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 | | From: | Allan Adler | | Subject: | academy in Alexandria | | Date: | 02 Jan 2005 15:31:12 -0500 |
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I read in a recent Discover that the 2300 year old university in Alexandria
has been found. I'd like to read more about this but I expect that the
results of the dig won't be fully published for a while. On the other hand,
everything I've read about ancient academies has been in passing in biographies
of particular people, with the result that I have never been entirely sure
whether there were really ancient academies or not, nor when they might have
existed nor when, even though I have often heard of the Platonic academy.
Are there any works I can read that really give an overview of ancient
academies?
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.
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| | From: | Allan Adler | | Subject: | Re: academy in Alexandria | | Date: | 03 Jan 2005 11:52:24 -0500 |
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| Allan Adler writes:
> Are there any works I can read that really give an overview of ancient
> academies?
Coincidentally, while browsing in a bookstore this morning, I found a
work of George Barton on Greek science in the last few centuries BC.
He has some material on ancient academies. Moreover, this seems to be
volume 2 of a more comprehensive history of science, and he mentions more
on the ancient academies to be found in vol.1.
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.
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| | From: | John Briggs | | Subject: | Re: academy in Alexandria | | Date: | Mon, 03 Jan 2005 18:02:55 GMT |
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| Allan Adler wrote:
> Allan Adler writes:
>
>> Are there any works I can read that really give an overview of
>> ancient academies?
>
> Coincidentally, while browsing in a bookstore this morning, I found a
> work of George Barton on Greek science in the last few centuries BC.
> He has some material on ancient academies. Moreover, this seems to be
> volume 2 of a more comprehensive history of science, and he mentions
> more on the ancient academies to be found in vol.1.
Sarton? A bit dated - try the works of GER Lloyd.
--
John Briggs
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| | From: | Robert Stonehouse | | Subject: | Re: academy in Alexandria | | Date: | Tue, 04 Jan 2005 10:25:34 +0000 |
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| On 02 Jan 2005 15:31:12 -0500, Allan Adler
wrote:
>
>I read in a recent Discover that the 2300 year old university in Alexandria
>has been found. I'd like to read more about this but I expect that the
>results of the dig won't be fully published for a while. On the other hand,
>everything I've read about ancient academies has been in passing in biographies
>of particular people, with the result that I have never been entirely sure
>whether there were really ancient academies or not, nor when they might have
>existed nor when, even though I have often heard of the Platonic academy.
>
>Are there any works I can read that really give an overview of ancient
>academies?
Beware of anything I say about this - I haven't much in the
way of real information. Which said:
I have the impression there were two kinds of institution in
Greece. Teaching the young was done by individuals,
sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. They had their own
institutions, one each - the word 'institution' really
hardly fits them. Plato's Academy had a number of teachers,
including Aristotle for a time. The work at Aristotle's
Lyceum was certainly spread over a number - for example,
collecting all the constitutions. But these were not
publicly supported institutions; there was no kind of
accreditation or other state participation.
The Library at Alexandria was a different kettle of fish. It
was entirely state-founded and state-supported. Its purpose
was research, not teaching, so that there was no other
obvious source of income. People who worked there might also
have pupils (Euclid had), but that meant they were
moonlighting as the other kind of institution. The Library
was kept going as an ornament to the regime of the
Ptolemies. Their kingdom had the (known) world's finest
collection of human knowledge and resources for increasing
it. That was (still is) a worthy addition to their other
glories.
A book on one side of this arrangement will not say much, if
anything, about the other. So you need one book about the
Sophists in Athens and another about the great Library at
Alexandria.
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| | From: | Ed Cryer | | Subject: | Re: academy in Alexandria | | Date: | Tue, 4 Jan 2005 12:10:08 -0000 |
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"Robert Stonehouse" wrote in message
news:tb8jt05u1gesa2a14a24crps9th8ri621d@4ax.com...
>
> Beware of anything I say about this - I haven't much in the
> way of real information. Which said:
>
> I have the impression there were two kinds of institution in
> Greece. Teaching the young was done by individuals,
> sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. They had their own
> institutions, one each - the word 'institution' really
> hardly fits them. Plato's Academy had a number of teachers,
> including Aristotle for a time. The work at Aristotle's
> Lyceum was certainly spread over a number - for example,
> collecting all the constitutions. But these were not
> publicly supported institutions; there was no kind of
> accreditation or other state participation.
>
> The Library at Alexandria was a different kettle of fish. It
> was entirely state-founded and state-supported. Its purpose
> was research, not teaching, so that there was no other
> obvious source of income. People who worked there might also
> have pupils (Euclid had), but that meant they were
> moonlighting as the other kind of institution. The Library
> was kept going as an ornament to the regime of the
> Ptolemies. Their kingdom had the (known) world's finest
> collection of human knowledge and resources for increasing
> it. That was (still is) a worthy addition to their other
> glories.
>
> A book on one side of this arrangement will not say much, if
> anything, about the other. So you need one book about the
> Sophists in Athens and another about the great Library at
> Alexandria.
This seems to reflect my own impressions from my reading. Particularly of
Plato's dialogues. If you were lucky, as was Aristotle, you might get
patronage from someone like Alexander the Great, but both the Academy and
the Lyceum were kept going on private money. Nothing from state coffers.
Plato's dialogues take place almost anywhere; in a gymnasium, in a
Pythagorean meeting-place, outside the door of a city archon. The Academy
was an old garden. Stoicism was so named from the Sot used. And then just
look at the stories of Diogenes and his barrel; and wandering around Athens
with a lamp.
Alexandria, on the other hand, was the Ptolemies' showpiece. With the Tomb
of Alexander himself, and the great Library as a monument to Hellenism.
Ed
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| | From: | Ed Cryer | | Subject: | Re: academy in Alexandria | | Date: | Tue, 4 Jan 2005 12:13:36 -0000 |
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| Please excuse Sot. I meant Stoa. What happened, I think, is that my
spellchecker was going through it and it must have questioned Stoa, and
suggested Sot, and I must have inadvertently said change it.
Ed
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