What was the Academy? It was a public grove or garden in the suburbs of Athens (see map, p. [219]) that had been left to the city for gymnastics by a public-spirited man named Academus. It had been surrounded by a wall and had been adorned by olive trees, statues, and temples. Near this inclosure Plato possessed by inheritance a small estate. It was here that he opened his school, and few places could be more favorable for the study of philosophy. Plato bequeathed this estate to the school, which held the property in a corporate capacity for several centuries. The leader of the school was called scholarch, and he appointed his own successor.The school was a kind of religious brotherhood based upon the worship of the Muses.
Note that Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle finished their education at an age much beyond what is supposed to be the limit in modern time. They were, in fact, mature men before they began their life work. Plato was 32 before he began to teach in Athens and 40 before he set himself about his real life task in the founding of the Academy. Democritus was 40 before he returned to Abdera from his travels in Asia Minor. Aristotle was 41 when he undertook to act as tutor of Alexander, and 49 when he began his administration of the Lyceum.
The dialogues of the third period of Plato’s life contain his constructive theory, and are his masterpieces of art. The topics with which they deal show the advance of his thought over the dialogues of his first period. The purely Socratic dialogues were ethical discussions; these are ethical, metaphysical, and physical.
Phædrus, Plato’s delivery of his programme upon his entrance into active teaching in the Academy, in 386 B. C.
Symposium, an exposition of his entire doctrine in “love speeches.” It is the most artistic of his writings, and represents the climax of his intellectual power (385 or 384 B. C.).
Republic (major portion). The composition of the Republic extended over a long period. It is a discussion: (1) concerning justice (written in the second period, see above); (2) concerning the ideal state which shall realize justice; (3) concerning the Idea of the Good and in criticism of the constitutions of states. It is Plato’s masterpiece and his life work.
Parmenides and Sophist, written to express the objections to the theory of Ideas, and to discuss such objections. (Windelband holds these dialogues were not written by Plato, but by some member of his school. This is, however, not the consensus of opinion.)
Politicus, a discussion of the field of knowledge and of action for a statesman.
Phædo, Plato’s final will and testament to the school, written shortly before his third Sicilian journey, in 361 B. C. It is his completed conception of the Idea of the Good and of the relation of other Ideas to it. It contains Anaxagorean and Pythagorean elements.
Philebus, concerning the ingredients of the Idea of the Good.