men are born of the earth and that into each soul is mixed gold for the philosopher kings, silver for their deputies and military and farmers, laborers and tradesmen are, supernaturally, made from brass and iron.

The lie goes with the warning that everything will turn to chaos if people of the wrong metal are put in charge.

The reasoning behind the noble lie was that if the people could be convinced to believe this, they will more readily conform to their roles in a well-ordered and stable city.

What does this sound like to you, utopia or dystopia?

 

 Plato and the Pythagoreans

 

 

At around the age of about forty, Plato, made the first of his many trips to “The Pythagorean school” in Croton, one of the most prosperous cities of Magna Graecia; ‘Greater Greece’, in southern Italy.

Pythagoras (c. 570-495 BC), one of the most influential mathematicians of all time, had founded “The Pythagorean school”, where anyone was accepted, no one was turned away, even women were allowed to join him, unusual and often frowned upon in his day when women were meant to be seen and not heard, in fact, Theano of Croton, the wife or student of Pythagoras, was one of the first female philosophers of ancient Greece.

 

 

The school became so popular, that it wasn’t long before the Pythagoreans became a ‘state within a state’, with more than 2,500 devotees.

Pythagorean ideas on how to lead a harmonious life influenced many great minds such as, Plato and Aristotle, who described Pythagoras as a wonder-worker and a supernatural figure.

 

 

The Liberal arts, the traditional academic course in Western higher education, originated from the Ancient Greek methods of enquiry, began with Pythagoras’ desire for a universal understanding.

He believed there was a mathematical and geometrical harmony to the universe and so his followers, the Pythagoreans, began to study the four arts of astronomy, mathematics, geometry and music.

In the 4th century B.C., the government of Athens added rhetoric or public speaking, grammar and dialectic (logic.).

Together they came to be known as the seven liberal arts.

Plato, his biggest fan, stated that Pythagoras was the founder of a new way of life and who, like Pythagoras, took a mystical approach to the soul and its place in the world, is thought to have partly based his ‘Republic’, along the lines of the well- organized and tight-knit community of the Pythagoreans at Croton.

 

Plato Establishes the Academy of Athens (around 387 BC.)

 

 

On returning home to Athens, after his first visit to Croton, Plato, inspired by the Pythagorean way of life, at once, set about establishing his own school.

It’s not clear whether Plato inherited or bought the land and house, where he founded his Academy in or nearby to the “Sacred Grove”, known as “Grove Academus” or the Academeia Park.

The park, famous today for its plane trees, has survived for over 2,500 years in its original location in the busy neighborhood; Akedēmia Platōnos (Plato’s Academy), without being built over or destroyed.

 

The Sacred Grove

 

 

“The Sacred Grove”, a small grove of olive trees in the Academeia Park, said to have originated from the sacred olive tree of Goddess Athena growing on the Acropolis, was sacred to Athena as it had been the home of her religious cult since the Bronze Age.

Here, set amongst peaceful, tree-lined pathways, were alters dedicated to Athena, Prometheus, Hephaestus, Eros, the Muses, and Heracles.

 

 

The park took its name from the legendary Greek hero, Academus (or Hecademus).

In Greek mythology, when the twins, Castor and Pollux, whilst searching for their kidnapped sister (who later became Helen of Troy), threatened to destroy Athens if she was not released, Academus told them where she was hidden, thus saving the city and was honoured by having the sacred grove and park named after him.

 

Easy Living

 

 

As was the norm in those days, many philosophers gathered in the public parks of Athens, discussing the meaning of life, how to “Know thyself’ and why “The unexamined life is not worth living”.

Here, they would show off their rhetorical skills, often accompanied by Hetairai.

Hetairai, ancient Greek courtesans, were “kept women”; beautiful, sophisticated, educated and respected, who were, without a doubt, the most liberated women of ancient Greece.

They were “kept’ by wealthy, aristocratic men, often politicians, to act as either a hostess or elite companion at symposiums, a perk denied “free women”; wives and daughters of ancient Greece, who rarely left their homes and had almost no rights and no political or legal power.

 

 

Plato’s Academy, with its cool, shady garden, would have been the “in” place to have been seen, invitations to Plato’s symposium would have been worth their weight in gold.

A symposium (also the title of Plato’s most famous dialogue; the Symposium), meaning “to drink together”, was a type of drawn out, after-banquet, wine-drinking extravaganza, often held for special occasions, such as the introduction of young men into aristocratic society, or to celebrate victories in athletic and poetic contests.

Usually, the symposium began in a civilized manner, with the recitation of poetry and philosophical debates, which were more often than not about the subject of love and were accompanied by the strumming of lutes and the twirling of exotic dancers.

Once a crazy ancient Greek wine-throwing game of kottabos got underway though things beacame much more the merrier!

 

 

The location of the Academy, an idyllic retreat with marbled terraces scattered with sofas positioned in the shade of plane trees, amongst sweet-smelling flowers, was the perfect place for the intelligentsia of the day to gather and endeavor to put the world to rights.

 

The Shrine of the Nine Muses

 

 

Strictly speaking, the school was not known publicly as a school teaching philosophy, that came much later, during the time of the Roman historian, Cicero (106-43 BCE), as were all schools in Plato’s time, his academy was classed as a place of worship of the Muses.

After acquiring the property and establishing the Academy, one of the first things Plato did was to create a shrine dedicated to the nine Muses; the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts, considered the source of the knowledge reflected in poetry, lyrics, songs and myths.

Shrines to the Muses, standard features of all ancient Greek schools, were called mouseion; a place devoted to learning, from which the modern word for museum derives.

 

Critical Thinkers

 

 

The academy was open to the public; however, most of the members were men from the upper-classes (including Aristotle, who joined at the age of eighteen), although two women are known to have studied with Plato at the Academy, Axiothea of Phlius and Lasthenia of Mantinea.

 

 

As it was Plato’s belief that philosophy directed people’s minds toward a knowledge of goodness and virtue, which would greatly benefit society, both the subjects and teaching methods of the Academy were based on Plato’s Socratic Method.

The subjects studied at the Academy, again inspired by Plato’s trip to the Pythagorean School in Italy, were philosophy, astronomy and mathematics; it was one of the first known institutions in dedicated to making sense of the world through scientific observations of the universe, another first was the study of nature’s mathematical laws; mathematical physics.

 

 

The Academy also included lectures and seminars as well as dialogues and discussions between students and teachers.

When Plato died, his nephew, Speusippus, took over as head of the academy and Aristotle left to open a school of his own, in 335 BC, at the Lyceum, another famous park in Athens.

The Academy continued until the year 86 BC, in 86 BC, when the Romans invaded Greece and Lucius Cornelius Sulla, laid siege to Athens, conquering the city, causing mass destruction.

 

A New Generation

 

 

Regardless of the destruction of the Platonic Academy in the first century BC, philosophers continued to teach Platonism in Athens during the Roman era; however, not until the early 5th century (c. 410) was a new academy, with no connections whatsoever to the original Academy, established by the leading Neo-Platonists of Athens.

However, with the passing of time, thoughts and philosophies of the Academy had undergone changes, the phases of which have been randomly classified as follows:

(1) The Old Academy, founded Plato and his successors when the philosophic thought was moral, speculative and dogmatic.

 (2) The Middle Academy, founded by Arcesilaus (316/315–c. 241 BC), who introduced a nondogmatic skepticism.

(3) The New Academy, founded by Carneades (2nd century BC), which ended with Antiochus of Ascalon (died 68 BC) as head of the school, who had returned to the dogmatism of the Old Academy.

From then on, the Academy, until its closure in the 6th century AD, was a centre of Middle Platonism and Neo-Platonism.

 

The Neoplatonic Academy

 

 

The heads of the Neoplatonic Academy, which appears to have been a private institution, run in a large house, firstly by Plutarch of Athens, then by Syrianus, Proclus, Marinus, Isidore, and finally Damascius, the last head of the Academy who died in 540.

In 529, the emperor Justinian closed the Neoplatonic Academy, which he considered to be a place of Pagan worship.

 The site was rediscovered in the 20th century, in the modern Akadimia Platonos neighbourhood of Athens, visiting the site is free.

 

The School of Athens:

 Fresco by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael

 

 

 Maybe Plato’s Academy of Athens is more well-known today as “The School of Athens”, thanks to a fresco by Italian Renaissance artist Raphael, painted between 1509 and 1511, which decorates the rooms known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.

 

 

Cosidered one of Raphael’s best known works, the painting, described as “Raphael’s masterpiece and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the Renaissance” launched the reawakening of culture, classical values and the humanities.

The theme of the fresco is philosophy and depicts the rebirth of Ancient Greek philosophy and culture in Europe by showing a gathering of philosophers, mathematicians and scientists from Ancient Greece.

It’s said nearly every ancient Greek philosopher can be found in the picture, however, none can can be positively identified as Raphael left no notes stating who is who.

 

 

Plato Lives On

 

 

Plato, together with his mentor, Socrates and his pupil, Aristotle, is considered to be one of the most important ancient Greeks to have influenced the modern world, western philosophy and education.

 

 

(Here’s a great tip on how to remember who comes first second and third when it comes to ‘the big three”; just think of the word spa: Socrates Plato Aristotle)

 

 

Although some would say Socrates is the father of philosophy and an influential thinker, unlike Plato, he never wrote anything down.

 How we now understand how Socrates’ mind worked, is mostly thanks to Plato’s “dialogues”, in which his teacher, Socrates, plays a major role.

In Plato’s most popular work, “The Republic”, he states the four virtues; courage, wisdom, temperance and most importantly justice, are the basis of a fair society, where people work together not against each other.

 This train of thought, from one of the world’s greatest thinkers, is still followed today.