Greece · Platonic Academy

Plato (Platon) lived in Athens (Athen) in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. He came from a wealthy family and belonged to the circle around Socrates (Sokrates), whose conversations and trial shaped his thinking. After the death of Socrates, Plato dealt with philosophical questions primarily in dialogues. Among other subjects, he explored knowledge, justice, the organization of the state, education, ethics and the relationship between the perceptible world and unchanging ideas.

Around 387 BC, Plato founded a philosophical teaching community outside the gates of Athens. It was located in a grove associated with the mythical hero Akademos. The term “Academy” is derived from his name. The institution was not a university in the modern sense: there were neither modern degree programmes nor state-regulated qualifications. Rather, it was a community of teachers and learners in which philosophical discussions as well as mathematical, astronomical and natural scientific investigations were conducted.

One of the best-known figures associated with the Academy was Aristotle (Aristoteles), who spent around twenty years there before later founding his own school. After Plato’s death, the Academy was continued by various heads of the school. Its philosophical orientation changed several times; at times, sceptical positions were predominant, while later Platonists again drew more strongly on Plato’s metaphysical teachings. As a result, the name of the institution permanently became a general term for establishments devoted to science, art and scholarly cooperation.

The choice of this anniversary thus refers not only to Plato’s person, but also to an organised form of joint research and teaching whose term has survived into the present day. For Greece (Griechenland), the anniversary also provided an opportunity to address ancient philosophy and its influence on European educational and scientific traditions on a circulating coin.