A more fulfilled life
Look beyond the myth, and you will find a fascinating hidden world of possibilities.
It’s interesting how certain myths persist through mainstream narrative. ‘If you love the humanities, it’s because you’re not good in mathematics.’
We take those myths at face value, without ever questioning their validity—or the loss of value to business and society of what we’re overlooking because of them.
Our marvelous brains are capable of solving complex problems and caring for others. The humanities have been central to education, essential for creating competent democratic citizens.
The key word is ‘competent.’ Because there’s philosophical logic in every arithmetic operation.
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Plato believed that philosophy could direct people’s minds toward a knowledge of goodness and virtue, and in turn benefit society. When he founded the Academy in 387 BC, Plato was 41. The school had both private and public areas.
Many of the school’s activities took place in the Academy Park, where members would meet and then converse, walking along the pathways. For other activities Plato used a house and garden. Thus, there were a public campus and a private building.
The purpose of the school was to teach people how to think. According to Irish classicist and philosopher John M. Dillon:
“Despite Plato’s strong views on many subjects, it was not his purpose to leave to his successors a fixed body of doctrine which they were to defend against all comers. What he hoped that he had taught them was a method of inquiry, inherited by himself from his master Socrates, which, if correctly practiced, would lead them to the truth; but, if so, it was a truth which everyone would have to arrive at for himself.”
Some informal courses taught geometry and mathematics. But the overall emphasis of the Academy was on Socratic dialogue and dialectic—question and answer format to arrive at sound definitions, test unproven assumptions, and search for logical inconsistencies.
Aristotle was a student for twenty years. When he went on to found a School himself, he switched the format to lecture. Plato’s Academy focused on mathematics; Aristotle’s School went on to became a center for scientific research.
How it started
Plato’s Academy was revolutionary—the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. It was structured less formally than a modern college or university. The ancient Greek educational institution existed for an unbroken period of 300 years.
Twenty year old Plato wanted to contribute to society. When he met the philosopher Socrates he was considering a career in politics. At the time, Thirty Tyrants ruled Athens for a period of eight months. Plato was hopeful about their ruling.
But the Thirty unleashed a reign of terror. They executed 1,500 Athenians without trial, confiscated the property of citizens, and sent people into exile. Then his dear friend and mentor Socrates was executed on trumped-up charges of impiety.
Disillusioned by the unjust and corrupt political events that unfolded around him in Athens, twenty-eight year old Plato turned to philosophy. Education was key. A ruler who understood the true nature of goodness and justice would have a genuine vantage point from which to govern well.
Plato was in touch with members of another philosophical school, the Pythagorean, based in South Italy. His friend Archytas was philosopher, mathematician, inventor, scientist, and statesman. The people of Taranto elected him for seven terms, they loved him so.
Archytas was likely the model of political guardian we find in Plato’s Republic. The despised Dionysisus I, also a Pythagorean, was likely the model for the tyrant. (It is in the Republic that Plato first highlights the four virtues all others hinge on—prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.)
The meetings and knowledge he acquired through the Pythagoreans were likely the impetus behind Plato’s Academy.
At the time Athens had schools for children gymnastics, reading and writing, literature, arithmetic, and works of the lyric poets. For the remainder of education, students were to participate in civic life.
You could also learn the art of persuasive public speaking, critical to have a public affairs career in Athens.
For a fee, you could learn from the Sophists or ‘wise ones.’ Their method was like that of polished courtroom attorneys—they would argue either side of a case to win an argument with no reference to the underlying truth.
Socrates demonstrated their arguments as flimsy and incoherent. To do so, he used dialectic—systematic question and answer, careful definition of terms, and careful exploration of logical contradictions—in conversation with Sophists.
Four big ideas to investigate
Rather than teaching, Plato was ‘someone who set out problems for the students to investigate.’ He put forth mathematical and philosophical problems for students to work on. The Academy lived on through the work of his students.
Plato lived to a ripe old age for the times—eight-one. His focus on the nature of goodness and virtue involved both philosophy and mathematics and formed four big ideas for making life more fulfilling.
1. Think more
We rarely give ourselves time to think carefully and logically about our lives and how to live them; sometimes we just go along with what the Greeks call doxa, or popular opinions.
It’s easy to do and rationalize as ‘go along to get along.’ But the problem is often that popular opinion edges towards the wrong values, careers, and relationships—for us.
In the 36 books he wrote, Plato found common sense to be riddled with errors, prejudice, and superstition. Things like ‘fame is great,’ ‘follow your heart,’ ‘money is the key to a good life.’ I’m sure you have many more to add.
Plato says that using philosophy, we can subject our own ideas to examination. Resist acting on impulse. I have a trick here—curiosity. When I shift to ‘I wonder…’ or ‘what if…’ I also feel less stress. Feel free to steal it and try.
Once we strengthen our self-knowledge, we don’t get pulled around by emotion. But learn to channel it into creative pursuits that fit who we think we are and where we’d like to go.
This kind of examination is called a Socratic discussion, in honor of his mentor, Socrates. We can have the conversation with ourselves or another person willing to help us clarify our ideas.
2. Let your lover change you
In The Symposium, Plato said “true love is admiration.” In other words, the person we should seek out has the qualities we lack. For example, brave, organized, sincere—if we feel we miss those qualities. By associating with them, we can then absorb some of those qualities.
The right person for us helps us grow to our full potential. “A couple shouldn’t love each other as they are right now...” they should be committed to educating each other and weathering the process of doing so.
Each person should want to seduce the other into becoming a better version of themselves. Relationships are not easy—to form and to maintain over the years. We change, and we forget to tell the other person(s).
You can take virtually any rote activity and make it an opportunity to learn and grow together. Walk and talk—exercise for the body and mind. Leave the phones home, they’re not as smart as you are, together. Travel is more enjoyable when people take assignments and use their knowledge to educate the other(s). House chores… I could go on.
3. Decode the message of beauty
Plato was the first one to wonder why we like beautiful things. He found a fascinating reason—beautiful objects are whispering important truths to us about the good life.
We find things beautiful when we unconsciously sense in them qualities we need, but are missing in our lives. For example, gentleness, harmony, balance, peace, and strength. Beautiful objects help us educate our souls.
Perhaps you didn’t know. But the same areas of the brain light up when we see and experience something beautiful and solve a mathematical equation. Prof Semir Zeki found that
“A large number of areas of the brain are involved when viewing equations, but when one looks at a formula rated as beautiful it activates the emotional brain—the medial orbito-frontal cortex—like looking at a great painting or listening to a piece of music.”
“Neuroscience can’t tell you what beauty is, but if you find it beautiful the medial orbito-frontal cortex is likely to be involved, you can find beauty in anything.”
Plato saw art as therapeutic. Poets, painters, novelists, and nowadays TV producers and designers help us live good lives. See why we need cinema.
Ugliness also plays a role. It parades dangerous and damaged characteristics in front of us, and makes it harder to be wise, kind, and calm.
4. Reform society
Plato was the first utopian thinker; he spent time thinking about how society should be. His inspiration was Sparta, a city-machine that had as its purpose to turn out citizens who were war-machines. Everything they did in Sparta was tailored to that one goal. The city was hugely successful with its military.
The philosopher’s concern was to understand how a society could become better at creating more fulfilled people by using Sparta’s example of focus. But with a different aim. He identified a number of changes to be made in The Republic.
He found it really matters who we admire, because that has influence on our outlook. “Bad heroes give glamor to flaws of character.” He wanted to give Athens new, wiser, celebrities who could become models for good development.
For example, people with a good record of public service, who distinguished themselves by their modesty and simple lives, the dislike of the limelight, and wide and deep experience.
He wanted to prevent people from voting until they could think rationally. To start the process, Plato opened a school in Athens, the Academy, which lasted a good 300 years. His ultimate goal was that politicians should become philosophers.
“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”
Philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead
For Plato, the wise person uses the mind to understand moral reality, and then applies it to life. His philosophy continued to influence and inspire countless thinkers in the ancient world.
Plato influenced the Stoics and Cicero, it inspired Neoplatonism, and it resurfaced in the Renaissance to help fertilize a reawakening of culture, classical values, and the humanities.
We’re still exploring the big questions he raised today. The search for Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Virtue has never gone out of style—and it’s just as absent in today’s political sphere as it was in his day.
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Bibliography:
Fideler, David, Platonic Academies: The Educational Centers of Athens, Alexandria, and Renaissance Florence (East Hampton, New York: Ross School, 1996)
Dillon, John, The Heirs of Plato: A Study of the Old Academy (347–274 BC) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)
Kalliga, Paul, Chloe Balla, Effie Baziotopoulou-Valavani, and Vassilis Karasmani editors, Plato’s Academy: Its Workings and Its History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020)
* If you’re looking for a handy guide on how certain concepts and ideas come to be, I recommend the Dictionary of the History of Ideas (free resources, University of Virginia Library).