Talk:Pythagoreanism/Archive 1

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The use of the word sex for sexual intercourse is believed to derive from Pythagorean numerology. To the Pythagoreans, the number 2 represented the female, and 3, the male. Therefore, 5 was the number for marriage, and 6 that for sex, which followed from marriage. Since sex is the Latin word for the number 6, it's possible that the word "sex" used today evolved from an ancient euphemism.

but that sounds like hogwash to me. The English word "sex" is from sexus, which is probably from secare and unrelated to sex the number. Keenan Pepper 21:13, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I also think it should go. Atleast we need a trusted source to insert such fantastico "facts". Nixdorf 14:05, 2005 Jan 21 (UTC)

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Removed the following, since it doesn't have any indication that it's any more than one person's whimsy: AnonMoos 15:12, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Pythagorean day will occur on the 28th of December this year. 28 is the second perfect number, fitting considering the Pyhtagoreans invented the perfect numbers and Pythagoras was fixated with "twoness".

Gnosticism Series?

Is there a reason that this article should be listed as part of a series on Gnosticism? While I have found some indications of indirect influence in my own research, the Pythagoreans are not near the top of my list of influences. Not to mention that such a connection seems too speculative for an encyclopedia. There is also no mention of Gnosticism in the article. Metagignosko (talk) 13:48, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Removing from Gnosticism series. Metagignosko (talk) 22:09, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Merger

Anybody else think that Pythagoreans ought to be merged with this article? NickelShoe 03:30, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I think it's a bad idea. The two groups are quite different and it would muddy the history to have all the new-age ideas mixed up in this article about history. futurebird 06:26, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Larson

I do not believe it's a good idea to refer to Martin A. Larson as an authority on ancient history and religions. With all due respect to his achievements in other fields, he isn't. He doesn't think in a scholarly way and he is somehow lacking in common sense as far as ancient history is concerned. He is the type of guy who finds a similarity between a Buddhist idea and a Pythagorean idea and concludes "So you see, Pythagoras popularized Buddhism in the West". The idea that the Essenes "were Pythagoreans" is due to such thinking. Yes, there were similarities, noticed by Josephus and discussed by modern scholars who think that there was some Pythagorean influence on the Essenes. But supposing such influence and claiming that "the Essenes were Pythagoreans" is definitely not the same thing. And that's why a reference to Larson is not helpful in an encyclopedia article on Pythagoreanism. Readers may mistake Larson for a representative of sound modern scholarship. It would be much better to refer to great scholars such as Burkert and van der Waerden who studied the history of the Pythagorean movement meticulously. 85.212.189.181 03:24, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

It sounded kind of unscholarly when I read it. At the least, I think it ought to be moved further down in the article, so as to sound less authoritative. NickelShoe 16:10, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

yeah! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.22.184.174 (talk • contribs) .

Essenes?

"According to Martin A. Larson, the Pythagoreans were influenced by Zoroastrian metaphysics, and the Galilee sect of Pythagoreans were also known as Essenes, whose members included John the Baptist and probably gave rise to Christianity."

I have to dispute this, as it is a huge stretch to assume the Essenes were influeced by Pythgoreanism. They were quite opposed to Hellenistic influences... This is hypothesis with little or no basis in fact.

As noted in the above section, this sounded fishy to me to start with, but I'm not an expert. I've removed the sentence from the article. NickelShoe 08:18, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Zoroaster Greek Zōroástrēs appears[2] to have arisen from an association of ástra “stars” with the leading zōrós meaning “undiluted.” This is the oldest attested Greek form of the name, attested in the mid-fifth century BCE Lydiaka of Xanthus (frag. 32) and in (Pseudo-)Plato’s Alcibiades Maior (122a1). This old form appears subsequently as Latin Zoroastres and - as a secondary development - Greek Zōroástris. And there is the connection with plato

   Among the named works attributed to "Zoroaster" is a treatise On Nature (Peri physeos), which appears to have originally constituted four volumes (i.e. papyrus rolls). The framework is a retelling of Plato's Myth of Er, with Zoroaster taking the place of the original hero. While Porphyry imagined Pythagoras listening to Zoroaster's discourse, On Nature has the sun in middle position, which was how it was understood in the 3rd century. In contrast, Plato's 4th century BCE version had the sun in second place above the moon. Ironically, Colotes accused Plato of plagiarizing Zoroaster,[29][30] and Heraclides Ponticus wrote a text titled Zoroaster based on (what the author considered) "Zoroastrian" philosophy in order to express his disagreement with Plato on natural philosophy.[31] With respect to substance and content in On Nature only two facts are known: that it was crammed with astrological speculations, and that Necessity (Ananké) was mentioned by name and that she was in the air. AND Zoroaster is rarely depicted as looking directly at the viewer; instead, he appears to be looking slightly upwards, as if beseeching God. Zoroaster is almost always depicted with a beard, usually brown. His complexion is pale, and this along with other factors bear similarities to nineteenth century portraits of Jesus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroaster

Furthermore everyone should be aware that the Greeks had a connection to Babylon/Alexandria/Black Sea Area. And that a lot of work been done there and the Greeks learned and adopted those wisdom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_dynasty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroaster

While the theorem that now bears his name was known and previously utilized by the Babylonians and Indians, he, or his students, are often said to have constructed the first proof. It must, however, be stressed that the way in which the Babylonians handled Pythagorean numbers, implies that they knew that the principle was generally applicable, and knew some kind of proof, which has not yet been found in the (still largely unpublished) cuneiform sources.[5] Because of the secretive nature of his school and the custom of its students to attribute everything to their teacher, there is no evidence that Pythagoras himself worked on or proved this theorem. For that matter, there is no evidence that he worked on any mathematical or meta-mathematical problems. Some attribute it as a carefully constructed myth by followers of Plato over two centuries after the death of Pythagoras, mainly to bolster the case for Platonic meta-physics, which resonate well with the ideas they attributed to Pythagoras. This attribution has stuck, down the centuries up to modern times.[6] The earliest known mention of Pythagoras's name in connection with the theorem occurred five centuries after his death, in the writings of Cicero and Plutarch.

  1. ^ There are about 100,000 unpublished cuneiform sources in the British Museum alone. Babylonian knowledge of proof of the Pythagorean Theorem is discussed by J. Høyrup, 'The Pythagorean "Rule" and "Theorem" - Mirror of the Relation between Babylonian and Greek Mathematics,' in: J. Renger (red.): Babylon. Focus mesopotamischer Geschichte, Wiege früher Gelehrsamkeit, Mythos in der Moderne (1999).
  2. ^ From Christoph Riedweg , Pythagoras, His Life, Teaching and Influence, Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2005: "Had Pythagoras and his teachings not been since the early Academy overwritten with Plato’s philosophy, and had this ‘palimpsest’ not in the course of the Roman Empire achieved unchallenged authority among Platonists, it would be scarcely conceivable that scholars from the Middle Ages and modernity down to the present would have found the Presocratic charismatic from Samos so fascinating. In fact, as a rule it was the image of Pythagoras elaborated by Neopythagoreans and Neoplatonists that determined the idea of what was Pythagorean over the centuries."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Museum

ressource Apuleius http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apuleius also writes about Pythagoras in Apologia, including a story of him being taught by Babylonian disciples of Zoroaster, c. 150 AD

leading zōrós meaning “undiluted”

Define undiluted. --Tales23 (talk) 07:14, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

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Other Philosophical Terms

Does anyone have any sources on the greek philosophical concept of perion? It links to some video game right now, but I can only find a definition 'aperion = boundless, perion = limited' right now. Cobaltnine 22:05, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

You must be talking about the term "apeiron", which is the negative form of the word "peras", which means boundary or conclusion. Isokrates 19:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Some criticism

Not to sound too plebian here... but much of this article doesn't make any sense. Specifically, the section, "Pythagorean Natural Philosophy" is the extremely confusing. I have no doubt that the authors are very knowledgeable on this subject, but the article reads as though it were written for Pythagorean scholars, and- since wikipedia is a public encyclopedia- it needs to be accessible to anyone. I think most of the problem is simply the way the ideas in the article are phrased, but since I can't decipher what most of it means, I'm having difficulty re-wording it for clarity. I did make a few small edits, and would be happy to make more specific criticisms and comments, once someone responds to this...just so I know there is, in fact, interest in revamping this article. I would love to work with someone more knowledgable on this subject, and edit their ideas for grammar, syntax, ease-of-reading and clarity. Singlewordedpoem 04:17, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

beans and human embryos?

someone please include sources on it or better remove it (in section Pythagorean vegetarianism) --fs 21:21, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Humm, yeah. I found no mention of embryos in "Pythagoras: His Life, Teaching, And Influence" but I did find a mention that humans and beans were thought to be made from the same material (p. 70). Additionally, someone (most likely a vandal) posted that excessive flatulance was another reason for the prohibition and referenced that book as the source. Seeing no such information in that book, I will revert the changes by 24.13.30.54. Imlepid 05:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You should read it again. It's right after the part about them being made from the same material. --Pwent 17:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

A source and page number is all you need to avoid the deletion of challenged material. See WP:ATT. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

pytharogeans and jainists similarities

Jainism a religion originated from the Shramanic tradition of India (which is not of the Vedic tradition); as well as Buddhism. The Jainism canon was finally devised by Mahavira around the -6 century. Jainists -and to some extend Buddhists- share several traits with Pythagoreans, as are:

- Both hold the theory of soul transmigration

- Both hold the practice of vegetarianism

- Both hold some equality between man and woman

- With both can be associated the development of mathematics

The relation of Pythagoreans with numbers is obvious. In the case of jainism a science of numbers, and of big numbers, was developed in India since several centuries before year 0, reaching its maturity during the first half of the first millennia. This interest for numbers can be linked to the Shramanic tradition, as for example, there is an old story about Shakyamuni's ability with huge numbers. And, the oldest document containing an use of the 0 digit as it is used today is in a jainist text, Lokavibhaga, of the year +458.

I do not know of a specific evidence to probe a relation of Pythagoras with the Indian wondering monks of the Shramanic tradition, think it can be considered plausible a cultural contact of Pythagoras with their tradition through Egypt and Babylonia, it seems there is not a known historical account which could probe it.

Nevertheless, it can be noticed as well, that Pythagoreans were atypical to the Greek customs, what favors the idea of a foreign influence in its origin, and is a reason for they being considered, then an now, a kind of closed community. But, think, as well, that jainists due to being a vegetarian minority tend to form somewhat closed communities.

The earliest evidence of a contact of a Pythagorean with Indian thinkers is that of Apollonius of Thyana, first century, who traveled to India to Taxila. Taxila was a well known site of learning in North Indian where there were contact between Greeks and Indians since, at least, after Alexander the Great reached India.--MarianoJc 12:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Mariano, this can be an excellent addition to the article if you could provide some sources that describe such views. See WP:ATT. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:29, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Buddhism

It would be interesting to see some elaboration about the role of the pentagram and especially its use as a model of the soul (under "Pythagorean cosmology"). Perhaps it is only coincidence that the Buddhists had formed a model of the mind with five skandhas, but it would be interesting to compare the ideas closely. Remember, Gautama Buddha was probably born at nearly the same time as Pythagoras of Samos. 70.15.116.59 14:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

It might indeed be an interesting comparison, but it's not one we can make. The WP:NOR policy limits us from adding our own interpretations or extrapolations to the article; if some reliable source has made such connections we can mention their opinion, but otherwise we just have to make do with stating the facts. At times this seems like an annoying restriction since it excludes some quite interesting information, but it also means the reader can be more certain of the factuality of the data, and doesn't need to double-check every reference to figure out where editors' suppositions have crept in. Fuzzypeg☻ 04:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Of course. I was just fishing around to see if someone could suggest a useful source and/or extend the comparison. 70.15.116.59 06:18, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Circular Links

(references...) Pythagoreanism-->Neo-Pythagoreanism = Pythagoreanism

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Information from Pythagoras

I noticed that the article Pythagoras has more information about the Pythagorians than this one does. I think it would be worth moving some or all of that information to here. Schneau (talk) 05:29, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Lowenheim-Skolem

"Further Neo-Pythagorean sentiments exist in modern philosophy, with the Lowenheim-Skolem theorem, which indicates that a valid interpretation of the world can be restricted to numbers."

This is an irresponsible (but appealing) stretch. LST says only that a countable model suffices to satisfy the sentences of a first-order theory ("model" and "theory" being well-defined mathematical concepts, not informal terms). Unless the World is considered a countable first-order theory with an infinite model, LST doesn't apply except by very loose analogy, and even in that case "restricted to numbers" is not really the conclusion to draw. (Anat.Yahoo (talk) 14:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC))

Symbols

The monad I believe is correct but the other symbols I think are not authentic. Do we have a good source for those as they seem to have been just made up by somebody. Gingermint (talk) 00:16, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I've seen those symbols before, but (except for the Tetractys) only in a New Age connection. Maybe it's best to delete them until there's some kind of evidence that they were used by Pythagoras or his school, rather than being a modern invention. 83.251.27.199 (talk) 10:16, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Lifestyle?

What do we know of the lifestyle of either "Old" or "Neo" Pythargoreans? Didn't they live communally in specific ways, somewhat like monks? Please add if you know. -- 77.7.159.248 (talk) 14:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Aversion to beans

If there are any regular custodians of this page, I recommend they take a gander at this website. I have to say, it seems have more credibility than what we have here. Vranak (talk) 23:43, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Agree that [1] seems more balanced than our current version. Also, the sentence:

"Susceptible persons may develop a hemolytic anemia by eating the beans, or even by walking through a field where the plants are in flower."

is terribly obscure (it is a reference to favism) and disconnected from its preceding sentence.

Might be worth surveying scholarly articles which cite and critique R. Brumbaugh and J. Schwartz, “Pythagoras and Beans: A Medical Explanation” Classical World, 73 (1980) 421-22. Cesiumfrog (talk) 03:34, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Dating Convention

It has taken a bit of research to unravel this knot, but I believe that I have found the answer to the proper dating convention to use in this article. That matter has been in question, lately, with a series of offsetting edits. Looking at the most recent 250 edits (starting April 29, 2009), it is clear that the article had established and maintained the BC-AD dating convention for a number of years. In April 2011 an IP user inserted additional language which contained "BCE" (one time), in conflict with wp:era which warns: Do not change the established era style in an article.... This error went uncorrected until January 5, 2013, when another IP user changed BCE to BC (which correctly conformed BC to the other dating references in the article). Unfortunately, Editor2020 made a (good faith, no doubt) edit, and undid the correction. The error was corrected again on April 25, 2013, and again Editor2020 made a good faith edit which undid the correction. That same thing happened again on June 7, 2013. To compound the problem, DavidlWinkler made a edit on 28 April 2013 which changed AD to CE, but oddly left BC unchanged. That error was corrected on 13 July 2013, but (unaware of the history of this problem) that correction was undone by Editor2020.

The article now (uniformly) uses the BC-AD dating convention, as it did originally, as per wp:era. Gulbenk (talk) 09:04, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Vincenzo Galilei as Pythagorean?

The reference to Vincenzo Galilei near the end of the entry is much less mysterious than it is made out here: Pythagorean music theory was known throughout the middle ages, transmitted by Boethius, who became the foremost authority well into the early modern period. Galilei's important contribution was that he debunked the story about Pythagoras' visit to the smithy (the foundation myth of Pythagorean music theory, first recorded by Nicomachus) by showing that it was physically impossible. Seems like he was the first person in fifteen hundred years to actually try out the acoustical experiment that Nicomachus described. For this, some historians of science have hailed him the father of the Scientific Revolution, and have speculated on the influence he had on his more famous son, Galileo Galilei.

Geburtstagskind (talk) 13:33, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Secret society

I've set the category back to 'Secret societies' (not 'Secret student societies') as the Pythagoreans were grown-ups and existed as a secret society for many years. While they were in an old sense "students", they were not undergrads swotting for a degree certificate and indulging in silly pranks (I mention no prime ministers), or anything of the sort. The 'student' categorisation would be misleading, and would cluster a set of Ancient Greek men together with modern youths. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:08, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Pythagorean Diet

RAW VEGAN DIET was imposed to all allumni who attended Pythagorean schools! He was accused of non-respecting Greeks gods who impposed the meat consummption! Tht's why he was murdered and his schools burned : because of HIS DIET - he refused to eat meat and dead/ cooked food ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.227.244.217 (talk) 04:38, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Vegetarians = Pythagoriens untill XIX century

The term "vegetarien" was used only from XIX century instead "Pythagorians" - it was invented by English freemasons who tried to hide who Pythagoras really was - they laughted at people eating fruits/vegis ! But, all "Greek" philosophers were Serbs, in reality and they were all vegetarians (=pythagorians). Pythagora spoke Serbian as mother tongue and Slavisa Miljkovic can read all ancient Greek texts thanks to a Serbian key that is traduction into Serbian which was a base for creating ancient Greek language. Dark forces are also here at work to hide the Truth! The Serbian Truth about our real origins ! Go to Vinca culture and learn that Serbs had first letters in the world. We live in the year 7524 according to Serbian time. Please, some more informations on this issue! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.227.244.217 (talk) 10:40, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

I would say "cite professionally-published mainstream academic or journalistic sources," but that sort of nationalist historical revisionist conspiracy theorism falls well under WP:FRINGE instead. Ian.thomson (talk)

Inconsistency in, or with other articles

The article on Empedocles includes the statement:

Like Pythagoras, Empedocles believed in the transmigration of the soul, that souls can be reincarnated...

However, there is no reference to these concepts in this article on Pythagoreanism. Is this article incomplete, or is the other one inaccurate? --DStanB (talk) 12:13, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes there is, see section on body and soul, also added more on this :) prokaryotes (talk) 02:51, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Introduction

The introduction needs to provide some description of the content of Pythagoreanism -- content that is in common between its various schools, however small that intersection may be. Jim Bowery (talk) 17:21, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree. The lede should summarise the article, as so should give an account of the time range of the philosophy's popularity, consistent beliefs and maybe some of the outlier beliefs. I also removed the quote to the encyc of philosophy. I had to read the quote 3 times to figure out what it was trying to point out and even them it seemed to trivial for the lede. Ashmoo (talk) 11:51, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

The lede needs some editing. The 23:28, 24 January 2019 edit by Mouselb modified these lines: "They espoused a rigorous life of the intellect and strict rules on diet, clothing and behavior. Following Pythagoras’ death, disputes..." to this: "Espousing a rigorous life of the intellect and strict rules on diet, clothing and behavior comprised a cult of following Pythagorean's Code. Peculiar, the Code's diet, prohibits the consumption or even touching any sort of bean or legume. Pythagoras’ death, disputes ..." The first sentence is turned into a subordinate clause to an new clause which is grammatically incorrect, factually suspect, and introduces a Capitalized Term unattested to elsewhere in the article. The next sentence features more poor English, editorializing ("Peculiar"), and introduces a very minor piece of trivia on beans that does not belong in the lede. Finally, deleting the "Following'" from the trailing sentence is again not grammatical, and subsequent edits have altered the meaning of the sentence. 174.200.44.93 (talk) 17:19, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Geometric Algebra

Since I know more or less nothing about ancient history, I won't say that the ancient Greeks didn't have something that's conventionally called "geometric algebra"... but I do know that the "geometric algebra" link points to modern abstract material entirely reliant on mathematical concepts and approaches that didn't exist /anywhere/ until the 19th century. The conceptual structures discussed in the link target would have been completely alien to anybody who thought in anything remotely like the ways described in this article. I'm pretty sure that link doesn't belong there...

Agreed. The text is very clearly mistaken in referring to geometric algebra. I'll change it. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 15:18, 16 April 2020 (UTC)