Plato’s Cave

Since the words "academy" and "academic" come from the name of the area where Plato taught, it is worth spending a moment to describe the park which was used for gymnastics from the sixth century BC. Academus or Hecademus, a mythical hero who had a cult following, left a garden and grove, which was about a mile north west of the centre of the city of Athens, to the citizens to use for gymnastics. The area, named after Academus, was developed by Hippias, the son of Peisistratos, who built a wall round it and put up statues and temples. Excavations have deteceted the foundations of Hippias's wall. The statesman Kimon planted olive and plane trees there and diverted the river Cephisus to make the dry land fertile. Festivals were held there, as were athletic events in which runners would races between the altars, and funeral games also took place in the Academy.

It must have been a beautiful park when Plato, who had a house nearby and a garden within the area, began to teach there in around 387 BC. The first point that we must make is that the modern use of the word 'academy' will give us a false impression of what Plato actually set up. Chermiss writes [1]:-

What, then, did Plato really do in his Academy? ... 'Academy' and 'Academic' are terms which men of formal training ... have been pleased to apply to themselves and their organisations. It is not surprising, therefore, that by a more or less unconscious retrojection modern scholars have attached the particular significance which 'Academy' has in their own milieu to the garden of Plato's which was situated in the suburb northwest of Athens called 'Academia' after a mythical hero ...

The fresco The School of Athens by Raphael represents the modern idea of an academy and he has placed Plato and Aristotle into such a setting, but the reality of Plato's Academy must have been totally different. A similar sentiment is expressed by Glucker [3]:-

To us ... the word 'Academy' has come to mean an institution of learning, a learned society, or at least a place of theoretical ('academic') education. In ancient Athens, the Academy was first and foremost a public park dominated by its gymnasium, and the connection between it and Plato's school was only one of the numerous historical reminiscences in an area rich in history.

Glucker goes on to look at the writings of Pausanias who gives what is essentially a tourist guide to Athens written in the second century AD (when the Academy was still supposed to be in existence). He describes the graves, altars, and olive trees of the Academy (i.e. the olive grove). He says that a memorial to Plato is found not far from the Academy but there is no mention of Plato's school nor, for that matter, is there any mention that Plato was connected with the Academy which is simply a park.

What then was Plato's Academy? Chermiss writes [1]:-

All the evidence points unmistakably to the same conclusion: the Academy was not a school in which an orthodox metaphysical doctrine was taught, or an association of members who were expected to subscribe to the theory of ideas ... The metaphysical theories of the director were not in any way 'official' and the formal instruction in the Academy was restricted to mathematics. ...

Plato's influence on these men, then, was that of an intelligent critic of method, not that of a technical mathematician with the skill to make great discoveries of his own; and it was by his criticism of method, by his formulation of the broader problems to which the mathematician should address himself, and ... by arousing in those who took up philosophy an interest in mathematics that he gave a great impulse to the development of the science.

We should look at perhaps the only 'fact' which is usually given about the Academy in Plato's time. This is that above the door Plato inscribed "Let no one who is not a geometer enter". This is not stated in any literature which has come down to us earlier than a document from the middle of the 4th century AD which, therefore, was written about 750 years after Plato founded the Academy. Before we discuss whether it is likely that indeed this was written above the door of the Academy, let us give what is probably a more accurate translation - "Let no one who cannot think geometrically enter".

First we note that above the doors of sacred places there was often placed an inscription "Let no unfair or unjust person enter". What is reported above the door of the Academy