ABSTRACT
Plato died in 347 BC. Upon his death, the stewardship of his Academy passed first to his nephew Speusippus, and then to Xenocrates. Aristotle, who had coveted the appointment, left Athens in dudgeon, later returning to found his own school in the Lyceum. Under Speusippus and his successors, the Academy gradually abandoned research to concentrate on producing an orthodox systematization of Plato's metaphysics. Plato provides the front to his philosophizing, but his actual method derives from Megarian and the Eretrian dialectic, while Pyrrho provides the philosophical thrust. Timon's scene is difficult to reconstruct; but it seems that Arcesilaus is portrayed as a fish caught on the hook of Menedemus, and reeled in either the direction of Pyrrho, or of Diodorus. ThE chapter also discusses Platonism, Pyrrhonism, and the dialectic. Arcesilaus founded the Middle Academy; and he was first to hold his assertions in check because of the contrariety of arguments.
