![]() There also exist all shades of gray between these two extremes. Another group see Plato and his contemporaries as reinventing a cultish and obscure Pythagoras into a legend, a semi-divine being out of whom all philosophical wisdom sprang. Not everyone believes Plato a plagiarist. ![]() ![]() The most famous tenet of Pythagorean thought is, ‘All is Number’. And in his Timaeus Plato explores and expands the conception of the cosmos as mathematics – the idea upon which much of Pythagoras’ fame still rests in modern times. For instance, in Plato’s Phaedo, just before drinking his hemlock, Socrates explores the possible destinies for the soul, which was one of Pythagoras’ main preoccupations, as we shall see. Many scholars adhere to the belief that Plato usurped and then rearticulated the Pythagorean vision. Scholars have rallied behind their favorite reconstructions of the historical artifacts and fragmented writings, sometimes passionately. Yet his intellectual reverberations have persisted for two-and-a-half millennium. His life and ideas are shrouded in myths, distortions, exaggerations and outright lies, and it is impossible to know which is which. It does not help our knowledge of him that he insisted that nothing of his teachings be written down, and that his followers be sworn to secrecy. Pythagoras is found at the cusp dividing written history from the verbal record. He is professed to be the founding father of mathematics, music, astronomy and philosophy he is even alleged to have coined the words ‘mathematics’ and ‘philosophy’. For half a millennium he was a superstar. Shamanistic shyster or intellectual innovator, creative charlatan or exalted pioneer of philosophy – however one views him, Pythagoras remains the most famous name at the starting gate of Western philosophy. SUBSCRIBE NOW Fiction The Death of Pythagoras Bruce Pennington tells us how Pythagoras became a has-bean, while another Bruce Pennington drew the portraits… ![]()
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