For the third year running one of our trustees, Margot Camp, led a Plato retreat in the beautiful setting of the Waterperry Estate in Oxfordshire from 9 -12 June 2025. A contingent from the UK was joined by guests from Poland and the Netherlands. Some were seasoned readers of Plato while others were reading a Platonic dialogue for the first time.
The subject of study for the retreat was the nature of excellence, most particularly justice, as explored in the early books of the Republic.
The participants joined groups of 10 to read and discuss various passages from the Republic. As well as demonstrating Socrates’ mastery of reason and dialectic, some of these passages showed a profound insight that seemed to address directly our own age and its challenges. One such passage that resonated with many participants discussed a just person as someone who:
 “truly concerns himself and what belongs to himself, not permitting each element in himself to engage in activities that are alien to it, nor allowing the kinds that are in the soul to meddle in one another’s functions; rather putting what is his own in place well and truly, ruling over and bringing order to himself, becoming a friend to himself, and harmonising the three elements which are really like the three defining notes of the musical scale, the highest, lowest and middle, and any others that are in between. Having bound all these together from many, he becomes entirely one, sound-minded and harmonious.” (443d-e)
There will be another Plato retreat at Waterperry next year from 8 – 11 June. Everyone is welcome.
