Introducing the Philosophers – Philosophy in the Humanities
Florida State College at Jacksonville
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3 Introducing the Philosophers

Introducing the Philosophers

Pythagoras (ca. 571 – ca. 497 BCE) is considered one of the Pre-Socratic Ionian thinkers, outside the Milesian school. He was originally from Samos, an offshore Ionian settlement. He settled in Southern Italy and founded his school there. His approach combined science with spiritual tradition. Mathematics, in the sense of demonstrative deductive arguments, began with Pythagoras. He is credited as the author of the first known mathematical formulation, the theorem which states that the square of the longest side of a right triangle equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Deductive reasoning from general premises seems to have been a Pythagorean innovation as well. He also held the notion of the transmigration of souls. (8)

Much of Plato’s work is influenced by this early tradition. (1) Plato, in his Phaedo , makes use of Pythagoras’ link in choosing Echecrates of Phlius as Phaedo’s audience for the story of Socrates’ last day. In that dialogue, Socrates’ interlocutors, Simmias and Cebes of Thebes, are both Pythagoreans, and as the dialogue is chiefly concerned with the immortality of the soul as Pythagoras is said to have envisioned it, Plato’s choice of Echecrates links the dialogue directly to Pythagorean thought from the first line. Yet what, exactly, was ‘Pythagorean thought?’ From what was written of him, it would seem Pythagoras founded a religious order that emphasized personal salvation through withdrawal from worldly pursuits and a focus on a strict philosophical and mathematical regimen. The Pythagoreans were vegetarians and believed that the soul was immortal and passed through many incarnations. To Pythagoras, vegetarianism was a path to inner peace and, by extension, world peace in that humans could never live in harmony with each other as long as they killed and ate animals.