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Autumn Sessions starting soon

Plato and Aristotle as depicted by Raphael in the School of Athens 1511
Plato pointing up, Aristotle pointing down in Raphael’s School of Athens

Places are still available in our Autumn evening classes starting the week of Monday 12 April 2021. If you are new to Plato and philosophy, we recommend for starters Reading Plato [NOW BOOKING FOR WINTER]. Continuing students are challenged to go deeper into Platonic philosophy by reading Plato’s Theaetetus [BOOKED OUT]. Delve into the geometric imagination behind the dialogues by practicing Platonic Esoteric Geometry [BOOKED OUT]. Meanwhile, Happy Easter!

Autumn 2021 enrolments now open

Greek vase depicting young men anointing with oil after exercising in the gymnasium.
In Plato’s Theaetetus, a brilliant geometry student is engaged by Socrates after anointing at the gymnasium.

Enrolments are now open for Autumn evening classes starting after Easter 2021. Those who are new to philosophy and Plato would best take our foundation course Reading Plato [BOOKINGS NOW CLOSED]. A new course for advanced students will be reading one of Plato’s great offerings to our tradition, the Theaetetus. This dialogue between Socrates and his young look-alike, Theaetetus, surveys several answers to the question: What is it to know something? Those who missed out on our first run of Platonic Esoteric Geometry will be pleased to hear that it is running gain. This hands-on class will convene in the Lonsdale Street classrooms, while the other classes remain online due to ongoing COVID restrictions.

The Spiral of Theodorus

Spiral of Theodorus Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spiral_of_Theodorus.svg
The root spiral of Theodorus Source

In Plato’s dialogue, Theaetetus (p. 147d), there is a cryptic description of a complicated geometrical diagram that the geometrician, Theodorus, drew for his students. Down through the centuries there has been much speculation about exactly what Theodorus was supposed to have drawn.

We know that it involved the roots of square areas in the natural number series up the area of 17, and so √17. But then at √17 Theodorus stopped, so we are told, because after that the diagram got ‘entangled’ (enescheto).

What happened after √17?

Continue reading “The Spiral of Theodorus”