The Presocratics and the Supernatural by Andrew Gregory

Author:Andrew Gregory
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Magic, Philosophy and Science in Early Greece
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2013-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

Philolaus

Philolaus of Croton lived from around 470 bce to around 385 bce. Philolaus wrote one book, On Nature, which if Pythagoras indeed wrote nothing, is probably the first book of the Pythagorean tradition, of which a few fragments survive. He worked on astronomy, cosmology and cosmogony, on harmonic theory and medical theory. As On Nature was the standard title for presocratic works on the natural world, Philolaus immediately places himself in that tradition. In terms of general principles, there is nothing problematic in what Philolaus has to say. Philolaus Fr. 1 says that:

Nature in the cosmos was fitted together out of unlimited and limited things, both the whole cosmos and the things in it.82

Philolaus Fr. 2 tells us that:

It is necessary that all the things that are are limiting, or unlimited or limiting and unlimited. As it is evident that they are not constituted entirely from limited things or from unlimited things it is clear that the cosmos and the things in it were fitted together by limited and unlimited things. This is clear from things in their actions.83

The character of the unlimited and the limited things may not be entirely evident, but it is clear that this conception of the cosmos does not require anything non-natural. Philolaus’ epistemology is also based on the idea of limit and number. Philolaus Fr. 3 runs:

According to Philolaus, there will not be anything that is going to know if everything is unlimited.84

While Philolaus Fr. 4 tells us that:

All things which are known have number. Without this, it is not possible for anything at all to be understood or known.85

Again, while the details of this may be obscure, there seems to be no reference to and indeed no room for anything non-natural here.

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