Organization of Teaching and Research

Abstract

Modern universities are the result of many centuries of evolution. We can say that higher education has its roots in the teachings of natural philosophers of Ionia and Magna Graecia. However, strictly speaking, a master’s teaching to his students (for example, Socrates to Plato or Plato to Aristotle) cannot be regarded as a university course, since this teaching is not contained in a formal curriculum. The first institutions that can be thought of as offering university-level education were the philosophical schools of Hellenistic antiquity. In Athens, during the second century AD, there were four philosophical schools, financed by the Roman emperor of the time, Marcus Aurelius (121 AD–180 AD). The most important of them were Aristotle’s Lyceum and Plato’s Academy. In the latter, after several centuries, taught Simplicius, who was mentioned in the first part of this book, regarding his debate with John Philoponus.