ABSTRACT
The riddle Cherniss examines concerns the nature of the teaching Plato offered in his Academy and the significant differences between the ideas disseminated in his dialogues and the unwritten doctrines that Aristotle attributes to him. This chapter discusses that the Early Academy, despite the considerable amount of research it has inspired over the past sixty years, remains a somewhat mysterious institution. The Academy's institutional life, however, cannot be limited to the various scholarchates that punctuated its history. Indeed, philosophers such as Aristotle, Heraclides Ponticus and Crantor, as well as leading scientists such as Theaetetus of Athens and Eudoxus of Cnidus were members of the Academy, or at the very least, gravitated towards it. The attempt to resolve the problems raised by Speusippus' philosophy, and the desire to reconcile it with Plato's doctrine, characterise in turn the philosophical project of Xenocrates, Speusippus' successor at the head of the Academy.
