Wright State University CORE Scholar

Classics Ancient Science Fair Religion, Philosophy, and Classics

1-2020

Finding Pythagoras in the Pythagoreans

Brandon Barnes Wright State University - Main Campus, [email protected]

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Part of the Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, and the Mathematics Commons

Repository Citation Barnes , B. (2020). Finding Pythagoras in the Pythagoreans. Dayton, Ohio.

This Presentation is brought to you for free and open access by the Religion, Philosophy, and Classics at CORE Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Classics Ancient Science Fair by an authorized administrator of CORE Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Finding Pythagoras In The Pythagoreans

Brandon Barnes C LS- 4 10 0 Class of 2021 Bachelor’s Degree in Classical Languages & Cultures Ap ril, 20 20 The Mythical and the Modern Pythagoras

● Pythagoras did not write anything down - no source within 200 years of his death cites Pythagoras’ own work (Huffman, 2 0 18 ) .

● Early sources become the foundation for early knowledge of Pythagoras- and they don’t agree with each other

● How does the early information regarding Pythagoras become the Pythagoras we know today from our math classes?

● Can we follow the development of the image of a modern Pythagoras in order to reconstruct the real Pythagoras? Early Pythagoreans: Philolaus

● The first recorded Pythagorean,founder of the written Pythagorean tradition

● Cosmic analysis, harmonics, transmigration of the soul

● “So - called Pythagorean”- Aristotle

● Pythagoras or Philolaus as founder of the Pythagoreans

Medieval woodcut by Franc hino Gaffurio, 1492, Pythagoras and Philolaus conducting musicalexperiments Early Pythagoreans: Archytas

● Only available through fragments and references

● Practicalmathematics and harmonics

● “An individual thinker”- Aristotle

● Silence on the soul

Thomas Stanley, 1655,The History of Philosophy Outside of the Tradition: Plato

● Socrates = Philolaus,Plato = Arc hyt a s

● Plato’s Pythagorean interest

● Aristotle against equating Plato with Pythagoras

● Plato’s Pythagorean ideal

Etching by D. Cunego, 17 8 3 Outside of the Tradition: Aristotle

● All is not number

● His study of the Pythagoreans

● Therefore, from my interpretation, previous statements assigned to Aristotle willbe considered as closest to the truth

Bust of Aristotle. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek bronze original by Lysippos from 330 BC Orphic Origins for Pythagorean Thought

● Porphyry’s mystical Pythagoras, lack of mathematics and ra t ios

● Porphyry’s image mirrors concepts found in Orphism

● Plato and Orphism,connected by Pythagoras

● Reliability of the later Pythagorean tradition Pseudo-Pythagoras in the Later Tradition

● The Pythagorean divide - the Akousmatikoi and the Mathematikoi , Hippasus

● Pseudo- Pythagoras and the real Akousmata

● Authenticity of the Golden Verses The Final Image-Pythagoras in Antiquity

● The cosmos,mathematics, and, most importantly,the soul as principle elements of Pythagoras’ true thought

● Mathematical focus pushed by Pythagoras’ pupilHippasus , creating a separation in the Pythagoreans

● Connections to Orphism easier to prove than mathematics,cannot link specific math to Pythagoras himself,but likely would have

Thomas Stanley, 1655,The contributed in some way History of Philosophy