A Dictionary of Philosophy, Third Edition
. Late sixth century BC. Born in Samos, he migrated to south Italy and founded Pythagorean ‘brotherhood’ whose doctrines, even centuries later, were often attributed to him. Traditionally he was the first to see the connexion between musical harmonies and ratios of string lengths, and he and his followers developed arithmetic and geometry (including ‘Pythagoras’ theorem’), and in various ways tried to explain reality itself in terms of numbers. They may have originated the ideas (though without providing compelling evidence) that the earth is spherical and not the centre of the universe. They also developed religious ideas about the soul and reincarnation, together with rules for a ‘way of life’.
Both their mathematical and their religious ideas are said to have influenced Plato. Recently, however, much scepticism has been expressed about their alleged mathematical and scientific contributions. See also METAPHYSICS, NIETZSCHE.
J.A.Philip, Pythagoras and Early Pythagoreanism, Toronto UP, 1966. (Balanced discussion taking account of scholarship later than Schrödinger.)
E.Schrödinger, Nature and the Greeks, Cambridge UP, 1954. (Contains sympathetic appreciation by famous modern physicist, though predating recent scholarship.)
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