Plato founds the Academy

Plato's school outside Athens — 'let no one ignorant of geometry enter' — pursued definitions, mathematics and the theory of Forms for centuries.

Why it matters

The Academy is the prototype of the research institution: organized, multi-generational inquiry. Plato's Forms separated appearance from reality, a split Descartes and modern physics both inherit.

People

Plato

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• 470 BCE – 399 BCE

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  Socrates wrote nothing; he walked and talked, pressing Athenians to define justice, courage and the good — and died for refusing to stop.

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  Aristotle classifies the world

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  Euclid's Elements

  Euclid organized Greek geometry into axioms, definitions and proven theorems — one of the most reprinted books in history.

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Sources

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Plato