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/euh kad"euh mee/, n., pl. academies.1. a secondary or high school, esp. a private one.2. a school or college for special instruction or training in a subject: a military academy.3. an association or institution for the advancement of art, literature, or science: the National Academy of Arts and Letters.4. a group of authorities and leaders in a field of scholarship, art, etc., who are often permitted to dictate standards, prescribe methods, and criticize new ideas.5. the Academy,a. the Platonic school of philosophy or its adherents.b. academe (def. 3).c. See French Academy.d. See Royal Academy.[1470-80; < L academia < Gk akadémeia, equiv. to Akádem(os) ACADEMUS + -eia adj. suffix]
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ISociety of learned individuals organized to advance art, science, literature, music, or some other cultural or intellectual area of endeavour.The word comes from the name of an olive grove outside ancient Athens, the site of Plato's famous school of philosophy in the 4th century BC. Academies appeared in Italy in the 15th century and reached their greatest influence in the 17th–18th centuries. Their purpose generally was to provide training and, when applicable, to create exhibiting or performance opportunities for their members or students. Most European countries now have at least one academy sponsored by or otherwise connected with the state. See also Académie Française.II(as used in expressions)Tung lin Academy* * *
in ancient Greece, the academy, or college, of philosophy in the northwestern outskirts of Athens, where Plato acquired property about 387 BC and used to teach. At the site there had been an olive grove, park, and gymnasium sacred to the legendary Attic hero Academus (or Hecademus).The designation academy, as a school of philosophy, is usually applied not to Plato's immediate circle but to his successors down to the Roman Cicero's time (106–43 BC). Legally, the school was a corporate body organized for worship of the Muses, the scholarch (or headmaster) being elected for life by a majority vote of the members. Most scholars infer, mainly from Plato's writings, that instruction originally included mathematics, dialectics, natural science, and preparation for statesmanship. The Academy continued until AD 529, when the emperor Justinian closed it, together with the other pagan schools.The Academy philosophically underwent various phases, arbitrarily classified as follows: (1) the Old Academy, under Plato and his immediate successors as scholarchs, when the philosophic thought there was moral, speculative, and dogmatic, (2) the Middle Academy, begun by Arcesilaus (316/315–c. 241 BC), who introduced a nondogmatic skepticism, and (3) the New Academy, founded by Carneades (2nd century BC), which ended with the scholarch Antiochus Of Ascalon (d. 68 BC), who effected a return to the dogmatism of the Old Academy. Thereafter, the Academy was a centre of Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism until it was closed in the 6th century AD.* * *
Universalium. 2010.
