XI Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2019

Pythagoras of Samos

Pythagoras of Samos "Pythian broadcaster"; 570-490 BC e. - Ancient Greek philosopher, mathematician and mystic, creator of the religious and philosophical school of the Pythagoreans.

The doctrine of Pythagoras should be divided into two parts: a scientific approach to the knowledge of the world and the religious and mystical way of life preached by Pythagoras. The achievements of Pythagoras in the first part are for certain unknown, since he was later credited with everything created by followers within the framework of the school of Pythagoreanism. The second part prevails in the teachings of Pythagoras, and it was she who remained in the minds of most ancient authors.

Quite complete information about the ideas of reincarnation developed by Pythagoras and food prohibitions based on them is given by Empedocles' poem.

In the surviving works, Aristotle never directly refers directly to Pythagoras, but only to the "so-called Pythagoreans." In the lost works (known for excerpts), Aristotle considers Pythagoras as the founder of a semi-religious cult that forbade eating beans and had a golden thigh, but did not belong to a sequence of thinkers, predecessors of Aristotle.

Plato treated Pythagoras with the deepest respect and esteem. When the Pythagorean Philolaus first published 3 books outlining the main points of Pythagoreanism, Plato, on the advice of friends, immediately bought them for a lot of money.

The activities of Pythagoras as a religious innovator VI. BC e. was to create a secret society, which not only set political goals for itself (which is why the Pythagoreans were defeated in Croton), but mainly the liberation of the soul through moral and physical cleansing with the help of a secret teaching (mystical teaching about the circulation of soul relocations). According to Pythagoras, the eternal soul moves from heaven into the mortal body of a person or animal and undergoes a series of relocations until it deserves the right to return to heaven.

Pythagoras' akusmata (sayings) contain ritual instructions: about the cycle of human lives, behavior, sacrifices, burials, food. Akusmata are formulated concisely and is easy to understand for any person, they also contain the postulates of universal morality.

A more complex philosophy, in the framework of which mathematics and other sciences were developing, was intended for “initiates,” that is, chosen people who deserve to possess secret knowledge. The scientific component of the teachings of Pythagoras developed in the V century. BC e. the efforts of his followers (Archit from Tarenta, Philolay from Croton, Hippas from Metapont), but disappeared in the 4th c. BC e., while the mystical-religious component was developed and reborn in the form of Neo-Pythagoreanism during the Roman Empire. The merit of the Pythagoreans was the advancement of thought about the quantitative laws of the development of the world, which contributed to the development of mathematical, physical, astronomical and geographical knowledge. The basis of things is the number, taught Pythagoras, to know the world - it means to know the numbers controlling them. Studying numbers, the Pythagoreans developed numerical relationships and found them in all areas of human activity. Numbers and proportions were studied in order to know and describe the human soul, and, having learned, to manage the process of the transmigration of souls with the ultimate goal to send the soul to some higher divine state. As I.D. Rozhansky noted: “Despite the remnants of magical thinking, Pythagoras’s main idea that numbers or ratios of numbers are the basis of all things turned out to be very fruitful.” As Stobei noted: “Apparently, Pythagoras most of all (the sciences) read the science of numbers, he advanced it forward, taking it beyond the limits of use in trade and expressing, modeling all things with numbers” (1, Proemiy, 6, . 20).

As a critic of Pythagoras, his contemporary Heraclitus spoke: "Pythagoras, Mnesarch's son, was engaged in gathering information more than any other people in the world, and, ponadnerg these works, gave out for his own wisdom, many knowledge and fraud." According to Diogenes of Laertes, in the continuation of Heraclitus’s famous dictum “Multiple knowledge does not teach the mind,” Pythagoras is mentioned among others: “but it would not teach Hesiod and Pythagoras, as well as Xenophanes with Hecateum.

According to Iamblichus, Pythagoras headed his secret society for thirty-nine years, then the approximate date of the death of Pythagoras can be attributed to 491 BC. Oe., to the beginning of the era of the Greco-Persian wars. Diogenes, referring to Heraclides (4th century BC), says that Pythagoras died peacefully at the age of 80, or at 90 (according to unnamed other sources).

From this follows the date of death 490 BC. e. (or 480 BC. e., which is unlikely). Eusebius of Caesarea in his chronography designated 497 BC. e. as the year of the death of Pythagoras.