Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans
The next outstanding philosophical school that operated in the western part of "Magna Graecia", i.e. in Southern Italy, are the Pythagoreans.
The reconstruction of their philosophical views is very difficult, since few materials have been preserved from this school.
Just as little (and often controversial) information has been preserved about the life and work of the founder of this school — Pythagoras.
Hegel characterizes the situation related to the reliability of information about the life of Pythagoras as follows: "The later neo Pythagoreans compiled numerous voluminous biographies of Pythagoras and wrote at length about the Pythagorean union in particular, but we must beware and not take these often distorted testimonies as historical facts.
The biography of Pythagoras has come to us through the prism of the ideas of the first centuries of our era — it is written more or less in the style in which we are told about the life of Christ..."
The situation is similar with the works of Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans.
The thoughts of the founder of the school have reached us in most cases in the presentation of other authors.
"His philosophical teaching was subjected to the same distortion as the history of life.
Everything that Christian melancholy and a penchant for allegorism have come up with has been connected with it."
According to most information, Pythagoras came from the island of Samos.
His life falls on the period approximately between 584 (582) — 500 BC.
He spent a significant part of his life on the island of Samos.
Only with a noticeable restriction of the power of the ancestral aristocracy and the establishment of tyranny, he goes to Southern Italy.
His departure is closely related to his political orientation and aversion to tyranny.
Pythagoras remains faithful to his anti democratic orientation in Croton, where he organizes the Pythagorean union from supporters of the local aristocracy, which plays a significant role in the struggle against the democratic party in other areas of Southern Italy.
The influence of this essentially reactionary alliance is spreading very quickly to Sicily.
Pythagoras and the Pythagorean union have considerable merit in the fact that Aristo cratia held political power in Croton for a relatively long time.
On their initiative, the aristocratic Croton took military actions against the city of Sybaris, in which the slave owning democracy won.
Social and class conflicts in Croton itself eventually led to the restriction and then to the overthrow of the power of the aristocracy.
The slave owning democracy took decisive measures against the Pythagorean union, which was quite rightly considered the center of an aristocratic reactionary ideology.
Just as in other cities of Greece, in which the slave owning democracy won, the Pythagorean union was dissolved in Croton, and its supporters were expelled from the city.
However, even such measures did not put an end to the Pythagorean movement.
For almost a century, Pythagorean philosophy retained a certain influence and reactionary political orientation in the Greek colonies of Southern Italy.
Pythagoras was approximately a contemporary of Anaximander and Anaximenes.
Like Thales, he takes a trip to Egypt, where he gets acquainted with the achievements in mathematics and astronomy, with philosophical and religious ideas that greatly influenced his philosophical and religious views.
According to Diogenes Laertius, he wrote three books: "On Education", "On the affairs of the community" and "On Nature".
A number of other works are attributed to him, which were created by the Pythagorean school and, as was then the custom, were signed with the name of the head of the school.
Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans paid considerable attention to the development of mathematics.
It is believed that Pythagoras was the first to prove that in a right triangle the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the legs (Pythagoras ' theorem).
Unlike other thinkers who were engaged in mathematics at that time, he goes further than solving geometric problems that Thales or Anaximenes were engaged in.
Pythagoras also explores the relationship of numbers.
It can be fairly argued that Pythagoras and the Pythagorean school lay the foundations of number theory and the principles of arithmetic.
The Pythagoreans solved many geometric problems of that time arithmetically.
The study of the relationship between numbers, and in particular between series of numbers, required a very developed level of abstract thinking, and this fact was reflected in the philosophical views of Pythagoras.
The interest with which he and his followers studied the nature of numbers and the relations between them led to a certain absolutization of numbers, to the mysticism of numbers.
The numbers were raised to the level of the real essence of all things.
Of the ancient authors, we find the most complete exposition of the views of Pythagoras in Diogenes Laertius: "The beginning of everything is one; an indefinite binary is subject to unity as a cause as a substance; numbers come from one and an indefinite binary; from numbers — points; from points — lines; from them — flat figures; from flat — three — dimensional figures; from them — sensually perceived bodies in which the four bases are fire, water, earth and air; moving and transforming entirely, they generate the world — animate, intelligent, spherical, in the middle which is the earth; and the earth is also spherical and inhabited on all sides."
Hegel, in the History of Philosophy, interprets the basic principles of the Pythagorean doctrine in the following way: "...the first simple concept is a unit... not a discrete, multiple arithmetic unit, but identity as continuity and positivity, an absolutely universal essence " 69.
"The one is followed by the opposite, the two... the difference, the special" 70.
From these principles arise or, more precisely, all other numbers are reduced to these principles.
The Pythagoreans believe that the first four numbers of the arithmetic series are the main ones — one, two, three, four.
In geometric interpretation, these numbers correspond successively to: a point, a straight line (defined by two points), a square (as a planar figure defined by three points) and a cube (as a spatial figure).
The sum of these basic numbers gives the number "ten", which the Pythagoreans considered an ideal number and gave it an almost divine essence.
Ten, according to the Pythagorean teaching, is a number by which all things and phenomena of the world with its opposites can be translated.
The whole Pythagorean teaching about the essence of being has a clearly expressed speculative character.
The Pythagorean teaching at the initial stage of its development is, in fact, historically the first attempt (with the exception of some moments in the teaching of Anaximenes) to comprehend the quantitative side of the world.
The mathematical approach to the world consists in explaining certain quantitative relations between really existing things.
In particular, in the field of geometry, the relationship between a quantitatively expressed relationship and objective reality is largely visual and in many cases even sensually identified.
The arithmetization of geometry means the expression of spatial relations in "pure" numbers and makes it possible for them to gradually detach from the relations in the objective reality that they actually represent.
The possibility of mental manipulation of numbers (as abstract objects) leads to the fact that these numbers can be understood as independently existing objects.
From here it remains only a step to ensure that these numbers are proclaimed as the actual essence of things.
With the help of this operation, the Pythagoreans come to an idealistic explanation of reality.
The clearly expressed idealism of Pythagoras and his followers had its roots in social, political, ethical and, in particular, religious views.
Pythagoras considered religion and morality to be the main attributes of the ordering of society.
The Pythagorean approach to religion differs markedly from the Greek tradition of that time.
The Pythagorean approach is influenced by elements of Persian and Indian mysticism.
To a certain extent, it is a sanctification of class exclusivity (which becomes almost caste like).
His teaching about the immortality of the soul (and its reincarnation) is based on the principles of complete subordination of man to the gods:First of all, honor the immortal gods, as the law tells us, by honoring Them, also give respect to the God like dead!
The religious views of the Pythagoreans are very closely related to their political orientation.
The same can be said about their understanding of morality.
It was the justification of a certain "social harmony "based" on the absolute subordination of the demos to the aristocracy.
Therefore, its most important part was unconditional submission.
The religious and moral views of Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans often coincide.
The religious and moral principles of the Pythagorean teaching have left a certain imprint on the organization of the structure and activity of the Pythagorean union, in which the classism and reactionary partisanship of Pythagorean religious, social and ethical views are manifested more clearly than in other moments.
Most of the principles of the union were secret and were available only to members of the union.
The personality of Pythagoras had unlimited authority, his philosophy was taught exclusively to the members of the union for a very long time.
Only some moral principles were allowed to be spread "among the people", The picture was completely opposite with regard to the propaganda of religious views.
In the Pythagorean understanding, the dissemination of" religion " was the main responsibility of each member of the union.
From the religious and ethical teachings of Pythagoras, a number of "prohibitions" and "restrictions" also follow, which to a greater or lesser extent had a mystical character, a form of prejudice, and also acted as a way of explaining some natural phenomena, which sometimes contrasted with the principles of the Pythagoreans ' own philosophy.
The disciples of Pythagoras.
Pythagoreanism in one form or another existed until the third century AD.
The closest to the teachings of Pythagoras were the older Pythagoreans, among whom there were many direct disciples of Pythagoras.
The most prominent of them was Alcmaeon of Croton.
The time of its activity falls somewhere in the first half of the V century " BC.
In fact, in his philosophical views, he was faithful to the Pythagorean principles.
Alcmaeon's main area of interest was medicine.
It is known about him that he was "the first to dare an autopsy"72.
The most important of his medical and physiological knowledge is the awareness of the relationship between the sensory organs and the brain.
To the older generation of Pythagoreans belong, according to Diogenes Laertius, even Epicarp (550— 460 BC), and Architect (CA. fifth century BC).
To the younger generation — Hippias (the middle of the V—IV century BC), Filoli (C. 440 BC) and Audox (approx. 407-357 BC).
After the expulsion from Croton Pythagoreans went to the Greek cities and colonies.
Some of them took refuge in the Plato Academy in Athens.
Pythagoreanism is the first idealistic philosophical trend in ancient Greece.
The Pythagoreans in ideological and political relations played a reactionary role in principle, the same applies to Pythagorean philosophy.
And although the Pythagoreans have indisputable merits in the development of some parts of geometry and, in particular, the basics of arithmetic, their mathematical problems result in mysticism and the deification of numbers, which they consider to be the only true thing.
The Pythagorean way of philosophizing is the opposite of the spontaneous dialectic of the Milesian school and Heraclitus.
It also differs markedly from the strict rationalism of the Elean school.
The doctrine of opposites constructed by the Pythagoreans "is only a rough beginning of a more precise definition of opposites, a beginning in which, as in the Hindu enumerations of originals and substances, there is neither order nor meaning"73.
This is how Hegel characterizes that part of Pythagorean philosophy that has, although verbally, the greatest similarity with dialectical thinking.
The existing opposites are subordinated here to the universal universal harmony of the cosmos, therefore they lose the slightest remnants of the dialectical charge, do not collide, do not fight, but are subordinated to the harmony of the spheres.
The Pythagorean teaching is in its germ form a combination of idealism with a metaphysical way of thinking.
This, together with the mystical elements, forms the prerequisites for its acceptance by Christian philosophy.
In the history of philosophy, idealism turned to Pythagoreanism, as a rule, only when it played an openly reactionary historical role (one of the largest representatives of idealistic dialectical philosophy, Hegel, in the History of Philosophy, evaluates Pythagoreanism very critically).
The metaphysical approach to the question of being, characteristic of Pythagorean philosophy, was the source of the emergence of a number of reactionary philosophical trends.
