Academies under Stress: the Reinvention and Survival of Platonist Schools, 360BC-AD565

Researchers examine important turning points over Platonism's history, and identify factors that best equipped it to survive various social and intellectual challenges that it faced, both internal and external. This was antiquity's most enduring philosophy, taught at some location for nearly a millennium, sometimes offering the only available higher education in the Greek tradition. It survived through subtle changes in ideology and doctrine, choosing new allies, and adapting to students' needs. The project will produce history concentrating on challenges and responses, highlighting the versatility of a successful movement, and will examine the developing role of one Platonic dialogue as a basis for ideology.