For centuries, Greece was the cornerstone of Western philosophy,” says Donald Robertson, founder of Plato’s Academy Centre, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the nation’s philosophical history.

“To walk where philosophy originated, to walk in the footsteps of Plato and Socrates,” he observes, is “to imagine how this tradition began.”

Robertson’s interest in philosophy began when he was a teenager and continued through his undergraduate and graduate studies at Aberdeen University, where he completed degrees in philosophy before segueing into postgraduate degrees in psychotherapy. Author of How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, Robertson homed his training in ancient philosophers because he believes they offer more practical wisdom and insights into life than modern ones. Aurelius, Aristotle, and Plato, among other ancients, helped him to process the tragedy of his father’s death. This personal experience, which reified his belief that philosophy teaches invaluable coping mechanisms, inspired him to establish Plato’s Academy Centre in December 2021.