Philolaus
Encyclopedia
Philolaus was a Greek
Pythagorean
and Presocratic philosopher. He argued that all matter
is composed of limiting and limitless things, and that the universe
is determined by number
s. He is credited with originating the theory that the earth
was not the center of the universe
.
, Tarentum
, or Metapontum
. All three places were located in southern Italy
. He may have fled the second burning of the Pythagorean meeting-place around 454 BCE, after which he migrated to Greece
. According to Plato
's Phaedo
, he was the instructor of Simmias
and Cebes
at Thebes, around the time the Phaedo takes place, in 399 BCE. This would make him a contemporary of Socrates
, and agrees with the statement that Philolaus and Democritus
were contemporaries. The various reports about his life are scattered among the writings of much later writers and are of dubious value in reconstructing his life. He apparently lived for some time at Heraclea
, where he was the pupil of Aresas, or (as Plutarch
calls him) Arcesus. Diogenes Laërtius
is the only authority for the claim that Plato, shortly after the death of Socrates, traveled to Italy where he met with Philolaus and Eurytus
. The pupils of Philolaus and were said to have included Xenophilus
, Phanto
, Echecrates
, Diocles and Polymnastus. As to his death, Diogenes Laërtius reports a dubious story that Philolaus was put to death at Croton on account of being suspected of wanting to be the tyrant; a story which Laërtius even took the trouble to put into verse.
and Iamblichus. It may have been one treatise, divided into three books. Plato is said to have procured a copy of his book, from which, it was later claimed, Plato composed much of his Timaeus
. One of the works of Philolaus was called On Nature, which seems to be the same work which Stobaeus
calls On the World, and from which he has preserved a series of passages. Other writers refer to a work entitled Bacchae, which may have been another name for the same work.
he called the Central Fire.
A popular misconception about Philolaus is that he supposed that a sphere of the fixed star
s, the five planet
s, the Sun
, Moon
and Earth, all moved round his Central Fire, but as these made up only nine revolving bodies, he conceived in accordance with his number theory
a tenth, which he called Counter-Earth
. This fallacy grows largely out of Aristotle
's attempt to lampoon his ideas in his book, Metaphysics
. In reality, Philolaus' ideas predated the idea of spheres by hundreds of years. He never recognized the fixed stars as any kind of sphere or object.
His ideas about the nature of the Earth's place in the cosmos was influential. Nicolaus Copernicus
mentions in De revolutionibus that Philolaus already knew about the Earth's revolution around a central fire.
This harmony can be described mathematically (similar to the combinations of elements in modern chemistry). Philolaus used the musical scale to illustrate his philosophy, whereby whole number ratios limit pleasing sounds (e.g., the octave, fifth, and fourth are defined by the ratios 2 : 1, 4 : 3 and 3 : 2). Philolaus also regarded the soul as a "mixture and harmony" of the bodily parts.
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
Pythagorean
Pythagoreanism
Pythagoreanism was the system of esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were considerably influenced by mathematics. Pythagoreanism originated in the 5th century BCE and greatly influenced Platonism...
and Presocratic philosopher. He argued that all matter
Matter
Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...
is composed of limiting and limitless things, and that the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
is determined by number
Number
A number is a mathematical object used to count and measure. In mathematics, the definition of number has been extended over the years to include such numbers as zero, negative numbers, rational numbers, irrational numbers, and complex numbers....
s. He is credited with originating the theory that the earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
was not the center of the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
.
Life
Philolaus is variously reported as being born in either CrotonCrotone
Crotone is a city and comune in Calabria, southern Italy, on the Ionian Sea. Founded circa 710 BC as the Achaean colony of Croton , it was known as Cotrone from the Middle Ages until 1928, when its name was changed to the current one. In 1994 it became the capital of the newly established...
, Tarentum
Taranto
Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....
, or Metapontum
Metapontum
Metapontum, Metapontium or Metapontion , was an important city of Magna Graecia, situated on the gulf of Tarentum, between the river Bradanus and the Casuentus . It was distant about 20 km from Heraclea and 40 from Tarentum...
. All three places were located in southern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. He may have fled the second burning of the Pythagorean meeting-place around 454 BCE, after which he migrated to Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. According to Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
's Phaedo
Phaedo
Plato's Phaedo is one of the great dialogues of his middle period, along with the Republic and the Symposium. The Phaedo, which depicts the death of Socrates, is also Plato's seventh and last dialogue to detail the philosopher's final days .In the dialogue, Socrates...
, he was the instructor of Simmias
Simmias of Thebes
Simmias of Thebes was a disciple of Socrates, and a friend of Cebes. In his Memorabilia, Xenophon includes him in the inner circle of Socrates' followers...
and Cebes
Cebes
Cebes of Thebes was a disciple of Socrates in the late 5th-century BCE. One work, known as the Pinax or Tabula, attributed to Cebes still survives, but it is believed to be a composition by an anonymous author of the 1st or 2nd century....
at Thebes, around the time the Phaedo takes place, in 399 BCE. This would make him a contemporary of Socrates
Socrates
Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
, and agrees with the statement that Philolaus and Democritus
Democritus
Democritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera, Thrace, Greece. He was an influential pre-Socratic philosopher and pupil of Leucippus, who formulated an atomic theory for the cosmos....
were contemporaries. The various reports about his life are scattered among the writings of much later writers and are of dubious value in reconstructing his life. He apparently lived for some time at Heraclea
Heraclea
-Ancient cities:* Heraclea Cybistra, Konya Province, Turkey* Heracleia by Latmus, near Lake Bafa, Turkey* Heraclea Lucania, Lucanian district of southern Italy...
, where he was the pupil of Aresas, or (as Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
calls him) Arcesus. Diogenes Laërtius
Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is known about his life, but his surviving Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is one of the principal surviving sources for the history of Greek philosophy.-Life:Nothing is definitively known about his life...
is the only authority for the claim that Plato, shortly after the death of Socrates, traveled to Italy where he met with Philolaus and Eurytus
Eurytus (Pythagorean)
Eurytus , an eminent Pythagorean philosopher, lived c. 400 BC, who Iamblichus in one passage describes as a native of Croton, while in another, he enumerates him among the Tarentine Pythagoreans. He was a disciple of Philolaus, and Diogenes Laërtiusmentions him among the teachers of Plato, though...
. The pupils of Philolaus and were said to have included Xenophilus
Xenophilus
Xenophilus of Chalcidice, was a Pythagorean philosopher and musician, who lived in the first half of the 4th century BC. Aulus Gellius relates that Xenophilus was the intimate friend and teacher of Aristoxenus, and implies that Xenophilus taught him Pythagorean doctrine...
, Phanto
Phanto of Phlius
Phanto of Phlius, was a Pythagorean philosopher, and one of the last of the school until the Neopythagorean revival in the Roman era. He was a disciple of Philolaus and Eurytus, and, probably in his old age, contemporary with Aristoxenus, the Peripatetic philosopher, c. 320 BC....
, Echecrates
Echecrates
Echecrates was, according to Plato, a Pythagorean philosopher from the ancient Greek town of Phlius.He appears in Plato's Phaedo dialogue as an aid to the plot. He meets Phaedo, the dialogue's namesake, some time after the execution of Socrates, and asks Phaedo to tell him the story of the famed...
, Diocles and Polymnastus. As to his death, Diogenes Laërtius reports a dubious story that Philolaus was put to death at Croton on account of being suspected of wanting to be the tyrant; a story which Laërtius even took the trouble to put into verse.
Writings
Diogenes Laërtius speaks of Philolaus composing one book, but elsewhere he speaks of three books, as do Aulus GelliusAulus Gellius
Aulus Gellius , was a Latin author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome, where he held a judicial office...
and Iamblichus. It may have been one treatise, divided into three books. Plato is said to have procured a copy of his book, from which, it was later claimed, Plato composed much of his Timaeus
Timaeus (dialogue)
Timaeus is one of Plato's dialogues, mostly in the form of a long monologue given by the title character, written circa 360 BC. The work puts forward speculation on the nature of the physical world and human beings. It is followed by the dialogue Critias.Speakers of the dialogue are Socrates,...
. One of the works of Philolaus was called On Nature, which seems to be the same work which Stobaeus
Stobaeus
Joannes Stobaeus , from Stobi in Macedonia, was the compiler of a valuable series of extracts from Greek authors. The work was originally divided into two volumes containing two books each...
calls On the World, and from which he has preserved a series of passages. Other writers refer to a work entitled Bacchae, which may have been another name for the same work.
Cosmology
Philolaus did away with the ideas of fixed direction in space, and developed one of the first non-geocentric views of the universe. His new way of thinking quite literally revolved around a hypothetical astronomical objectHypothetical star
A hypothetical star is a type of star that is speculated to exist but has yet to be definitively observed. Scientifically speculated hypothetical stars include:...
he called the Central Fire.
A popular misconception about Philolaus is that he supposed that a sphere of the fixed star
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
s, the five planet
Planet
A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
s, the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
, Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
and Earth, all moved round his Central Fire, but as these made up only nine revolving bodies, he conceived in accordance with his number theory
Number theory
Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers. Number theorists study prime numbers as well...
a tenth, which he called Counter-Earth
Counter-Earth
The Counter-Earth is a hypothetical body of the Solar system first hypothesized by the presocratic philosopher Philolaus to support his non-geocentric cosmology, in which all objects in the universe revolve around a Central Fire...
. This fallacy grows largely out of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
's attempt to lampoon his ideas in his book, Metaphysics
Metaphysics (Aristotle)
Metaphysics is one of the principal works of Aristotle and the first major work of the branch of philosophy with the same name. The principal subject is "being qua being", or being understood as being. It examines what can be asserted about anything that exists just because of its existence and...
. In reality, Philolaus' ideas predated the idea of spheres by hundreds of years. He never recognized the fixed stars as any kind of sphere or object.
His ideas about the nature of the Earth's place in the cosmos was influential. Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe....
mentions in De revolutionibus that Philolaus already knew about the Earth's revolution around a central fire.
Philosophy
Philolaus argued that all matter is composed of limiters and unlimiteds. Limiters set boundaries, such as shape and quantity. Unlimiteds are universal forms and rules such as the four elements of earth, air, fire and water and the continua of space and time. Limiters and unlimiteds are combined together in a harmony (harmonia):This harmony can be described mathematically (similar to the combinations of elements in modern chemistry). Philolaus used the musical scale to illustrate his philosophy, whereby whole number ratios limit pleasing sounds (e.g., the octave, fifth, and fourth are defined by the ratios 2 : 1, 4 : 3 and 3 : 2). Philolaus also regarded the soul as a "mixture and harmony" of the bodily parts.