Pythagoras: A Classical Greek Philosopher

Pythagoras was a classical Greek philosopher, who contributed chiefly to mathematics. Pythagoras’ basic doctrines of his philosophy differed from other philosophers of his time. Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, put focus on simplicity, silence, obedience, and frequent self-examination, not unlike Socrates. One major belief of Pythagoras was the transfiguration of souls, which is a type of reincarnation. Pythagoras believed that after each death, the soul changes onto different animals, until it eventually is transfigured into a human’s body as it is being born. Because of this belief, Pythagoras believed it was morally wrong to eat other animals. In a report by Heraclides of Pontus, Pythagoras tells that “he was once born as Aethalides and was considered to be the son of Hermes. Hermes invited him to choose whatever he wanted, except immortality; so he asked that, alive and dead, he should remember what happened to him. Thus in his life he remembered everything, and when he died he retained the same memories.”(qtd. …show more content…
in “Pythagoras”) Pythagoras is most remembered for his contributions to mathematics, principally for his discovery of the Pythagorean Theorem, which states that “the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides,” or a^2+b^2=c^2