Xenophanes Pythagoras Heraclitus THREE CRITICS OF TRADITION

Xenophanes of Colophon (ca BC): Critic of Greek religion  Xenophanes claimed to be at least 92.  A poet and singer, originally from the Ionian coast, he travelled widely.  His surviving fragments are usually in poetic meter.  He attacks religion as obviously human invention (see fragments 1-5).

Xenophanes’ religion  But he is no religious skeptic or atheist. He seems motivated by moral outrage and proposes a truly supreme god (6-9).  Natural phenomena aren’t gods: rainbows are colored clouds; the sun is fire. Things came out of earth and water.  Xenophanes seems like a Milesian poet crossed with a monotheist prophet at times.

Xenophanes and knowledge  But he also has a skeptical, undogmatic attitude (10, 11).  He is among the first to distinguish between belief and knowledge.

Pythagoras (ca BC)  A semi-mythical founder of a cult  Born in Samos, moved to Croton in Italy  Spoiler: didn’t discover the famous theorem  Supposed to have invented word philosophy  Son of Apollo (or Hermes)  Was a vegetarian

Pythagoras the legend  Knew secrets of the immortality of the soul and its reincarnation  Could recall his past lives  Had a thigh made of gold  Could be in two places at the same time  Advocated an ascetic lifestyle and secrecy  Forbade the eating of beans

Pythagoras the man  Xenophanes and Heraclitus both refer to him by name (and criticize him), so he was a real person.  Did not write anything and swore followers to not divulge teachings to non-believers.  Later centuries created elaborate myths and cults

Pythagoras the myth  Don’t ever touch a white rooster  Don’t bury corpses wearing woolen clothing  The cosmos is made of numbers  Philolaus: 2 and 3 stand for woman and man, so 5 is the number of marriage  Because 10 is the sum of (the tetraktys), there must be a counter-Earth

Pythagoras, pagan god-man By Roman times, Pythagoras was said to:  See the future, predicting earthquakes  Talk to animals (getting a vicious bear to behave)  Be greeted by a river  Invented the lyre and other musical instruments  Sober drunk people by playing music that soothed the soul

The Pythagorean legacy  Entertaining stuff, but how is this philosophy?  A new type of simple, lawful cosmic explanation  Introduced the concept of mind-body dualism  Emphasized that mathematics is a special form of knowledge, unchanging and necessary, above the world of the senses  Math and the soul are abstract, immaterial, immortal entities (a key idea of Plato’s)

Heraclitus of Ephesus (~ BC)  Wrote in cryptic aphorisms: he seems to imply because nature itself is cryptic (18, 19).  He loves enigmatic sayings (33, 28, 34)  His sayings use puns and wordplay (36)  In fragment 1 the “always” ( ἀ ε ὶ ) could modify either “holds” or “prove”

Heraclitus ’ λ ό γος  The basic meaning is “word” but it also often means “explanation” or “reason”; also “proportion” or “measure.”  People misunderstand Heraclitus’ logos even when they’ve heard it (1). But the logos explains all of nature (22). Listen to it, not Heraclitus. (See also 5, 7, 8)

“All things are one.”  The world is both plural (things) and a unity (one). People overlook the unity (23, 24, 25).  Consider 28, 29, 33, 36: human perspectives think opposites are different things, when there is a unity of the world.  Opposites co-exist via change (46, 50, 34). Unity depends on change. All things are one in change and conflict (49, 50, 24).

Heraclitus’ Fire  Fr. 30, 44, 47: fire consumes things and makes them part of itself, then leaves other things. (Cf. Anaximander’s things paying justice.)  Fire is heavenly (57): Heraclitus thought the stars and sun were bowls of fire turned facing us (the moon wobbles partly out of view).  Fire is the warmth in the living: it is the soul (60, 41). (Drunks have moist souls.)

Heraclitus’ naturalism  Like the Milesians, Heraclitus is giving an account of nature through impersonal laws.  Nature is a continuous process of discontinuous things.  Fires, like rivers, constantly change their parts, but go on existing. All of nature is that way. There are not things; there is process.