A think tank or a template for university campus: Plato's academy.

European enquiry into the nature and meaning of the world started in ancient Greece. By the fourth century BC, a substantial body of philosophy emanated from several schools: from Thales and his followers in the city of Miletos in Ionia in Asia Minor, from the Pythagorean school in Croton (Crotone) in Calabria, and from the Eleatic School in Sicily. The Sophist philosophy of Protagoras, Hippias, Cratylus, and others was to create much controversy and opposition later. Interestingly, deliberations of the earliest philosophers focused on the physical world: in this respect they were protoscientists; with time their natural philosophy evolved into science (1). In the fifth to the fourth centuries BC the Athenian city-state, then at the peak of its political power, became the intellectual center of the Greek world. This is mainly due to the succession of three men: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle (2, 3 ). Socrates did not leave a written legacy. We know of his philosophy through his pupil, Plato. Aristotle, who had studied with Plato (indeed he was Plato’s most brilliant student, whom Plato nicknamed the Mind), had developed his own enormous body of work, which had a major impact on the philosophy of the Middle Ages and beyond (4). Plato was born in 420s BC in Athens and died there in 348 or 347 BC. Reportedly, he travelled widely and studied mathematics in Italy and astronomy in Egypt (2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ). He wrote his treatises in the form of dialogues: this was both an enticing literary form and a device to make the proposed arguments open to the reader’s interpretation. Socrates features prominently in the early dialogues (the Apology is one of them), and they are broadly regarded as the account of the Socratic philosophy. In the later, so-called Middle Dialogues, Socrates’ voice diminishes. Probably Plato’s best-known dialogue is the Republic, in which he discusses knowledge, justice, and government among other issues. In Book VII Plato formulates the concept of two worlds, of which one is real and the other ideal. The concepts and ideas in the real world, he says, are only an inadequate reflection of the ideal Forms (7 ). Curiously, the Later Dialogues contain what might at least be a partial retreat from the theory of Forms; there is also little presence of Socrates, and discussion of the works of other philosophers is more prominent. The mosaic of the Dialogues, their classification and chronology, are still the subject of scholarly debates. Plato travelled to Sicily 389 BC, returned to Athens in 387 BC, and subsequently founded his Academy, which could be regarded as the first institution of higher learning in the Western civilization. The Academy was a place of gatherings for readings, lectures, and debates, although there was never a defined curriculum. The range of subjects taught was remarkable: from philosophy of government, justice, and ethics to mathematics and astronomy. Most of the later eminent Greek mathematicians were trained there. The debates were facilitated by the position of a reader, who recited the manuscripts aloud before discussion. Plato stresses the importance of the discussion as opposed to gaining knowledge solely from reading. The academy aimed high: Plato wanted to educate rulers to become “philosopher kings.” He held that knowledge was essential to a good government. In terms of the physical space, at the beginning the Academy was a walled piece of land northwest of the Acropolis, then just outside the city walls (today it is the Keramikos area of Athens). It first looked much like other Greek gymnasia, places where education and physical exercise were combined. There was an olive grove dedicated to the goddess of wisdom, Athena (8, 9). Later a surrounding stoa was constructed, statues of the muses were acquired, and dedicated buildings were erected, one with reading rooms and a substantial library of papyri. Plato, it is told, paid large sums of money to acquire desired manuscripts (4). The Academy survived politically turbulent times. Athenian power waned as a result of the exhausting Peloponnesian war with Sparta in 409–404 BC, and in 335 BC Athens was conquered by Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. The Academy functioned under Plato’s successors until 86 BC, when it was destroyed by the Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla during his siege of Athens.Scholars moved to different sites in the city. The Academy was not restored until AD 410, when it was revived by the Department of Biochemistry, CollegeofMedical, Veterinary and Life Sciences,University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK * Address correspondence to the author at: Gartnavel General Hospital, 1053 Great Western Rd., Glasgow G12 0YN, Scotland, UK. Fax +44–141-211–3452; e-mail [email protected]. Received April 13, 2015; accepted April 16, 2015. © 2015 American Association for Clinical Chemistry Science in the Arts