Greek Academy | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Greek Academy

Academeca was the name of a public park, equipped with a gymnasium and lecture facilities, located about a mile northwest of the Dipylon Gate of ancient Athens. There, probably shortly after 387 BCE, Plato bought a house and estate and began to teach, so successfully that his school dominated the facilities of the area, was named after the park, and continued until Justinian's closure of the pagan schools of philosophy in 529.

Classification

The main philosophical contributions of the Academy had been made by the time of Antiochus's death (c. 68 BCE); the different phases in this period were classified into Old Academy and New Academy or, by some ancients, as Old (Plato and his immediate successors), Middle (marked by Arcesilaus in the middle of the third century BCE) and New (dominated by Carneades in the second century BCE). To this were sometimes added a Fourth Academy (Philo of Larissa, head 110/109–80 BCE) and a Fifth Academy (under his successor, Antiochus). Broadly speaking, the Old Academy was occupied with problems posed by Plato, Middle and New with aspects of skepticism, and the Fifth with the eclecticism introduced by Antiochus. The history of Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism is distinct from that of the Academy, which was, however, a notable Neoplatonic center under Proclus in the fifth century.

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