Pythagoras by Riedweg Christoph.;

Author:Riedweg, Christoph.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8014-6490-4
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 3)

Model of the Universe

As an example of this kind of construct, Aristotle mentions the “CounterEarth”: Since the number ten seems to be perfect and to include the entire nature of numbers, the Pythagoreans are said to have maintained that the celestial bodies were ten in number as well. But since only nine of them were visible, they therefore created the Counter-Earth as the tenth.206 We find more details regarding this astronomical model in other works of Aristotle, where we note in passing that with regard to this point, the “Pythagoreans” are once again presented as a completely homogeneous group. According to the Pythagorean conception, at the center of the universe is not the Earth, but rather a fire. The Earth is only one of the heavenly bodies that revolve around this fire: starting from the center, the first is the (invisible) Counter-Earth, then the Earth, the moon, the sun, the five planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), and furthest out, the sphere of the fixed stars.207 In modern times, this model has attracted a lot of attention chiefly because it no longer puts Earth in the central position—according to his own declaration, it was one of the influences that led Nicholas Copernicus ultimately to abandon the geocentric model of the universe. However, the Pythagoreans did not arrive at their conclusion, which from a modern point of view seems nothing less than revolutionary, on the basis of empirical observations. Instead, what was crucial for them, to judge on the basis of Aristotle’s remarks, was fundamental reflection on the value of the individual things, their “hierarchy” in the order of the universe:208 The center is considered the “most precious” place; it is assigned to fire, because in comparison to earth fire is thought to be “of higher value,” and since the most important place most deserves to be guarded, they called the cosmic central fire “the guard of Zeus,” the highest Olympian god.209 We get the impression that here we glimpse the comparison, particularly common among the Stoics, between the world as macrocosm and the city-state as microcosm. Just as in a well-ordered polis the hearth-fire in the prytaneum is the symbolic center, so fire occupies this well-guarded position in the Pythagoreans’ great order of the heavens and the world. Accordingly, Philolaus is said to have called this fire the “hearth” (hestía).210 Questions of rank-ordering remain important in the (Pythagoreanizing) cosmology of Plato, who, however, also constantly calls for empirical testing.

According to the testimony of Aristotle’s disciple Eudemus, Anaximander of Miletus was the first to determine quantitatively the sizes of the planets and the distances between them. The Pythagoreans, who according to the same source were the first to attempt to clarify the sequence of the planets, probably relied on Anaximander’s conclusions in offering their explanation of the harmony of the spheres, in which these distances play an important role. In their view, stars, which as very large, very swiftly moving bodies, must necessarily produce a sound, revolve at distances and at speeds proportional to each other.

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