| Autumn Salon, 2026 | “Music and Mind Games from Plato to Augustine” | Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides | 3pm, Saturday 9 May | in Carlton | Free Event | Bookings | Donations Accepted | In the Republic and the Laws, Plato discusses musical education as a way of disseminating philosophical insight Read more
| 3pm, Sat 14 March | Kathleen Symes Centre | Guest speaker: Fabio Bucci* BERNIE LEWIN | Free event | Books essential | Friends & family are welcome | Donations accepted | UP DATE: RECORDING | Join us for an afternoon tea celebrating the end of Summer Term, 3 pm Read more
| FOPA 2025 | 12-14 Dec 2025 | Balam Balam Place, Brunswick | PAM presentation at 5pm Friday | UPDATE: video recording |
Platonism has always been on the fringes of state-sponsored higher education. Ever since the universities were established in the Middle Ages, they have been dominated by Aristotelians, even Epicureans. The great Platonic awakenings during the Middle Ages, and in the Renaissance, both arose outside the universities and against strong resistance from within them.
It couldn’t have been any other way. If the spiritual authority of the state church were to be protected, then science must have no “theology.” Its orientation must be fully atheistic, just as academic science remains to this day.
We Platonists have always been out in the cold. Only, now with our participation in the Festival Of Para-Academia (FOPA) we find good company on the fringes. This year, the festival’s blurb grimly observes that the universities are now “little more than credentialing factories with branding strategies.” It continues:
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