Greek and Roman Philosophy
Brief Biography:
> Lived: from 570 to 490 B.C.
> Born in Samos (a Greek island in the Aegean) not from from the center of philosophy at Miletus.
> Later moved to the Greek town of Croton in southern Italy.
> Left no writings, but many historians and philosophers wrote of him and of his philosophy although it is impossible to state with certainty if the ideas attributed to Pythagoras are actually his.
> Some evidence that he traveled extensively and very likely was exposed to the mathematics and religion of Egypst. Although widely known for his Phythagorean Theorem during his day he was thought more of as a religious leader and an expert of what happens to the soul after death.
Philosophy/Religion:
> As with all people the Greeks were concerned about what happened after death. For most Greeks during the time of Pythagoras, life after death was a shaddowy existence in the underworld. The prospect of the inevitability of such a bleak existence even led the heroic Achilles to exclaim that it would be better to be the lowest human on earth than the king of the dead.
> Pythagoras offered a more optimistic vision of death to his disciples. He taught the immortality of the soul and metempsychosis, or reincarnation, specifically into animals.
» It is believed that this soul was the psyche, the seat of the emotions which reside in the heart.
» Pythagoras believed that the personality could be carried in the psyche thus making the transmigration of the soul possible.
» The Greeks also believed that animals also had a psyche thus making the transmigration possible.
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» Is there a final disposition of the soul? The "Isles of the Blest," that is, the great spheres in the sky, the moon and the sun, is where the (righteous) sould resides.
¸ And the unrighteous? Perhaps the smaller spheres, the planets, which Pythagoras called the "hounds of Persephone" who act as "agents of vengence for wrongs done."
» According to Porphyry Pythagoras believed that “after certain periods of time the things that have happened once happen again and nothing is absolutely new” and idea known as the "eternal recurrance."
¸ Pythagoras was so influential during his lifetime and afterwards that many thought he was a demi-god or at the least sent by the gods to enlighten humankind.
¸ Pythagoras developed a cult of disciples who practiced strick acestism (self-denial) and in particular, silence.
> Pythagoras' cosmology was a mix of religion, philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy.
» Pythagoras is mostly known for his work in mathematics, particularly geometry. It his time (and those future philosophers whom he influenced) it was his mathematical cosmology that was his most significant contribution.
» He believed that the entire cosmos was numerable, that is, a number could be ascribed to it. For example, men were asigned the number 3, women the number 2, and marriage was equal to 5 (man + woman = marriage).
» At the center of his cosmology was his "discovery" of the tetraktys.
» Tetrakys mean "four" in Greek and it was the most important number in Pythagorian cosmology. In addition, the first four numbers, when added together, equal 10 which had mystical significance to the ancient Greeks.
¸ Pythagoras associated the tetraktys with the wisdom of the Oracle of Delphi and claimed that it was the "harmony in which the Sirens sang."
¸ Pythagoras also saw within the tetraktys the origins of musical harmony as it contains within these numbers whole number ratios of the octaves necessary for concordance.
¸ The tetraktys was seen as the sum of Pythagorian wisdom; so much so that to join the Pythagorians one took an oath to “the one who handed down the tetraktys to our generation.”
¸ Pythagoras was known in his time not as a rigorous mathematician or scientist performing proof or seeking evidence, but for assigning special (metaphysical) meaning to numbers and thus extending their significance from to market place to the cosmos.
» In extending the tetraktys to the cosmos he perceived the motion of the moon, the sun (the Isles of the Blest) and the planets (the hounds of Persephone) in harmonic mathematical relationships (which he did not apparently elaborate) which he (or others) called the "Music of the Spheres." Thus, in Pythagorian cosmology, there is a concordance that exists within the cosmos.
¸ This concordance is rooted in nature and is comprehensible.
¸ It extends into the realm of ethics in that man should live in harmony with this concord (hence the ascetical practices of the Pythagorians).
¸ A life of concord or discord will have consequences in this life and in the next.
¸ In Pythagorianism we may see an articulation of Natural Law theory that predates the writings of Sophocles (Antigone).