Pythagoras 😶🌫️ a2 + b2 = c2
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Philosophy
TaraDeS — 6 months ago(September 26, 2025 04:48 PM)
Transmigration of Souls and Fava Beans
Philosophical history teaches humility.
Pythagoras is said to have tricked space and time and spoken to rivers.
His famous theorem most likely didn't come from him.
Pythagoras of Samos (c. 570 – c. 495 BC), bust around 120 AD in the Capitoline Museums, Rome.
The most famous philosopher of ancient Greece (purely by name) is probably not one of the great classics Socrates, Plato or Aristotle, but someone who lived about 150 years earlier and left behind no writings or firsthand tradition. He's also famous for something he never did. How come?
We're talking about Pythagoras of Samos, known for the theorem named after him: a2 + b2 = c2.
This theorem was already known in Mesopotamia a thousand years before Pythagoras, and it's unlikely that the scholar discovered, transmitted or proved it, although a few historians consider a connection possible.
Religious Sect or Philosophical School?
That Pythagoras is associated with
'his'
theorem has less to do with him than with the ideological movement that claims to be based on him, the Pythagoreans. I say
"ideological"
because here, too, the sources provide little info, and it's therefore unclear whether this was more a kind of religious sect than a philosophical school. During their master's lifetime, the Pythagoreans attempted to influence politics in the Greek cities of present-day Italy, which even led to bloody riots. Pythagorean tradition originated the idea that the universe is mathematically ordered in all its parts, primarily according to ratios of whole numbers. This can also be the reason for the association of Pythagoras with the triangle theorem and corresponding triples of numbers.
But what did Pythagoras and his followers really teach? That's difficult to say either, because already in ancient times, many legends surrounded them. According to the American classical scholar and historian of philosophy, Carl A. Huffman, the only thing that can be concluded with absolute certainty from contemporary sources is that Pythagoras was interested in the fate of the human soul after death and that he taught his followers a certain way of life. Nothing more is known about the content of any of this.
Master with the Golden Thigh
It's fairly certain that he considered the soul immortal and suspected some form of reincarnation, according to Huffman. Deceased humans could, for example, be reborn as animals. Stories also appear in the earliest sources according to which Pythagoras possessed something superhuman. One of his thighs was said to be made of gold. He also performed miracles. He was able to be in two places at once or to converse with a river.
Apparently, Pythagoras otherwise had quite strong opinions about how the rituals of the Greek religion of the time should be correctly performed, especially regarding burials - no surprise, given his intense preoccupation with death and rebirth.
Were the Pythagoreans Vegetarians?
The Pythagoreans also had strict dietary rules, the guidelines of which are unknown. One of their commandments likely revolved around field beans;
"fava beans"
were a staple food at the time. Whether Pythagoras forbade their consumption or – conversely – encouraged it, is unclear. It's also unclear whether the Pythagoreans were strict vegetarians. It's certainly true that Pythagoras believed the cosmos to be mathematically ordered. But only his successors conducted concrete research into how astronomical and musical phenomena could be mathematized.
What good does it do us today to ponder what someone, of whom not even a single fragment survived, taught about transmigration of souls and fava beans over 2,500 years ago in Greek-colonized southern Italy? First of all, that the history of ancient philosophy, like everything that has to do with ancient tradition, is full of ambiguities, subsequent stylizations and disagreements. The traditional legends about Pythagoras probably have as much to do with real people as the cliché image of Jesus as a sandal-wearing hippie. The comparison is also apt because it shows that Western philosophy, which today largely sees itself as a scientific endeavor, had its beginnings in life advice, religious and even esoteric speculation - precisely in what is today considered particularly unphilosophical. History of philosophy can teach us many things - in any case, humility.
https://www.spektrum.de/kolumne/pythagoras-seelenwanderung-und-zahlenmystik-in-der-antike/2287338
September 20, 2025
And nothing is better than a good legend or fairy tale!
Pythagoras & His Weird Religious Cult
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