Talk:Pythagoreanism

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This used to be here:

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".

Contents

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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) .

[edit] 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)

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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Circular Links

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

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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))