"This rich compendium on the lives and doctrines of philosophers ranges over three centuries, from Thales to Epicurus (to whom the whole tenth book is devoted); 45 important figures are portrayed. Diogenes Laertius carefully compiled his information from hundreds of sources and enriches his accounts with numerous quotations. Diogenes Laertius lived probably in the earlier half of the 3rd century CE, his ancestry and birthplace being unknown. His history, in ten books, is divided unscientifically into two 'Successions' or sections: 'Ionian' (...) from Anaximander to Theophrastus and Chrysippus, including the Socratic schools; 'Italian' from Pythagoras to Epicurus, including the Eleatics and sceptics. It is a very valuable collection of quotations and facts." -- Publisher description. (shrink)

This book traces the intellectual revolution initiated by Thales in the sixth century BC to its culmination in the metaphysics of Parmenides.

For the first English edition of his distinguished study, Weisheit und Wissenschaft: Studien zu Pythagoras, Philoloas und Platon, Mr. Burkert has extensively ...

George Karamanolis breaks new ground in the study of later ancient philosophy by examining the interplay of the two main schools of thought, Platonism and Aristotelianism, from the first century BC to the third century AD. Arguing against prevailing scholarly assumption, he argues that the Platonists turned to Aristotle only in order to elucidate Plato's doctrines and to reconstruct Plato's philosophy, and that they did not hesitate to criticize Aristotle when judging him to be at odds with Plato. Karamanolis offers (...) much food for thought to ancient philosophers and classicists. (shrink)

83 The SHIP-MASTER'S ASSISTANT, and OWNER'S MA- NUAL ; containing general Information necessary for Merchants, Owners, and Masters of Ships, Officers, ...

Plato stands as the fount of our philosophical tradition, being the first Western thinker to produce a body of writing that touches upon a wide range of topics still discussed by philosophers today. In a sense he invented philosophy as a distinct subject, for although many of these topics were discussed by his intellectual predecessors and contemporaries, he was the first to bring them together by giving them a unitary treatment. This volume contains fourteen essays discussing Plato's views about knowledge, (...) reality, mathematics, politics, ethics, love, poetry, and religion. There are also analyses of the intellectual and social background of his thought, the development of his philosophy throughout his career, the range of alternative approaches to his work, and the stylometry of his writing. (shrink)

In ancient tradition, Pythagoras emerges as a wise teacher, an outstanding mathematician, an influential politician, and as a religious and ethical reformer. This volume offers a comprehensive study of Pythagoras, Pythagoreanism, and the early Pythagoreans through an analysis of the many representations of the individual and his followers.

This is a comprehensive, authoritative and innovative account of Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism, one of the most enigmatic and influential philosophies in the West. In twenty-one chapters covering a timespan from the sixth century BC to the seventeenth century AD, leading scholars construct a number of different images of Pythagoras and his community, assessing current scholarship and offering new answers to central problems. Chapters are devoted to the early Pythagoreans, and the full breadth of Pythagorean thought is explored including politics, religion, (...) music theory, science, mathematics and magic. Separate chapters consider Pythagoreanism in Plato, Aristotle, the Peripatetics and the later Academic tradition, while others describe Pythagoreanism in the historical tradition, in Rome and in the pseudo-Pythagorean writings. The three great lives of Pythagoras by Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry and Iamblichus are also discussed in detail, as is the significance of Pythagoras for the Middle Ages and Renaissance. (shrink)

A fascinating portrait of the Pythagorean tradition, including a substantial account of the Neo-Pythagorean revival, and ending with Johannes Kepler on the threshold of modernism.

The works of the early Greek philosophers are not only a fundamental source for understanding archaic Greek culture and the whole of ancient philosophy, but also a perennially fresh resource that has stimulated Western thought until the present day. This nine-volume edition presents all the major fragments from the sixth to the fourth centuries BC.

Was Plato a Pythagorean? Plato's students and earliest critics thought so, but scholars since the nineteenth century have been more skeptical. With this probing study, Phillip Sidney Horky argues that a specific type of Pythagorean philosophy, called "mathematical" Pythagoreanism, exercised a decisive influence on fundamental aspects of Plato's philosophy. The progenitor of mathematical Pythagoreanism was the infamous Pythagorean heretic and political revolutionary Hippasus of Metapontum, a student of Pythagoras who is credited with experiments in harmonics that led to innovations in (...) mathematics. The innovations of Hippasus and other mathematical Pythagoreans, including Empedocles of Agrigentum, Epicharmus of Syracuse, Philolaus of Croton, and Archytas of Tarentum, presented philosophers like Plato with novel ways to reconcile empirical knowledge with abstract mathematical theories. Plato and Pythagoreanism demonstrates how mathematical Pythagoreanism established many of the fundamental philosophical questions Plato dealt with in his central dialogues, including Cratylus, Phaedo, Republic, Timaeus, and Philebus. In the process, it also illuminates the historical significance of the mathematical Pythagoreans, a group whose influence on the development of philosophical and scientific methods has been obscured since late antiquity. The picture that results is one in which Plato inherits mathematical Pythagorean method only to transform it into a powerful philosophical argument about the essential relationships between the cosmos and the human being. (shrink)

This is the first book to analyze systematically crucial aspects of ancient Greek philosophy in their original context of mystery, religion, and magic. The author brings to light recently uncovered evidence about ancient Pythagoreanism and its influence on Plato, and reconstructs the fascinating esoteric transmission of Pythagorean ideas from the Greek West down to the alchemists and magicians of Egypt, and from there into the world of Islam.

CHAPTER ONE LIFE The extant evidence about Speusippus' life is scanty, and little of it is reliable. The reasons are not difficult to discover : the greater ...

This is the first comprehensive study for nearly 200 years of what remains of the writings of the Presocratic philosopher Philolaus of Croton. These fragments are crucial to our understanding of one of the most influential schools of ancient philosophy, the Pythagoreans; they also show close ties with the main lines of development of Presocratic thought, and represent a significant response to thinkers such as Parmenides and Anaxagoras. Professor Huffman presents the fragments and testimonia with accompanying translations and introductory chapters (...) and interpretive commentary. He not only produces further argument for the authenticity of much that used to be neglected, but also undertakes a critique of Aristotle's testimony, opening the way for a quite new reading of fifth-century Pythagoreanism in general and of Philolaus in particular. Philolaus is revealed as a serious natural philosopher. (shrink)

Archytas of Tarentum is one of the three most important philosophers in the Pythagorean tradition, a prominent mathematician, who gave the first solution to the famous problem of doubling the cube, an important music theorist, and the leader of a powerful Greek city-state. He is famous for sending a trireme to rescue Plato from the clutches of the tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius II, in 361 BC. This 2005 study was the first extensive enquiry into Archytas' work in any language. It (...) contains original texts, English translations and a commentary for all the fragments of his writings and for all testimonia concerning his life and work. In addition there are introductory essays on Archytas' life and writings, his philosophy, and the question of authenticity. Carl A. Huffman presents an interpretation of Archytas' significance both for the Pythagorean tradition and also for fourth-century Greek thought, including the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. (shrink)

The history of Pythagoreanism is littered with different and incompatible interpretations. This observation directs this book towards a fundamentally historiographical rather than philological approach, setting out to reconstruct the way in which the tradition established Pythagoreanism s image.".

The Pythagorean idea that numbers are the key to understanding reality inspired philosophers in late Antiquity (4th and 5th centuries A.D.) to develop theories in physics and metaphysics based on mathematical models. This book draws on some newly discovered evidence, including fragments of Iamblichus's On Pythagoreanism, to examine these early theories and trace their influence on later Neoplatonists (particularly Proclus and Syrianus) and on medieval and early modern philosophy.

This paper discusses continuity between ancient Pythagoreanism and the pseudo-Pythagorean writings, which began to appear after the end of the Pythagorean school ca. 350 BC. Relying on a combination of temporal, formal and substantial criteria, I divide Pseudopythagorica into three categories: 1) early Hellenistic writings ascribed to Pythagoras and his family members; 2) philosophical treatises written mostly, yet not exclusively, in pseudo-Doric from the turn of the first century BC under the names of real or fictional Pythagoreans; 3) writings attributed (...) to Pythagoras and his relatives that continued to appear in the late Hellenistic and Imperial periods. I will argue that all three categories of pseudepigrapha contain astonishingly little that is authentically Pythagorean. (shrink)

A new assessment of the philosophical traditions Hippolytus depends on and of his method of presentation. This book deals with the reception of the Presocratics, Plato and Aristotle in the first centuries CE, and is a major contribution to our knowledge of the various currents in Pre-Neoplatonic Greek philosophy.

This broad-ranging _Companion_ comprises original contributions from leading Platonic scholars and reflects the different ways in which they are dealing with Plato’s legacy. Covers an exceptionally broad range of subjects from diverse perspectives Contributions are devoted to topics, ranging from perception and knowledge to politics and cosmology Allows readers to see how a position advocated in one of Plato’s dialogues compares with positions advocated in others Permits readers to engage the debate concerning Plato’s philosophical development on particular topics Also includes (...) overviews of Plato’s life, works and philosophical method. (shrink)

In Pythagorean Women, classical scholar Sarah B. Pomeroy discusses the groundbreaking principles that Pythagoras established for family life in Archaic Greece, such as constituting a single standard of sexual conduct for women and men. Among the Pythagoreans, women played an important role and participated actively in the philosophical life. While Pythagoras encouraged women to be submissive to men, his reasoning was based on the desire to preserve harmony in the home. -/- Pythagorean Women provides English translations of all the earliest (...) extant examples of literary Greek prose by Neopythagorean women, shedding light on their attitudes about marriage, the home, music, and the cosmos. Pomeroy sets the Pythagorean and Neopythagorean women vividly in their historical, ecological, and intellectual contexts, illustrated with original photographs of sites and artifacts known to these women. (shrink)

The ancient science of harmonics investigates the arrangements of pitched sounds which form the basis of musical melody, and the principles which govern them. It was the most important branch of Greek musical theory, studied by philosophers, mathematicians and astronomers as well as by musical specialists. This 2007 book examines its development during the period when its central ideas and rival schools of thought were established, laying the foundations for the speculations of later antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. (...) It concentrates particularly on the theorists' methods and purposes and the controversies that their various approaches to the subject provoked. It also seeks to locate the discipline within the broader cultural environment of the period; and it investigates, sometimes with surprising results, the ways in which the theorists' work draws on and in some cases influences that of philosophers and other intellectuals. (shrink)

Plato (424/3-348/7 B.C.) stands at the head of the Western philosophical tradition, the first to write on a wide range of topics still discussed by philosophers today under such headings as metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political theory, and the philosophies of art, love, language, mathematics, science, and religion. He may in this sense be said to have invented philosophy as a distinct subject, for although all of these topics were discussed by his intellectual predecessors and contemporaries, he was the first to (...) give them a unified treatment. He conceives of philosophy as a subject with a distinctive intellectual method, and he makes radical claims for its position in human life and the political community. Because philosophy scrutinizes assumptions that other studies merely take for granted, it alone can provide genuine understanding; since it discovers things inaccessible to the senses and yields an organized system of truths that go far beyond and frequently undermine common sense, it should transform the way we live our lives and arrange our political affairs. It is an autonomous subject and not the instrument of any other subject, power, or creed; on the contrary, because it alone can grasp what is most important in human life, all other human endeavors should be subordinate to it. (shrink)

An outline of the life of Heraclides and his fragmentary writings (on the theory of matter, astronomy, ethical and religious topics) is followed by an attempt to reconstruct his thought. He emerges as not so much a profound thinker as a many-sided writer of considerable literary gifts and occasional flashes of brilliance.

Die vorliegende Sammlung von Aufsätzen einiger der weltbesten Spezialisten der antiken griechischen Philosophie konzentriert sich auf die philosophischen Texte, die während der hellenistischen und kaiserlichen Zeit Pythagoras und den Pythagoreern zugeschrieben wurden. Ihre unbekannten Verfasser behaupten, die Positionen der ursprünglichen pythagoreischen Schule zur Metaphysik, Theologie, Zahlenphilosophie, Physik, Logik, politischen Philosophie, Ethik und zur richtigen Lebensweise zu vermitteln. Die kühnsten unter ihnen präsentieren sich als die Quellen, aus denen Platon und Aristoteles die Inspiration für den Timaios und die Kategorien geschöpft haben. (...) Da sie von den meisten antiken Denkern als maßgebend angesehen wurden, führte dies zu einer Renaissance der platonischen und pythagoreischen Tradition. (shrink)

This volume contains the proceedings of a conference on the Presocratic philosophers Pythagoras and Heraclitus. Investigated by a team of international scholars are key problems in doxography, Pythagorean Communities, logos, harmony, psychology, flux, number theory, ethics, and theology. Designed for all students of ancient philosophy, this volume will spur further investigations into these cardinal concerns of early Greek scientific thinkers.

The first comprehensive account of Platonism in Antiquity, from the foundation of Plato's Academy in the fourth century BC to Late Antiquity. Written in a clear language, the book shows that Platonism is philosophically engaging and very influential in the history of philosophy. Useful for both students and scholars.

This chapter pursues an understanding of what Cicero thought 'Italic' philosophy to be, and proceeds to develop a broader account of how Cicero's version compares with the surviving textual evidence and testimonia from the Hellenistic period of the philosophy of the 'Italic' philosophers, including the Lucanians 'Ocellus', 'Eccelus', and 'Aresas/Aesara', and the Rudian Ennius. Special focus is placed on their theories of cosmology, psychology, and law. Collocation of 'Italic' with 'Pythagorean' philosophy of this era aids in building a more comprehensive (...) view of what Hellenistic Pythagoreanism may have looked like. Uploaded here is the pre-publication version; please email me for the printed version. (shrink)

The purpose of the conference "On Pythagoreanism", held in Brasilia in 2011, was to bring together leading scholars from all over the world to define the status quaestionis for the ever-increasing interest and research on Pythagoreanism in the 21st century. The papers included in this volume exemplify the variety of topics and approaches now being used to understand the polyhedral image of one of the most fascinating and long-lasting intellectual phenomena in Western history. Cornelli's paper opens the volume by charting (...) the course of Pythagorean studies over the past two centuries. The remaining contributions range chronologically from Pythagoras and the early Pythagoreans of the archaic period (6th-5th centuries BCE) through the classical, hellenistic and late antique periods, to the eighteenth century. Thematically they treat the connections of Pythagoreanism with Orphism and religion, with mathematics, metaphysics and epistemology and with politics and the Pythagorean way of life. (shrink)

Pythagorean Women Philosophers argues for a rewriting of Greek philosophical history so as to include female intellectuals. Dutsch presents testimonies regarding the role of women in the Pythagorean school as demonstrating their active contribution to the philosophical tradition.

This article explores in greater depth the historiographical traditions concerning Herennius Pontius, a Samnite wisdom-practitioner who is said by the Peripatetic Aristoxenus of Tarentum to have been an interlocutor of the philosophers Archytas of Tarentum and Plato of Athens. Specifically, it argues that extant speeches attributed to Herennius Pontius in the writings of Cassius Dio and Appian preserve a philosophy of “extreme proportional benefaction” among unequals. Greek theories of ethics among unequals such as those of Aristotle and Archytas of Tarentum, (...) which aim for moderation, can be distinguished from that attributed to Herennius Pontius, which is circumstantial and stipulates extreme responses to extremes. Romans, in particular Appius Claudius Caecus and Sulla, celebrate and espouse proverbial wisdom strikingly similar to the theory of “extreme proportional benefaction” associated with Herennius Pontius, and in contrast to Greek ethics of moderation. Such comparisons suggest that starting in the late fourth century BCE, Romans and Samnites may have held shared ideological principles, as defined against Greek cultural paradigms. (shrink)

Fiction and truth : ancient stories about Pythagoras -- In search of the historical Pythagoras -- The Pythagorean secret society -- Thinkers influenced by Pythagoras and his pupils.

The notion of a harmonious universe was taught by Pythagoras as early as the sixth century BC, and remained a basic premise in Western philosophy, science, and art almost to our own day. In Touches of Sweet Harmony, S. K. Heninger first recounts the legendary life of Pythagoras, describes his school at Croton, and discusses the materials from which the Renaissance drew its information about Pythagorean doctrine. The second section of the book reconstructs the many facets of this doctrine, and (...) the final section shows its influence on Renaissance poetics. Professor Heninger's magisterial work introduces the reader not only to Pythagoras but to a host of other classical, medieval, and Renaissance figures as well--from Plato and Aristotle through St. Augustine and Macrobius down to Sidney and Spenser. (shrink)

The U.S. occupation of Japan transformed a brutal war charged with overt racism into an amicable peace in which the issue of race seemed to have disappeared.

The Pythagorean women are a group of female philosophers who were followers of Pythagoras and are credited with authoring a series of letters and treatises. In both stages of the history of Pythagoreanism – namely, the fifth-century Pythagorean societies and the Hellenistic Pythagorean writings – the Pythagorean woman is viewed as an intellectual, a thinker, a teacher, and a philosopher. The purpose of this Element is to answer the question: what kind of philosopher is the Pythagorean woman? The traditional picture (...) of the Pythagorean female sage is that of an expert of the household. The author argues that the available evidence is more complex and conveys the idea of the Pythagorean woman as both an expert on the female sphere and a well-rounded thinker philosophising about the principles of the cosmos, human society, the immortality of the soul, numbers, and harmonics. (shrink)

Betrifft die Handschrift Cod. 579 der Burgerbibliothek Bern.

We can now approach the interpretation of the famous symbol called the Tetractys or Tetrad, which is a compendium of Pythagorean mysticism. The tetractys is itself a system of numbers. It symbolizes the ‘elements of number,’ which are the elements of all things. It contains the concordant ratios of the musical harmony. It might well be described in the Pythagorean oath as ‘containing the root and fountain of everflowing Nature.’ In one of the acousmata preserved in Iamblichus it is identified (...) with the cosmic harmony. It was also called κσμος, ορανς, πν. Theon says it was held in honour because it contained the nature of the universe. (shrink)

At Metaphysics A 5 986a22-b2, Aristotle refers to a Pythagorean table, with two columns of paired opposites. I argue that 1) although Burkert and Zhmud have argued otherwise, there is sufficient textual evidence to indicate that the table, or one much like it, is indeed of Pythagorean origin; 2) research in structural anthropology indicates that the tables are a formalization of arrays of “symbolic classification” which express a pre-scientific world view with social and ethical implications, according to which the presence (...) of a principle on one column of the table will carry with it another principle within the same column; 3) a close analysis of Aristotle's arguments shows that he thought that the table expresses real causal relationships; and 4) Aristotle faults the table of opposites with positing its principles as having universal application and with not distinguishing between those principles that are causally prior and those that are posterior. Aristotle's account of scientific explanation and his own explanations that he developed in accordance with this account are in part the result of his critical encounter with this prescientific Pythagorean table. (shrink)

The Pythagorean Precepts by Aristotle's pupil, Aristoxenus of Tarentum, present the principles of the Pythagorean way of life that Plato praised in the Republic. They are our best guide to what it meant to be a Pythagorean in the time of Plato and Aristotle. The Precepts have been neglected in modern scholarship and this is the first full edition and translation of and commentary on all the surviving fragments. The introduction provides an accessible overview of the ethical system of the (...) Precepts and their place not only in the Pythagorean tradition but also in the history of Greek ethics as a whole. The Pythagoreans thought that human beings were by nature insolent and excessive and that they could only be saved from themselves if they followed a strictly structured way of life. The Precepts govern every aspect of life: e.g. procreation, abortion, child rearing, friendship, religion, desire and even diet. (shrink)