Pythagoras was born around 570 BCE near the island of Samos located in Eastern Aegean. Around 530 BCE, he settled near Croton, South Italy. He was considered one of the best mathematicians and scientist. One huge thing that he is known for creating is the Pythagorean Theorem, which is used when determining side c of a right triangle. Some could argue that Pythagoreanism was a cult, based solely on the idea that they used pressure in order to get others to adapt to their ideas. In around 500 BCE, there was an uprising because not very many people agreed with their beliefs. Because of this uprising, the Pythagoreans were forced out of Croton and many were even killed. Pythagoras himself ended up going to Metapontum where he died shortly after.
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Their metaphysics was that everything can be distinguished by their qualities. For example, everything has a size, shape, color, smell and so on. However, they believed that because you could ask two different people what the color of an object you could get two very different answers, because of this they stated that the only universal quality was numbers. Numbers are considered universal to them because no matter what, two people will always get the same answer unless an error occurs. Numbers quickly became the main underlying source of reality. In spite of this idea, numbers weren’t treated equally. Much importance was given to the numbers 1 (end), 7 (wisdom) and 8(justice). Although it is stated that, “This sort of thinking does not appear to be based on any real philosophical principle and as a result becomes distasteful” (The Cult of Pythagoras). In addition to these said numbers, great importance was also give to even number rather than odd numbers. It could be said that even and odd number represent limited and unlimited, with even being unlimited and odd being limited. This was said because Pythagoras believed that an even number could be divided by two before reaching one which was considered the
Their metaphysics was that everything can be distinguished by their qualities. For example, everything has a size, shape, color, smell and so on. However, they believed that because you could ask two different people what the color of an object you could get two very different answers, because of this they stated that the only universal quality was numbers. Numbers are considered universal to them because no matter what, two people will always get the same answer unless an error occurs. Numbers quickly became the main underlying source of reality. In spite of this idea, numbers weren’t treated equally. Much importance was given to the numbers 1 (end), 7 (wisdom) and 8(justice). Although it is stated that, “This sort of thinking does not appear to be based on any real philosophical principle and as a result becomes distasteful” (The Cult of Pythagoras). In addition to these said numbers, great importance was also give to even number rather than odd numbers. It could be said that even and odd number represent limited and unlimited, with even being unlimited and odd being limited. This was said because Pythagoras believed that an even number could be divided by two before reaching one which was considered the