News of The Academy

Here is the question I would wish to discuss with Plato if it were possible to return in time to the 5th c. and visit the Academy when it was flourishing and meet him in person, perhaps taking a few lessons in the art of words from him. It concerns the Republic: Why, when Plato is opposed to the influence of poetry, does almost every sentence in the opening paragraph of his great work end ...

It is related, in the 15th century commentary of the arab mathematician Qaadiizaade ar-Ruumii on a work called the Ashkaal at-ta' siis (fundamental propositions) by the geometer Ashraf Shamsaddiin as-Samarqandii (c. 1276) that over the porch of Plato's Academy at Athens was the following inscription:<br /><br /> Let no one unversed in geometry enter my doors.<br /><br /> From another source we are told that this was the inscription above Plato's Academy<br /> _________________________________<br /> ...