Table of Opposites
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The Table of Opposites of Pythagoras is the oldest surviving of many such tables propounded by philosophers. Aristotle, from whom we get our knowledge of the Pythagorean table, has his own list of opposites (stingy/spendthrift). Oriental philosophy has its lists of objects or qualities that are Yin and those that are Yang. Hegel has his thesis and antithesis.
Like much philosophy, Pythagorean philosophy is a mixture of the profound and the silly. Here is a rough translation of the Table of Opposites, although the true meaning may only be clear in the original Greek. As an example of the difficulty in translation, consider that "crooked" has connotations in English that it may lack in the original.
- finite, infinite
- odd, even
- one, many
- right, left
- rest, motion
- straight, crooked
- light, darkness
- good, evil
- square, oblong
Some sources add
- male, female
Of these nine or ten opposites, many philosophers have seized on the third pair as one of the most profound questions in philosophy. Is the universe one? Then how is it diverse? Is the universe many? Then how is it unified? This is called the one and many problem, about which many thousands of words have been written. Christian philosophers of the Trinitarian school see the answer to the one and many problem in the Holy Trinity. Since God Himself is both one and many, the universe is both unified and various.
Literary references to Pythagoras's Table of Opposites abound, though they probably have many lines of descent. To mention just two, there is The Devil's list of opposites in George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman and in Ursula K. Le Guin novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, the left hand of darkness is light.
