Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism [addendum 1] | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism [addendum 1]

Scholarship on Pythagoras and early Pythagoreanism has undergone a revolutionary change in recent decades. On the one hand, we know much less about Pythagoras and the early school than seemed to be the case a generation ago. On the other hand, it is no longer true that, as W. K. C. Guthrie writes in the original article above, "there is no Pythagorean literature before Plato." Both changes are due to the work of Walter Burkert (1962/1972).

The New Skepticism About Early Pythagorean Philosophy

There had always been skeptics who doubted the traditional view of scientific work by Pythagoras and his early followers. Burkert showed decisively how far this tradition derived from a completely unhistorical view of Pythagoras created in Plato's Academy and popularized by Plato's immediate successors. The striking similarities between Plato's work and the traditional account of Pythagorean philosophy (as given in Guthrie's article) are largely due to this post-Platonic tradition, which in later versions regularly credited Pythagoras with the invention of Platonic philosophy. At the same time, Burkert defended the authenticity of most of the fragments attributed to Philolaus (in the middle or late fifth century BCE), which are now generally recognized as the earliest Pythagorean texts.

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