Philolaus

Philolaus (Greek Φιλόλαος; * probably around 470 BC; † after 399 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher ( Pythagoras ). He was a contemporary of Socrates, but is regarded because of its way of thinking about the pre-Socratics.

Life

Little is known about the life of Philolaus. Not even its origin is undoubtedly secured; his hometown to have been Croton, but Aristoxenos looked at him apparently as Tarentines. He probably came from Croton, but lived in Tarentum later. Around the middle or the second half of the 5th century broke out in southern Italy from heavy antipythagoreische unrest. The venue of the Pythagoreans in Croton, the home of the ( long-dead ) athletes Milon, was set on fire; there should be but two died all Pythagoreans present. After the presentation of the late antique Neoplatonist Olympiodorus Philolaus was one of two that escaped; so true Plutarch match, but the process moved the mistake after Metapontum and adds Philolaus was then initially fled to Lucania. Aristoxenus, whose report is credible, the story knows, are, however, instead of Philolaus ' name to another ( Archippus of Tarentum ). Anyway, emigrated some Pythagoreans, including Philolaus, because of the persecution in Southern Italy to Greece. Philolaus temporarily settled down in Thebes. In Plato's dialogue Phaedo, which takes place in the year 399, he is mentioned as a former teacher of two dialogue participants, the Thebans Cebes and Simmias. According to one tradition, their reliability is uncertain, Plato met on his first trip to Italy ( by 388 ) with Philolaus together, which would have to be returned in this case from Greece.

According to a report of dubious credibility Philolaus was a student of Pythagorean Lysis of Tarentum, who also emigrated due to political unrest from Italy to Thebes. As a student of Philolaus, Archytas, Eurytos and Democritus called.

Work

Apparently Philolaus was the first Pythagoreans who wrote a book about Pythagorean natural philosophy. From the work that was written in the Doric dialect, only fragments remain, whose authenticity is sometimes uncertain. A great deal is now considered authentic. Plato is said to have purchased the book on his first journey to Italy; he was later accused, as set out in his dialogue Timaeus lessons to be plagiarized and came into reality by Philolaos.

Teaching

The philosophical thought of Philolaos revolves around the contrast between the unlimited things ( Apeira ) and the cross forming things ( peraínonta ). This contrast is the primary condition for him. The combination of unlimited and limiting things or factors ( he always uses the plural ) shows the whole of reality, both the cosmos as a whole and its individual components. In contrast to Plato's way of thinking Philolaos means not abstract principles ( infinity and finitude ), but sensually perceptible as such. The Eternal and nature itself he considers unknowable. Everything Visible is limited, otherwise it could not be detected.

Limiting and unlimited things are diverse in nature; that they still meet and connect with each other and thus the world comes into being, is possible due to the appearance of a third factor, which he called harmony. The harmony holds the world together and gives her a meaningful structure (not any limit on a limitless continuum itself is harmonic ). The terms " unlimited" and " limiting" connects Philolaos - unlike some other Pythagoreans - apparently no moral evaluations.

Since the objects of knowledge are thus finite sizes, they are mathematically expressible. Only by their assigned numbers they tap into human understanding.

It is controversial, have what extent and in what sense Philolaus and other early Pythagoreans represented on a modern thinking alien species the view that physical objects are themselves their corresponding numbers ( as a back to Aristotle continuous, perhaps misleading interpretation of the Pythagorean doctrine of numbers states ). Anyway, the number of pre-Socratic understanding Pythagoreans was not abstract in the usual sense since Plato.

Cosmology

By the harmony of the two Urgegebenheiten, the limitless and limiting things or factors together adds, the cosmos emerges as a well-ordered world whole. This world order is Philolaos is in an astronomical model, which might at least partially back to him. Astronomy historic interest, the model is primarily from the fact that it is not - as was customary - the Earth at the center of the universe. Rather Philolaos takes in the middle of a hypothetical central fire ( " hearth" ), which is encircled by all celestial bodies, including the Earth. In its orbit around the central fire, the earth undergoes a rotation axis that is coupled to its orbital motion, that she always turns to the centerfire the same page. The central fire is invisible to the people, as they live on the side facing away from him all the earth. On the innermost circular orbit moves - always faces the Earth and therefore also always invisible to us - a Counter-Earth. Further out than the Earth orbiting the moon, the sun and the five known planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) around the central fire, around which also rotates the outermost sphere of fixed stars. The sphere of fixed stars as the outer boundary of the universe is everywhere surrounded by an outer fire. The moon keeps Philolaos for inhabited, the sun he considers as vitreous body as a lens light and heat coming from the outer fire, collects and forwards.

The origin of the world ( cosmogony ) Philolaos presents itself in such a way that the world of the middle ( the central fire) has developed from in all directions at the same time and in the same way. This he considers to be necessary because he considered no direction as particularly excellent, but directions like " up" and "down" only as relative, location-based statements in a point-symmetric universe conceives. By unlimited factors such as time and empty room with limiting - as the spherical shape of the universe with a center - are connected, the world is created.

Music Theory

About the music theory of Philolaos informed almost Nicomachus of Gerasa in his Harmonikón Encheiridion ( "Manual of Harmony " ), where he also quotes a passage from the lost work of Philolaus. This Philolaus fragment ( No. 6a ) is now regarded as genuine. Another quote that tells Boethius in his De institutione musica, and other details of Boethius, Proclus and Porphyry probably dating from a later, Philolaos attributed wrongly lost treatise, which already shows the influence of considerations, which in the early Platonic Academy were employed. Therefore, these sources are not eligible for a reconstruction of Philolaus ' music teaching.

The narrated from Nicomachus fragment is defined by its ancient phraseology. So Philolaos denotes the Paramese as " Trite ", and also for the fourth and the fifth he later used uncommon technical terms, which apparently come from old music practice. Philolaus was probably made ​​by a seven- lyre, the seven strings were an octave in which lacked a sound. The presupposed scale is efgahd 'e', the lack of sound c '. Here is the Paramese h, not - as usual - b or c '. This was Philolaus, as Nicomachus reported chalked out by critics as an error.

Reception

The ancient Philolaos reception was, as Aelian noted regretfully, relatively weak. Aristotle put a critical look at the cosmology of Philolaus; in his time the book was therefore still accessible. Later the interest in Philolaos decreased. In late antiquity, had its name indicate a good sound, as some spurious works attributed to him ( Pseudepigrapha ). In the early modern period, he regained some importance because Copernicus was interested in all the historically attested alternatives to the heliocentric worldview and therefore could also stimulate Philolaos.

Text output

  • Carl A. Huffman: Philolaus of Croton, Pythagorean and Presocratic. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993, ISBN 0 - 521-41525 -X ( edition of the fragments of Philolaus and assortment of other source certificates with English translation and detailed commentary )
  • Laura Gemelli Marciano (eds. ): The pre-Socratic philosophers. Volume 1, Artemis & Winkler, Dusseldorf 2007, ISBN 978-3-7608-1735-4, pp. 140-151 ( Greek texts with German translation, notes and introduction to the life and work )
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