Pythagoras
The man who played a crucial role in formulating principles that
influenced Plato and Aristotle was the
Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras. He founded the
Pythagorean brotherhood, a group of his followers whose beliefs and
ideas were rediscovered during the Renaissance and contributed to
the development of mathematics and Western rational philosophy.
Pythagoras was born in about 580 BC on the island of Samos, in the
Aegean Sea. It is said he spent his early years traveling widely in
search of wisdom. He settled in Crotona, a Greek colony in southern
Italy, about 530 BC. A brotherhood of disciples soon gathered
around him, inspired by his teachings. The group was strongly
religious and devoted to reformation of political, moral, and
social life. The order was influential in the region, but
eventually its involvement in politics resulted in suppression of
the brotherhood. Pythagoras was forced to retire and leave the
area. He went to Metapontum, a Greek city in southern Italy. He
died there in about 500 BC. Because none of the writings of
Pythagoras have survived, it is difficult to distinguish his
teachings from those of his disciples. Among the basic tenets of
the Pythagoreans are the beliefs that reality, at its deepest
level, is mathematical in nature; that philosophy can be used for
spiritual purification; that the soul can rise to union with the
divine; and that certain symbols have a mystical significance.
Pythagoras is generally credited with the theory of the functional
significance of numbers in the objective world and in music. His
followers are credited with the development of the Pythagorean
theorem in geometry and the application of number relationships to
music theory, acoustics, and astronomy.
