·

·

A Triad of Alternatives

Sterne, Colin C. 1982. Pythagoras and Pierrot: An Approach to Schoenberg's Use of Numerology in the Construction of 'Pierre lunaire'. Perspectives of New Music 21(1/2): 506-534. [JSTOR / DOI: 10.2307/832890]

"It is not superstition, it is belief." Thus did Arnold Schoenberg defend the importance he attachedto the power of numerology and to its influence on his life. His fear of the number thirteen is common knowledge. So, too, is the ways in which that number marked his birth (September 13, 1874) and death (Friday, July 13, 1951, at age 76). [...] Schoenberg's almost pathological fear of the number thirteen produced foreboding of his death, and, one suspects, may even have contributed to bringing it about. (Sterne 1982: 506)

Not out of the question.

The numerologist is convinced that numbers and number relationships govern the universe and that the well-being of an individual depends upon his being in accord with cosmic vibrations. He traces his belief back to antiquity - to the Egyptians, Hebrews, Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Chinese, and Hindus - but it is Pythagoras to whom he gives credit for establishing the system in the West. As to the power of numbers on individuals, a person's name and birthdate are the two areas where the influence of numbers is most strongly felt. (Sterne 1982: 507)

More likely that everything in the universe is expressible in number. With name and birthdate I'll have nothing to do - they're complete accidents. There's as much point in assigning numerical values to the letters of the alphabet as there would be in doing so with the letters of the Qwerty keyboard layout.

But that [sic] can Schoenberg's reason be? The most logical explanation has to do with that fateful number, 13. In reduction, 13=4. And Schoenberg seems determined to avoid 13, even in its reduction. [...] Two additional bonuses result from the banishment of 4 from the canon: (1) the scale is thus made consistent with the alphabet, both having a total number value of 9, and (2) the scale contains a double portion of Schoenberg's favorite numbers, 1, 3, and 7. (Sterne 1982: 509)

If Pythagoras says that 4 is 10 is God, then this amounts to banishing God. Note, too, that Fourier's system figuratively revolves around the number 13, that being the final passion of Unityism, the penultimate pivot. The rest of the paper says nothing about Pythagoras. His name in the title misleading. DNF.

Eliade, Mircea 1972. Zalmoxis. Translated by Willard R. Trask. History of Religions 11(3): 257-302. [JSTOR]

"Now the Thracians were a meanly-living and simple-witted folk, but the Salmoxis knew Ionian usages and a fuller way of life than the Thracians; for he had consorted with Greeks, and moreover with one of the greatest Greek teachers, [|] Pythagoras; wherefore he made himself a hall, where he entertained and feasted the chief among his countrymen, and taught them that neither he nor his guests nor any of their descendants should ever die, but that they should go to a place where they would live for ever and have all good things. (Herodotus; in Eliade 1972: 256-257)

The thing that Kant did and Fourier didn't do - entertain the people whose favour you desire with feasts and merriment.

"While he was doing as I have said and teaching this doctrine, he was all the while making him an underground chamber. When this was finished, he vanished from the sight of the Thracians, and descended into the underground chamber, where he lived for three years, the Thracians wishing him back and mourning him for dead; then in the fourth year he appeared to the Thracians, and thus they came to believe what Salmoxis had told them. Such is the Greek story about him. For myself, I neither disbelieve nor fully believe the tale about Salmoxis and his underground chamber; but I think that he lived many years before Pythagoras; and whether there was a man called Salmoxis, or this be the name among the Getae for a god of their country, I have don with him" (4.95-96, trans. A. D. Godley). (Herodotus; in Eliade 1972: 258)

I've read something along these lines several times now. Upon this translation the story comes across as the original, of which Jesus being arisen after three days appears a condensed reduction. Oh, your lord was dead for three days and came back? Well, Zalmoxis laid underground for three years, clearly he is much greater!

The historical reality of a man who claimed to be Zalmoxis, who was a disciple of Pythagoras, and who tried to introduce "Pythagorean politics" into Dacia is maintained by Edward L. Minar, Jr., Early Pythagorean Politics in Practice and Theory (Baltimore, 1942), pp. 6 ff. The hypothesis is not convincing. (Eliade 1972: 259; fn)

That may be, but I'd still like to take a look at it. Sadly it's one of those books that are not available on Internet Archive but reprinted and sold at a higher price than new books on Amazon. The real slap in the face is the description, which "Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work." - Yeah? If it's so culturally important then why are you limiting access to it by selling physical copies instead of letting us read it online? God damn pirates of culture.

As for the underground chamber - if it was not an interpolation by Herodotus, who remembered a legend of Pythagoras that we shall now discuss - it is clear that its function was not understood. According to this legend, preserved in a satirical narrative by Hermippus that has come down to us only incompletely, Pythagoras retires for seven years (the seven-year period is given by Tertullian) into an underground hiding place. Following his instructions, his mother writes a letter (tablet), which he learns by heart before sealing. When he reappears, like a dead man returning from Hades, he goes before the assembly of the people and declares that he can read the tablet without breaking the seal. After this miracle the people of Crotona are convinced that he had been in the underworld and believe all that he tells them about the fate of their relatives and friends. (Eliade 1972: 260)

Of this I'm hearing for the first time.

The "disappearance" (occultation) and "reappearance" (epiphany) of a divine or semidivine being (messianic king, prophet, magus, lawgiver) is a mythico-ritual scenario frequently found in the world of the Mediterranean and Asia Minor. Minos, son of Zeus, the extemplary model of the law-given in antiquity, retired every nine years to the mountain cave of Zeus and emerged from it with the tables of the law (Strabo 10.4.8; 16.2.38). (Eliade 1972: 262)

Turns out that the etymology of "occultation" is one I should already be familiar with: celare (to hide) → occulere (conceal) → occultare (secrete) → occult (covered over). Minos here resembles the story of Moses.

Abaris, a native of the land of the Hyperboreans and a priest of Apollo, was endowed with oracular and magical powers (for example, bilocation). Herodotus (4.36) writes that he "carried his arrow over the whole earth, fasting," but from the time of Heraclides (fr. 51c) it was said that Abaris flew on an arrow. Now the arrow, which plays a certain role in the mythology and religion of the Scythians, is present in Siberian shamanic ceremonies. (Eliade 1972: 269)

From this story, tells the third edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, originates the image of flying witches.

The other etymology interpret the name from the stem zamol, for which M. Praetorius (1688) had already proposed the meaning "earth." In 1852, Cless compared Zalmoxis with the Lithuanian god of the earth, Zameluks (Ziameluks). But it is P. Kretchmer who, in 1935, elaborated the linguistic proof by comparing Zemelo (int he Greco-Phrygian funerary inscriptions from Asia Minor) with its analogs, the Thracian zemelen ("earth") and Semele (the "earth goddess," mother of Dionysus), all of which terms are derived from the Indo-European root *g'hemel- "earth, soil, belonging to the earth" (cf. also AVestan zam, "earth"; Lithuanian žêmé; Lettish zeme; Old Prussian same, seme; Old Slavic zemlja, "earth, country"). Kretschmer interprets the terminal element of the name (Zamol)-xis (which also appears in the names of the kings Lipoxais, Arpoxais, and Colaxais; Herodotus, 4.5-6) by Scythian -xais, "lord, prince, king." Accordingly, "Zalmoxis" would mean "King, Master of Men." (Eliade 1972: 277)

Makes a lot of sense.

When we try to discern, through the medium of their interpretations, what the religion of Zalmoxis originally was and in what direction it developed, we come to the following conclusion: the mystagogic character of Zalmoxis and his famous doctrine of immortality, which had so greatly impressed the Greeks, were supplemented by the growing interest in medicine, astronomy, mysticism, and "magic." (Eliade 1972: 295)

Not the first such term in this text. Mystagogic - someone who instructs others before initiation into religious mysteries or before participation in the sacraments. Thaumaturgic - performing miracles; of, or relating to, the working of magic or performing of miracles. Cosmocratic - of or pertaining to a universal monarch or monarchy.

We could say that the opposite process occurred in the historiographic consciousness of the Romanians. And in fact, from the sixteenth century, the central theme of Romanian historiography has at the same time been the principal reason for the nation's pride: Latin descent. Rome and the idea of Latinity hold the first place in the formation of Romanian culture. It is not until the middle of the nineteenth century that the Dacians are [|] "rediscovered," in the daring study in which Hasdeu asked if they had really disappeared. And it is not untyl about 1920 that, due above all to Pârvan and his pupils, the protohistory and ancient history of Dacia begin to be studied scientifically. But a trend very quickly developed, especially among writers and amateurs, which in its most extravagant expressions has deserved the name of "Thracomania." It went so far as to speak of the "revolt of the autochthonous base," by which it meant the revolt of the Geto-Thracian element against the forms of Latin thought introduced during the formation of the Romanian people. (Eliade 1972: 301-302)

This paper has certainly been very informative of ancient Romanian history and historiography.

Reiser, Oliver L. 1932. Energy the Soul of Matter. The Journal of Religion 12(1): 61-79. [JSTOR]

It is a curious fact that man insists upon asking himself questions which he cannot answer. Man thus appears as an enigma to himself, a cosmic question mark amidst a world of facts. Today, no less than in the age of Job, the question insistently is asked, What is man? Is he indeed so wonderfully made that we can with certainty answer in the affirmative the query of Job, If a man die shall he live again? (Reiser 1932: 61)

"We are unknown, we knowers, ourselves to ourselves: this has its own good reason. We have never searched for ourselves - how should it then come to pass, that we should ever find ourselves?" (Nietzsche 1921: i)

In the Phaedo Socrates is discussing with others a point of view which, after examination, he rejects, but which appears to me to be one of the most satisfactory of the various proposed solutions to this problem. The explanation which Socrates abandons is the idea that the soul is the harmony of the body. It will be remembered that Pythagoras, who saw in number [|] patterns and numerical ratios the explanation of all natural phenomena, and who also made discoveries concerning the mathematical basis of musical harmony, had presented the musical scale which was later to develop into the generally accepted scale. It is clear, therefore, that the facts concerning the relation between the lengths of vibrating strings and the corresponding tones which they give forth were known to Pythagoras. Accordingly it was to be expected that some theorizer acquainted with the ideas of this philosopher-scientist would suggest the idea that what is called the "soul" is comparable to musical harmony. (Reiser 1932: 61-62)

This formulation of the significance of numerical ratios is definitely better than some alternatives, e.g. all is number or "number relationships govern the universe" (cf. Sterne 1982: 507; above). The general discussion here is also already familiar: "The equation of 'soul' with 'harmony' is prat of the materialistic view of 'soul' which is attacked by Plato also in Laws X, where this materialism (expressed in the same language as in the Phaedo) is said to be very widespread indeed" (Tate 1939: 3).

A second reason which Socrates finds for discarding this view is found in the fact that the harmony does not lead the parts which make up the harmony, but only following them. To quote Plato's words: "[...] the soul, being a harmony, can never utter a note at variance with the tensions and relaxations and vibrations and other affections of the strings out of which she is composed; she can only follow, she cannot lead them." But [|] Socrates then argues that we actually discover the soul doing the exact opposite - leading the elements of which, by this theory, she is supposed to be composed. The soil is always opposing and coercing the body. (For Plato matter, when it is not thought of as illusory and unreal, is conceived to be a principle of opposition - something dumb and recalcitrant.) Undoubtedly it is this feeling of coercion the body against its own inclinations, the feelings of the struggle against the "lower" desires of the "flesh," which lends plausibility to the dualism of soul and body. (Reiser 1932: 62-63)

The first instance is reminiscent of William James' notorious discussion of which comes first, the emotion or the facial expression. The second instance is reminiscent of Peircean Secondness, which, too, has to do with resistance.

The final reason why Socrates rejects this view lies in the fact that harmony admits of degrees, whereas the soul does not. According to Socrates we cannot admit that one person is more or less a soul than another person. This view follows from the definition of the soul as a thing which is simple, indivisible, and not composed of parts. By way of reply, and in defense of the view that the soul is the harmony of the body, we must insist that our definition sshould not be asserted on a priori grounds but must be devised to fit the facts. The fact is that the soul is not simple and indivisible. We know too much of multiple or split personalities to affirm that the soul may not consist of parts. Also, the soul admits of degrees. We can speak of some [|] persons as having more or less of a soul than others. And the test of the degree of soul life is a question of wealth and variety of interests or richness of content of integrated experience. (Reiser 1932: 63-64)

In other words, you know too much bunk. Dissociative identity disorder has persisted but to insist that a trauma "splits your soul" is pretty out there. Likewise with wealth and variety of interests. If you don't like shit and don't go outside, you have less of a soul?

In contemporary psychology this view that the mind coerces the body is terms the doctrine of "ideo-motor action." Ideas are said to be dynamogenic in the control of conduct. Such a view corresponds to the parallel doctrine in biology which is known as "vitalism." As the reader knows, in modern science these views are much criticized. (Reiser 1932: 64)

"Dynamogenic" a neat term for the "motive" power of passions.

By way of a beginning let us raise the question of whether these are the only choices before us - or is there another possible point of view, a tertium quid, which we have not stated? (Reiser 1932: 69)

Define:tertium quid - a third thing that is indefinite and undefined but is related to two definite or known things. Could be useful in discussing the "modulated" or "interlaced" passion.

Moreover, Sir J. J. Thomson, who conceives the ether to possess a filamental structure, also thinks of "tubes" of force as physical realities. If this conception, in which the field of force takes the place of the older ether of space, should continue to preserve its good standing we will have to conceive space to the spiderwebbed with interlacing lines of force. (Reiser 1932: 73)

Phraseology for distributive passions in the Phalanstery.

The point which is relevant is that it is no mere figure of speech to say that nature is trying to produce a harmony out of the body of matter with which she has to work. In this sense nature has something of a soul, and the soul is the integrated energy patterns and constellations of lines of forces associated with the potentials of positional objects. (Reiser 1932: 74)

What many call God.

Dillon, Matthew 2000. Dialogues with Death: The Last Days of Socrates and the Buddha. Philosophy East and West 50(4): 525-558. [JSTOR]

In Plato's version of his master's final hours, Socrates emphasizes the point that "those who truly grasp philosophy pursue the study of nothing else but dying and being dead" (Phaedo 64a, cf. 67e). In the course of explaining this remarkable assertion, he goes on to develop at great length an even more remarkable thesis - remarkable, at any rate, for one of the founding fathers of the Western philosophical tradition: after the death of the body, the immortal soul is reborn according to the merits of its former life, gradually purifying itself as it evolves into pure essence, leaving all corporeality behind. Not Buddhist doctrine exactly, but very much in the mainstream of Indian thought as it was developing more or less at this very time, the fifth century B.C.E, the heart of the so-called Axial Age. The similarity has not been lost, at least on comparative philosophers: recent articles have compared the doctrines of the Phaedo with the Katha Upanishad, Yoga, and the Tibetan Book fo the Dead. (Dillon 2000: 525)

"There is only one really serious philosophical problem," Camus says, "and that is suicide."

Do such parallels imply historical connections? The "floating" chronology India does not allow us to establish a priority that would in turn suggest a possible influence of one culture on the other at this early period. Cultural contact cannot be ruled out: communication over such great distance was greatly facilitated by the Royal Road of Persia, stretching from Ionia (cf. "Yona," the Pāli word for "Greek" in later Buddhist texts) to India, and the Greeks do show some selective knowledge of India and its culture at least from the late sixth century onward. But as for the actual exchange of ideas, solid evidence is lacking prior to Alexander's invasion of north-western India in 327 B.C.E. (According to Plutarch's Life of Alexander, chapter 64, he staged a debate between Greek philosophers and Indian "gymnosophists" or "naked philosophers" - perhaps Jains.) For the earlier period we are given some tantalizing hints: Pythagoras (sixth century B.C.E.) is said to have traveled to India, and to have espoused the theory of transmigration of souls. Even more to the point, an Indian is said to have had a philosophical conversation with Socrates at Athens. However, the testimony in both cases is highly suspect. For the Socratic dialogue with the Indian, the source is late (third to fourth century C.E.), and the anecdote is too brief to be of much value. As for Pythagoras, he would seem an excellent intermediary, especially as he is usually said to have been an important influence on Plato (though not by Plato himself, who mentions him by name only once), and particularly on the doctrines of the Phaedo, but so little substance lies behind the famous name that no firm conclusions can be drawn, although we will inevitably be invoking his name frequently in this study. (Dillon 2000: 526)

Good points all around. Pythagoras' Indian connection has already been examined, results being inconclusive or negative. The Alexandrian debate could have inspired the "Gatherings of the Philosophers" in Arabic Egypt. And the remark about lack of substance but necessity of invoking the name is extremely poignant.

Earlier, when Socrates ridicules as "childish" the fear that the soul can be blown away by the wind,
Cbees laughed, nad said, "Socrates, try to persuade us as if we had that fear, or rather, not as if we were afraid, but perhaps there is a child within us, who fears such things. So let's try to persuade that child not to fear death like some bogeyman." "Well," said Socrates, "you must chant a spell over him every day, until you charm it out of him." (77e)
The charm wears off quickly. (Dillon 2000: 532)

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Later, he tells a relieved Ananda:
Ananda, I am now old, worn out, venerable, one who has traversed life's path, I have reached the term of life, which is eighty. Just as an old cart is made to go by being held together with straps, so the Tathagata's body is kept going by being strapped up. It is only when the Tathagata withdraws his attention from outward signs, and by the cessation of certain feelings, enters into the signless concentration of mind, that his body knows comfort. (2.25)
The homely image of the worn-out cart stresses the inevitability of a process naturally approaching its end. The body of the Buddha has almost outlived its usefulness; as its functions are impaired with age, only increased meditative techniques provide relief, "strapped up" the physical side of the mind-body entity. (Dillon 2000: 533)

Semiotics where one would not anticipat it.

The cornerstone of Socrates' positive attitude toward death is the immortality of the soul (with which the self is identified) and the corresponding devaluation of the body. Consistent with these beleiefs is his indifference to the matter of burial. (Dillon 2000: 535)

Not so sure about that identification myself. Not yet, at least.

We may compare Socrates' statement about "ignorance" (Gk. amathia [82e]) distorting the imprisoned body's view of reality with Nyanatiloka's comment on the Pāli avijjā (Skt: avidyā) as "the primary root of all evil and suffering in the world, veiling man's mental eyes and preventing him from seeing the true nature of things." That the cause of this imprisonment is our own "desire" (Gk. epithymia [82e]) accords well with the Second Noble Truth, that the cause of suffering is desire (Pāli: tanha, "thirst"). (Dillon 2000: 539)

Noted for the thymos. This επιθυμώ means 1. desire, want, wish; 2. long for, fine for.

Even more tantalizing is the repeated reference to the Buddha's "comprehensive discourse," which he delivers on seven different occasions, but only in the following summary form:
This is morality, this is concentration, this is wisdom. Concentration, when imbued with morality, brings great fruit and profit. Wisdom, when imbued with concentration, brings great fruit and profit. The mind imbued with wisdom becomes completely free from the corruptions, that is, from the corruption of sensuality, of becoming, of false views and of ignorance. (1.12, 14, 18; 2.4, 10; 4.4, 12)
Morality, concentration, and wisdom are the traditional divisions of the Eightfold Path, the last of the Four Noble Truths, but these also are alluded to only briefly (e.g., 2.2, 3.50) and with little elaboration. (Dillon 2000: 541)

The triangle: (1) concentration, motive; (2) morality, conative; (3) wisdom, cognitive.

This contrast is even more striking if we are justified in emphasizing a key element of Plato's terminology: the word autos to designate the invariable essence of the thing "itself" (thus auto to ison, auto to kalon, auto hekaston ho estin, to on, "equality itself or beauty itself or any other thing as it is in itself" [79d; cf. also 75c-d, where Socrates talks of "setting the seal of reality" on things like "the beautiful itself, the good itself, etc."]). Semantically, autos is the equivalent of the Pāli atta ("self"), and so Plato is actually asserting a doctrine of "self-ness," precisely the opposite of anatta, no-self. (Dillon 2000: 543)

Well now I know where to look for the source of Kant's thing in itself.

As we saw above, the body is nothing but a hindrance to the soul in its pursuit of purity and truth; it can "infect" the soul with its corporeality and delude it through untrustworthy sense perceptions. The philosophic soul naturally wants to be freed from its bondage, and so philosophy is properly the "practice of death." (Dillon 2000: 543)

The long lost art of dying.

Besides the obvious connection with the doctrine of rebirth (see further below), the case is made that Echecrates of Phlius, Phaedo's companion in the dialogue, had Pythagorean connections (Phlius itself was known as a center of Pythagoreanism [Diogenes Lertius VIII.46]), as did Cebes and Simmias, the two most important interlocutors with Socrates in the dialogue itself, who are said to have associated with Philolaus (Phaedo 61d), a student of Pythagoreanism, who is supposed to have supplied these doctrines to Plato (Diogenes Lertius VIII.84). So, for example, Burnet [1911] 1953, pp. 1-2; Bluck 1955, pp. 6-8; Guthrie 1967, 1: 307 ff.; and Stern 1993, pp. 10-11. Cf. Bostock 1986, p. 11: "Plato seems rather to go out of his way to give the Phaedo a Pythagorean setting." However, Rowe (1993) seriously challenges these assumptions (see esp. pp. 6-7, 115-117) with admirable caution. Nevertheless, there is a certain affinity between the ideas of Plato and those of Pythagoras, as Aristotle noted (Metaphysics 987b), just as there is between Platonism, Pythagoreanism, and Orphism, and this is not likely to be coincidence: Plato, at least, is highly conscious of Presocratic tradition. (Dillon 2000: 550)

Noted. This does put Phaedo in more distinct light for an examination of Pythagoreanism.

Pythagoras figures little in Classical literature: only four other certain mentions prior to 300 B.C.E: Xenophanes frag. 7, Heraclitus frag. 17, Herodotus 4.95, and Isocrates Busiris 28. In the absence of any writings of his own (even in antiquity it was not certain whether or not he wrote anything), much of early Pythagorean doctrine is actually extracted from Plato - with care, given the latter's regarding Pythagoras' name. Plato would most likely have come into contact with Pythagorean societies in southern Italy during his stay there circa 387 B.C.E. See Guthrie 1967, 1.161 ff. for an overview, and also de Vogel 1966, esp. chap. 8, "Pythagoras and Plato." Pythagoras' trip to India is poorly [|] attested: see Sedlar 1980, p. xx. Note, however, the opinion of Ferguson (1957, p. 82) that "the thought of the Pythagoreans has too close affinities with Indian thought for the resemblance to be accidental, and the similarity of the name with the Indian Pitta-guru 'father-teacher' is suggestive"! (Dillon 2000: 550-551)

The main text of this paper mentions Pythagoras infrequently but these endnotes are a veritable goldmine of information.

Socrates uses no single technical term for transmigration; later he does coin the verb anabioskesthai, "to come to life again (Phaedo 71e-72a)." "Metempsychosis" is postclassical. A Latin scholiast (Servius on Vergil's Aeneid 3.68) notes that Pythagoras' word was palingenesia, which is roughly "rebirth/re-becoming," not unlike the Pāli punabbhava (e.g., at MPNS 2.2-3). Socrates comes close to this with the verbal phrase palin genesthai, "to be born/become again" (72a). (Dillon 2000: 553)

Taassünd. "Palingenesis" is also a biological term - the exact reproduction of ancestral characteristics in ontogenesis.

Plato himself probably hinted at an Orphic source when Socrates mentions "the doctrine spoken in secret, that we humans are in a sort of prison" (Phaedo 62b), and again when he refers to "initiation rites" in the context of purification for the afterlife (69c). The Orphics seem to have endorsed a radical body-soul dualism (summed up in the famous jingle soma-sema, "body-tomb," derived from Plato's Cratylus 400c), which is certainly prominent throughout the Phaedo (e.g., 66a-67b). For the most elaborate "Orphic" interpretation of the Phaedo, see Stewart 1972, pp. 253-259. (Dillon 2000: 554)

Or, alternatively, that we are some sort of "cattle" (cf. Stapleton 1958: 25-26).

Arnett, L. D. 1904. The Soul: A Study of Past and Present Beliefs. The American Journal of Psychology 15(2): 121-200. [JSTOR / DOI: 10.2307/1412106]

The selection of this subject for investigation was not made with the view of settling any of the disputes points as to the nature of the soul, or even of raising the question as to whether man is endowed with a soul, but rather because the writer felt a lack of knowledge fo the subject and has taken for granted that other students have the same feeling. (Arnett 1904: 121)

I suspect that I'll have to begin my notice on isemus with something along these lines, an apology for not delving too deeply into the complex issues involved that could span thousands of years of philosophical literature.

A study of the beginning or origin of any mental trait or event of a social institution must deal more or less with the indefinite. Studies of existing savage and half-civilized races furnish certain data; to lower levels, or earlier stages of mankind we cannot go, and any reference to such state or condition is merely conjecture. The data presented in this study has been gathered from reports, for the most part trustworthy. Yet we cannot vouch for the explanation given in the cases. To get at the real meaning of savage life, and to be able to properly interpret the beliefs of the savage, would imply in many cases long residence among the people. Perhaps too often, during the past, a hasty explanation has been given of what was thought to be understood. The savage does not clearly understand the reasons and causes for his own beliefs, his language is inadequate to give an accurate explanation. Educated people find it difficult to tell what they mean by soul; the savage no doubt experiences greater difficulty. He may not be able to think in abstract terms, or to conceive of an abstraction separate from an object. The psychology of the savage mind has not been sufficiently studied. He has no need for the shades of meaning expressed by various words in modern psychology. While the data given may not all be correct - much of it is, and as such is valuable as a basis for our study. (Arnett 1904: 122)

A hodge-podge of familiar tropes on the "savages", the most pressing being that the savage was no great metaphysician. Malinowski made this very clear in his paper on primitive language, yet was very thankful when he found an aged military man who could supply him with ample evidence of metauhpsical thinking. Biases and preconceptions are a hellova drug.

Fraser offers the following explanation: "As the savage explains the processes of inanimate nature by supposing that they are produced by living beings working in or behind the phenomena, so he explains the phenomena of life itself. If an animal lives and moves it can only be, he thinks, because there is a little animal inside which moves it. If a man lives and moves, it can only be because he has a little man inside who moves him. The animal inside the animal, the man inside the man, is the soul." The activity of a man or animal is explained by the presence of the soul, sleep or death by its absence. Sleep and trace is the contemporary, death the permanent absence of the soul. (Arnett 1904: 124)

This might be what the neologism isemus evokes: something inside oneself, perhaps another, smaller, self.

Robinsohn in his Psychologie der Naturvölker, thinks that the sight of the dead has influenced savage belief. As the naïve savage mind viewed his dead relative, who a short time before spoke and moved freely, he must, involuntarily, have come to the conclusion that something had left the body; and that something we call the soul. Thus the significance of death was explained and the soul discovered. But in arriving at the idea of soul, first he considered the deram as a real occurrence, and then from the facts of the dream, he concluded that he is a double being, a synthesis of body and that part of him that made journeys and gained new experiences while he slept. (Arnett 1904: 126)

This was the theory of the discovery of the soul that I alluded to somewhere recently.

Gothic. Saivala - Soul, the word related to saivs which means the sea, from the root si or siv - to shake. The soul is conceived by the Teutons as a sea within, heaving up and down.
Hebrew. Nephesh - breath, life, soul, mind, animal; Ruach and Neshamah - breath, spirit.
Greek. Thymos - soul, from thyein - to rush, or move violently.
Romans. Latin (Cicero). Animus - mind, from anima - air, soul. (From the latter word we have animal.) Anima comes from root an - to blow. In Sanscrit, anila - wind; in Greek, anemus - wind. (Arnett 1904: 128)

The "sea within" reminiscent of the sea of consciousness (cf. Johnson 1956: 58-59). The Estonian hing is breath. The Greek word is especially curious - Chase reports that thymos is 1/3 of psyche - which I'll have to confirm when I read Plato myself.

In a peculiar manner the two old Germanic languages from which the word 'geist' proceeds, actually present some words which probably lead us to the fundamental idea of the word. The old-northern has a trace of a word 'geisa'- cum impetu ferri, cito cursu ferri, ruere. But the Gothic renders Είστάυα Mark iii, 21 by usgaijan; Luke ii, 47, and elsewhere Ειστάσθαι by 'usgaisnan.' We should thus be led to suppose that the idea lying at the root of the word 'geist' is that of quick, hasty movement. The old-northern substantive ôdr (Völuspa 18), spirit, offers an analogy with this ideal affinity in its reference to the adjective ôdr, rash, impetuous, fierce, and to its root, vada praet: od, to go along eagerly, with force. (Arnett 1904: 129)

In some old languages the "soul" is characterized by celerity. Got it.

Finns. The Milky Way was called the Bird's Way, or the way of souls. The Lithuanians, and nearly all Indo-European peoples, had similar sayings. (Arnett 1904: 133)

Linnutee.

Persians (Zoroaster). Soul consists of five parts. (1) The feroher or principle of sensation; (2) boo or principle of intelligence; (3) the rouh, or rouan, the principle of practical judgment, imagination, volition; (4) the akho, or principle of conscience; (5) and the jan or principle of life. The first three united, are the principles which are accountable for the deeds of man. The jan mingles with the winds, the akho returns to heaven and has a separate existence. (Arnett 1904: 147)

Turns out that the threefold division of the soul attributed to Pythagoras, probably through Plato, may have its beginnings in Zoroastrianism. These three just line up too perfectly. This means that I'll have to look into Zoroastrianism as well.

Greeks (Plato). Make three divisions of the soul:
λογιστικον, επιδυμετικον, δυμος or δυμοιδες,
(Aristotle.) Divided the soul into three parts: (1) the mere nourishing soul (anima vegetativa), or plant soul; (2) the sensing soul (anima sensitiva), or animal soul; (3) the reasonable thinking soul (anima rationalis). All three of these parts are supposed to be united during life. The first two die with the body; the third is immortal. (Arnett 1904: 147)

Aristotle's division appears to have played a part in Fourier's system of passions, as in the first part (Fourier's "Luxury") have to do with senses and nourishment.

Esthonians. Some of these people will not touch blood because [|] they believe it contains the animal's soul. This soul would then enter their body. (Arnett 1904: 148-149)

Okay then.

Greeks (Pythagoras, Plato). Believed that animals have undying souls. (Arnett 1904: 152)

A bit of a simplification but yes.

"Plants, partaking with animals," says Tylor, "the phenomena of life and death, health and sickness, not unnaturally have some kind of soul ascribed to them." The idea fo a vegetable soul was common in mediæval philosophy, and Tylor thinks that "the doctrine of the spirit of plants lay deep in the intellectual history of South East Asia," but has been superseded by Buddtistic influence. (Arnett 1904: 152)

I've argued the same (cf. Quasten 1942: 207-208).

Three periods of Greek philosophy are generally recognized. During the period of hylozoistic monism the ancient Ionians regarded matter as something living; in itself it was animated just as are particular organisms. This was the first step. It was superseded by dualism in the systems of Empedocles and Anaxagoras. Then the distinction between the spiritual and the corporeal was brought out, also that between matter and force was shown by Empedocles and Democritus. The distinction of true knowledge and phenomenon is a recognition of the mental in the Eleatic school. This is taken up by the Pythagoreans. With Anaxagoras the spiritual is the principle of all being, the material without the impulse of the spirit is nothing. The advent of the idea, the concept-philosophy of Socrates, represents in Plato the dualism of mind and matter, soul and body. (Arnett 1904: 154)

What? I can't pin down what this sentence is trying to say. Sounds like some hip-hop lyrics that make "mental" into a noun, e.g. "Always haunted by the demons in my mental", "Moments play back in my mental about the last night of terror", and "Got me lost in my mental".

With Empedocles we have a duality in the sense of opposites and their effects. Love tends to make one out of many, strife tends to make many out of one. Love and strife control things. (Arnett 1904: 156)

Accord and discord; centripetal and centrifugal.

As to the teachings of Pythagoras and his school, we can only follow what later members say. Little is known of the early doctrine; but it is believed, however, to have been dualistic. It is supposed that they postulated world soul and that the origin of the soul of man was ascribed to this. Some of the Pythagoreans held that solar corpuscles are souls. The soul was considered to be a harmony or a number. From the doxographers we leran that "Pythagoras held that one of the first principles, the monad, is god and the good, which is the origin of the One, and is itself intelligence." "Divine spirit are psychical beings; and heroes are souls separated from bodies, good heroes are good souls, bad heroes, bad souls." "For Pythagoras, who held that the soul is extended through all the nature of things and mingled with them, and that from this our souls are taken, did not see that God would be separated and torn apart by the separation of human souls; and when souls are wretched, as might happen to many, then part of God would be wretched; a thing which could not happen." The harmony of opposites and the essence of number symbolize the soul. The soul is an immortal being passing through stages of perfection in animal life. The body is the prison or tomb of the soul. (Arnett 1904: 157)

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned "world soul". "Solar corpuscles" might be equal to Fourier's globes.

With Anaxagoras we have an intelligent principle as the cause of motion. This was a great advance in some respects over the mechanical theories of some of the cosmologists. Soul and mind are the same; it is the moving force of matter. He thought that if a being moves itself it must be mind that produces the motion, the motive power coming not from without but from within. For him this motive principle becomes a soul. (Arnett 1904: 157)

Notable for the use of "motive" (liikumapanev), and the similarity with a quote from Peirce: "The microscopist looks to see whether the motions of a little creature show any purpose. If so, there is mind there" (CP 1.269; in Nöth 1998: 338).

For Plato God made the soul out of the following elements: "out of the indivisible and unchangeable, and also out of that which is divisible and has to do with material bodies, he compounded a third and intermediate kind of essence, partaking of the nature of the same and of the other, and this compound he placed, accordingly, in a mean between the indivisible and the divisible and material. He took the three elements of the same, the other, and the essence and mingled them into one form, compressing by force the reluctant and unsociable nature of the other into the same." This is the soul of the universe, and of this, in a diluted form, the stars partake. (Arnett 1904: 159)

In all likelihood the exact logic I'm trying to pin down, i.e. "the third category in each triad always arises from the combination of the second with the first" (Kant 1855: 67), e.g. "the unity of plurality gives totality, the negation of reality gives limitation and the permanence of community causality" (Topa 2018: 116).

If the doctrines of the church have any influence in moulding our theological ideas, then Augustine has had a great influence. Dogma was perfected with his system. He taught that the soul is immaterial, there are found in it only functions, such as thought, knowing, willing and remembrance. It is a substance or subject and not a mere attribute of the body. It is spiritual because it is the subject of thought, that is, it cannot be an attribute of that which does not think. It feels each affection of the body at that point where the affection takes place, without being obliged to move itself to that place; it is, therefore, wholly present within the entire body, and in each part of it, - while the corporeal with each of its parts is only in one place. A body has only figure, one form; it cannot become the figure and form of another body; the mind can in loving, love both itself and that which is other than itself; in knowing, know itself and that which is other than itself; hence, while memory, intellect and will share in the substantiality of the mind, they differ in this respect from mere accidents, as color, or form, of a substratum. Understanding can know itself, memory can remember that we possess memory, i.e., the soul is conscious of itself as such and each of its parts. The union of soul and body cannot be scientifically explained for man is, as it were, a third substance formed out of two heterogeneous substances. The body does not act on the soul, it is the soul in the body acting on itself. The metaphysics of Augustine is built up on the knowledge of the finite personality. The three aspects of the psychic reality are idea, judgment, and will, and from these he seeks to gain an analogical idea of the mystery of the Trinity. Will is the central element of consciousness. "The leading motive [|] in this is doubtless the man's (Augustine) own experience; himself a nature ardent and strong in will, as he examined and scrutinized his own personality he came upon the will as its inmost core." The becoming conscious of an act of perception is an act of the will. Physical attention and likewise activity of inner sense have a dependence on the will. Whether we bring our states and actions to consciousness, the thinking of the intellect, judging and reasoning, - all these is determined by the will for it determines the "direction and the end according to which the data of outer or inner experience are to be brought under the general truths of rational insight." (Arnett 1904: 173-174)

Thought, knowing and rememberance in this light just variations of the same dimension. The "third substance" once again the "mean". "Judgment", as can be deduced from Kant, stands for perceptions (as in "perceptual judgments"; see aisteetika).

The history of mankind is divided into six periods corresponding to the six days of creation, in the last of these we live. (Arnett 1904: 174)

[Fourier noises]

Man, in so far as he is man, is intellect; the highest stage of life is attained by knowledge, the participation in the divine. "With the five senses and the sensus communis are said to be connected the vis imaginative and aestimativa, which are common to all anmals; further, the phantasia, which at least the highest animals have; and finally the memoria." (Arnett 1904: 177)

Here it appears that Aristotle is denying animals both imagination and memory. Can dogs not learn tricks and dream? I don't see why any being with nerve cells couldn't.

In the Middle Ages the science of spirits (souls) was called Pneumatology. It comprised the study of God, angels and man, the psychology of angels holding a place side by side with that of man. (Arnett 1904: 185)

Cool. Should the study of emotions be called thymitology?

Besides this we have various discussions of an entified soul in different relations to an absolute being, - this may be a pantheistic view, or represent the soul's relation to a world soul, or a spiritual world, or some form of the Absolute. (Arnett 1904: 186)

Define:entification - The action of giving objective existence to something.

Every sensation is the sign of the presence of an object. (Arnett 1904: 192)

Profound. This from a summary of Reid's views. While reading this paper I thought of how the "interpretant" is the "mean" in Peirce's system of semiotics. Using his terminology to paraphrase this sentence: Every representamen is interpretant of the presence of an object. (Note that I employed "interpretant" in that odd way Grice does.)

Development is everywhere. The soul now has five senses but probably it once had less than five and in the future will have more. God creates only simple beings, there exists a harmony among these that explains all the world processes. (Arnett 1904: 193)

From a summary of Lessing's views. We do have more than five senses but not because we've developed more of them but because we've discovered more of them (e.g. sense of balance).

"It is purely impossible for us to be conscious of ourselves, independently of the objects of knowing and willing. When we enter into ourselves, and begin to reflect on ourselves, we lose ourselves in a fathomless emptiness, in a darkness in which all cognition ceases, and we grasp nothing but an insubstantial spectre, the Ego itself remains after it all a ariddle." (Arnett 1904: 197)

This is Schopenhauer. Wouldn't be at all surprised if it is also the source of Nietzsche's famous abyss.

Grant, Robert M. 1980. Dietary Laws among Pythagoreans, Jews, and Christians. The Harvard Theological Review 73(1/2): 299-310. [JSTOR]

The Pythagorean symbola have come down to us in several ways, of which the most important are the relatively literal-historical treatment provided by Aristotle in his treatise On the Pythagoreans and the allegorizing interpretation given by Androcydes On Pythagorean Symbols. Presumably at least the Aristotelian picture was known to Alexander Polyhistor, who, as quoted by Clement of Alexandria, said that Pythagoras was a pupil of Zoroaster. Aristotle's early dialogue On Philosophy reflects this interest. (Grant 1980: 299)

It crtainly looks like Pythagoras had something or other to do with Zoroastrism, seein as his threefold division of the soul is very like the Zoroastrian one (cf. Arnett 1904: 147).

Such a variety of attitudes meant that recourse to allegorization was appropriate, especially in view of the presence of abstention commands among the symbols. Aristotle himself had handed down "Abstain from beans," "Do not pick up crumbs from the table," "Do not eat the heart," "Do not eat red mullet," and "Do not eat blacktail." Apparently it was Androcydes who first allegorized such sayings. We are explicitly told that he took "Do not eat blacktail" to mean "Do not pass on a false account, for falsehood finally blackens and perishes." A different allegory appears in Pseudo-Plutarch De educandis pueris: "Do not spend [|] your time with men of black character, because of their malevolence." In the same work we find "Do not eat the heart" interpreted subjectively: "Do not harm your soul by wasting it with worries." And abstinence from beans means staying out of politics, where beans were once used in voting! A certain Demetrius of Byzantium, used by Athenaeus, treats not eating the heart as equivalent to keeping free from grief. This is not unlike what we find in Diogenes Laertius, "Do not waste your soul with troubles and worries," though verbally closer to Pseudo-Plutarch. (Grant 1980: 300-301)

Wow. "Do not eat the heart" is especially poignant. There is, after all, a common saying that harassing cares (cf. Brisbane 1876: 27) can "eat your heart out". eat (one's) heart out - 1. To feel great sadness; 2. To be very jealous.

Hippolytus too discussed the symbols, eight of them in all. The ones having to do with eating are explained quite oddly. "Do not take a bit from a whole loaf" means "Do not diminish your property but life off the income; keep the estate like a whole loaf." "Do not eat beans" means "Do not accept the rule of the city; for they elected the rulers with beans at that time." (Grant 1980: 302)

There is a slight difference between staying out of politics and not accepting the rule of the city. It's the difference between abstention and anarchism.

In a more crucial conflict situation, the author of 4 Maccabees finds the work of reason expressed not in finding reasons for defending the law but in producing the self-control that overcomes desire for fish, birds, and animals forbidden by the law. The control of the passions by religiously motivated reason is, indeed, the theme of the work. (Grant 1980: 303)

[Fourier noises]

Origen then quotes the Sentences of Sextus (Pythagorean-Christian) to the effect that "it is a matter of moral indifference to eat living things, but abstinence is more rational. He too views it as [|] more rational but claims that among the reasons the Pythagorean one - transmigration of the soul into irrational animals - is not acceptable. (Grant 1980: 305-306)

Wow. The Sentences of Sextus look pretty interesting. In a better world it would probably be included in the bible. There is a French book about it from 1843 but I can't read frog and probably won't ever learn to. Used hardcover copy of The Sentences of Sextus by Henry Chadwick currently goes for $304.99 on Amazon.

We have now seen something of the use made of the allegorical method in relation to the dietary laws of the Pythagoreans, the Jews, and the Christians. Obviously the method as such did not necessarily lead to abandonment of the letter. It could be used to explain an inner meaning to be kept side by side with the observance. It could also be used to explain gnomic sentences like the symbols of the Pythagoreans, and we now finally turn to words in the Synoptic Gospels which resemble such symbols and received similar modes of interpretation. (Grant 1980: 308)

That's the word I was searching for before - allegory. The Pythagorean symbols are allegorical, like the parables of Jesus.

The dogs recur in the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman (Mark 7:27-28 = Matt 15:26-27). Jesus says to her, "It is not good to take the children's bread [= what is holy?] and cast it to the dogs." She replies, "The dogs under the table eat from the children's crumbs." It is odd, though probably nothing more, than the Pythagoreans too discussed crumbs. They were not to pick them up, "either in order to accustom them no tto eat immoderately on because connected with a person's death." According to Aristophanes they "belong to the heroes." In his exegesis of the verses, Origen touches upon (but rejects) the Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls, preferring a moral interpretation of "dogs" and of other animal names. (Grant 1980: 309)

Curious that something like the crumbs belonging to the heroes exists among hip-hop tropes: pouring out (to the ground) a little liquor for dead homies. There might be another coincidence: the dog under the table may actually be, according to Pythagorean doctrine of rebirth, the heroes of past ages. (Oh, footnote already points the connection out.)

Both Clement and Hippolytus used the Pythagorean Carmen aureum, and both cited Pythagorean symbols. Clement even coordinated them with saying from the Old and New Testaments. He provided the starting point for this essay. (Grant 1980: 310)

Aurea Carmina is the Latin title of Golden Verses, which are very conveniently translated and modernized on Wikipedia. I'll be reading Rowe's version soon enough. By coincidence, the very next paper is about Clement of Alexandria and why he called Philo Pythagorean.

Runia, David T. 1995. Why Does Clement of Alexandria Call Philo "The Pythagorean"? Vigiliae Christianae 49(1): 1-22. [JSTOR / DOI: 10.2307/1584152]

It is a well-known fact that the massive corpus of writings of Philo of Alexandria only survived because he was taken up in the Christian tradition as a church father honoris causa. (Runia 1995: 1)

Define:honoris causa - (especially of a degree awarded without examination) as a mark of esteem.

Clement explicitly refers to Philo on four occasions, but his actual usage of Philonic material is much more extesive. Indeed Clement's handling of Philo is an illuminating example of the way ancient authors were wont to use other authors as a source for their own writing. In her excellent and well-received monograph on the subject Annewies van den Hoek has shown that on at least eight occasions Clement had a copy of Philo on his desk as it were, and that he copied out extensive excerpts in the Stromateis, unrolling his scroll as he went along (on one occasion in reverse!). (Runia 1995: 1)

Very interesting indeed. Annewies van den Hoek's book is titled Clement of Alexandria and his Use of Philo in the Stromateis: An Early Christian Reshaping of a Jewish Model (Leiden 1988) (Google Books preview).

(Plato the philosopher posits as the goal of life "well-being", and says that this is "becoming like unto God to the extent possible", in this either coinciding somehow or other with the doctrine of the Law (for great natures who are devoid of passions somehow or other hit on the truth, as says the Pythagorean Philo when expounding the works of Moses), or because, as one who was always thirsting for learning, he had been taught it by learned men then living.)
These references deserve further study. In the first, which occurs in the middle of an extensive section that borrows heavily from Philo, the Jewish author is suddenly introduced without any further indication as to who he might be. (Runia 1995: 2)

That well-being is close to godliness does not surprise - seems like something Plato would write.

It is highly probably that it was though the intervention of the so-called catechetical school of Pantaneus, of which Clement was a member (but of which we know perilously little), that the writings of Philo were rescued from the debris of Jewish-Alexandrian culture after the disastrous happenings in the century after Philo's death. Just as from the textual point of view, so alse from the historical perspective the early information supplied by Clement has to be taken very seriously. When he calls Philo a "Pythagorean", can this mean that in some way or another Philo was a member of the Pythagorean school? Naturally we have to allow for the fact that Clement may have been privy to information that is otherwise lost to us. If this is the case, we cannot check him. But we do have the duty to examine the question of why Clement called Philo "the Pythagorean" from as many angles as are made available to us by our limited sources. This is the task thta I propose to take on myself in the present article. (Runia 1995: 3)

Well done indeed. Philo's Works take up 12 volumes. I'll make a note to check out On Virtues, at least.

Before looking at particular examples, we must first address a preliminary question. What do terms such as "Pythagorean" and "Peripatetic" refer to? Here there is an important distinction that needs to be made. In the first place such terms will very often indicate membership of or affiliation to a philosophical αϊρεσις, i.e. a philosophical "school" or, perhaps better, "school of thought". In Clement's time, as is well known, philosophers were generally identified by their allegiance to one of the rival "schools" that went back to the earlier period of the Greek philosophical tradition. These "schools" scarcely existed in the institutional sense to which we are accustomed (although in Clement's day there were some municipal chairs for the various αίρέσεις, and at Athens even an Imperial endoment). There was no central body that organized all philosophers who called themselves Platonists, but no doubt most Platonists would look up to the occupant of the chair of [|] Platonist philosophy in Athens. One could be a professional representative of such an αϊρεσις. Such were the men whom Justin studied with - first a Στηϊχός, then a Περιπατητιχός, then a Πυθαγόρειος, and finally a prominent Πλατωνιχός - before he fell in with the old man by the sea. One could also be "affiliated" with such a "school of thought" without teaching philosophy professionally. Here we think of men such as Cicero, who regarded himself as an "Academic", the "Platonist" Plutarch, the "Stoic" Seneca, and so on. Such membership could be projected into the distant past, e.g. Empedocles could be called "the Pythagorean" because he came from Western Greece, was thought to have been a pupil of Pythagoras, and maintained similar doctrines (e.g. reincarnation). (Runia 1995: 6-7)

Makes me ruminate on what posteriority might make of "semiotician".

A prominent aspect of Philo's biblical exegesis is his heavy use of number symbolism or arithmology. On a number of occasions he specifically refers to Pythagorean number lore when expounding biblical numbers such as the monad, the triad and the hebdomad. Clement takes over this method. There are at least three significant texts where he takes over substantial material on arithmology from Philo [...] (Runia 1995: 10)

Arithmology is given as "The theory of numbers; higher arithmetic." amongst more numerous definitions of numerology (bleh). Hebdomad is "number seven; group of seven; seven days". The endnotes recommend H. R. Moehring's "Arithmology as an Exegetical Tool in the Writings of Philo of Alexandria" (1978).

The third possibility takes us in an entirely different directions. One of the more obvious features of Philo's writings is their extensive use of philosophical material from the so-called "Bible of the Platonists", Plato's Timaeus. As the passage at Str. 5.93-94 implicitly shows (Philo's name is not mentioned), Clement was perfectly aware of this connection. In Clement's day the personage of Timaeus was regarded as a Pythagorean (in the dialogue he is described at 20a as coming from Locris in Italy). Moreover a Pseudo-Pythagorean work, written in Doric and attributed to Timaeus Locrus, was in circulation and was regarded as the original from which Plato had taken (or even plagiarized) his doctrines. (Runia 1995: 11)

Others, too, have pointed out that Plato tended to associate with Pythagoreans awfully lot.

Indeed Pythagorean doctrine might be described as virtually identical with Platonist philosophy, with the addition of special emphases on the role of numbers (esp. in the doctrine of first principles) and on the contemplative life (together with various practical injunctions). The reason why this was possible is clear enough. Plato was regarded as having "Pythagorized", not only in the Timaeus, but throughout his entire œuvre. As the more ancient figure, Pythagoras was the creative source, but PLato had worked out his thought in greater philosophical detail. In practice this meant that Pythagoreans could claim Platonist doctrine as an integral part of their αϊρεσις, but had more speculative freedom, because they were less tied to the study of Plato's writings. (Runia 1995: 11)

Yep. I'm very partial to speculative freedom.

A second, admittedly less strong, argument is that Clement nowhere uses the term Πλατωνιχός in order to designate a philosopher. This suggests that he may have wanted to avoid the term (for whatever reason), and preferred the more dignified title of Πυθαγορεϊος. We thus find ourselves in broad agreement with David Winston when he writes: "It is thus clear that the expression "Pythagorean" does not preclude one from being a Platonist. Clement's designation of Philo as being "Pythagorean" was therefore probably not meant to preclude his being a Platonist, but was [|] used only to indicate that both he and Plato had "Pythagorized"." (Runia 1995: 12-13)

As did Kant, Fourier, Chase, and Peirce - which is why I am now drawn into this infinitely interesting mess.

The same difference is well illustrated by another text, namely the Sentences of Sextus. This collection of aphorisms was attributed by some to "Sextus the Pythagorean". Jerome in the 4th century strongly polemicizes against it as the work of "a man without Christ and a heathen", arguing that those who read it take over various pernicious Pythagorean doctrines and so "drink of the golden cup of Babylon". But the work in its Christian form, according to Chadwick's reconstruction of the tradition, was probably compiled between 180 and 210 by a writer whose kindred spirit was Clement of Alexandria and whose motto might have been Pythagoras saepe noster. this is close to the spirit in which Clement calls Philo "the Pythagorean", whereas Jerome's attitude is a continuation of what we found in Hippolytus. (Runia 1995: 14)

Perhaps may go to explain why the Sentences of Sextus are non-canonical. Saepe noster means "one of ours" (omad joped).

E.g. the injunction "not to walk on the highways", cited by Philo at Prob. 2 and also referred to by Clement at Str. 5.41.1, which could be taken in an esoteric rather than a protreptic sense. At Str. 4.3.1 Clement takes over the Platonic language of the greater and lesser mysteries; cf. Philo Sacr. 62 and Van den Hoek op. cit (n. 3) 188. This possible interpretation of the epithet "Pythagorean" for Philo is suggested by Radice, op. cit. (n. 44) 21, who also points to the prominence of the "contemplative life" in Pythagorean thought. Note, however, that Pythagoras or Pythagoreanism are not mentioned at all in Philo's De vita contemplativa. (Runia 1995: 20)

Define:protreptic - intended to persuade or instruct. Contemplative Life is in vol. 9. of Philo's Works.

Stocks, J. L. 1915. Plato and the Tripartite Soul. Mind 24(94): 207-221. [JSTOR]

The most diligent search among the fragments of pre-Socratic thinkers fails to discover in them even the germ of anything that a modern would recognise as moral philosophy. A few common-sense precepts concerning the conduct of life, and a notion of cosmic justice as a principle preserving proportion and isonomy, preventing one of the warring natural forces from establishing a tyranny over the rest - that is pretty well all one can find to fill the empty place. If the searcher pins his faith to Diels, he will find even among the Pythagoreans hardly anything but an obscure allusion to a theory which represented virtue as a number. (Stocks 1915: 207)

What might have incited me to turn to such fragments was Ahto Lobjakas at the autumn school of semiotics (2017) recommending to take those (pre-Socratic) fragments and "roll them between the fingers", i.e. "fondle" them. That Pythagoreans "represented virtue as a number" is news to me. But then again I haven't gotten down to the nitty-gritty of it (e.g. Golden Verses and the various biographies of Pythagoras).

We have been told, almost too often, that if we divide the 'flux' of Heraclitus by the 'being' of Parmenides [|] the result will be the PLatonic 'idea'. And the Eleatics are saluted, after Aristotle, as the founders of logic. But in ethics we are asked to begin with the Sophists, and to pass from them, after a short course of Socratic logic-chopping on the theme 'virtue is wisdom,' straight to the full-blown glory of Plato. (Stocks 1915: 207-208)

If this is indeed put forth very frequently then sooner or later I'll come to find out what it means exactly.

Of this uncompromising ancestry was born in the fourth century B.C. in or near the Academy the Platonic ethics, to be the subject of genuine but rather hesitating admiration to generations of scholars and philosophers. Admiration hesitates because, though one hardly likes to say so when the ancestry is so well-attested, the child is surely no true Greek after all. The speech is prophetic and oracular; the doctrine is mystical and acetic; there is an all-pervading consciousness that the human soul is not at home in this world and in this body, which could not have been engendered under the Greek sun. So the shadow of a bar sinister, of a taint of colour in the blood, falls across the cradle. And that shadow has always remained. Aristotle it is true did something to remove it; but after him Stoic, Christian, and neo-platonist let the Orient loose upon us. 'Wir haben uns mit eigenen Händen die Lebensader unterbunden und hinken als verkrüppelte Judenknechte hinter Jahve's Bundeslade her!' (Stocks 1915: 208)

Drinking from the golden cup of Babylon.

Such is the general impression produced by the average modern account of Plato's teaching on the ethical side. But the ancients regarded Plato as less original. They freely accused him of shameless and persistent plagiarism. The Republic was a theft from Protagoras, the Timæus from the Three Books bought from Philolaus. His refutations of the Eleatics were borrowed again from Protagoras. Diogenes' account of Plato summarises a detailed proof of a deep debt to Epicharmus. Aristippus, Antisthenes, and Bryso are also mentioned as sources from which Plato 'took what he required'. It is no doubt true that much of this is only malicious gossip and cannot be supposed to rest on any substantial truth. But it does show at any rate that Plato was not regarded as an isolated phenomenon. (Stocks 1915: 208)

Already a theme all too familiar. Now specified that Plato bought Three Books (why the capitalization?) from Philolaus.

Diogenes twice asserts that Pythagoras invented the use of the Greek φιλόσοφος φιλοσοφία for philosopher and philosophy in place of the hithero usual σοφός σοφία. For none, he said, was wise save God. Sosicrates and Heraclides of Pontus are given as authority for a conversation between Pythagoras and Leon, the tyrant of Phlius (or as another account has it, of Sicyon). Leon asked Pythagoras what he was, and he answered 'φιλόσοφος'. Life, he said (so Diogenes continues), was like a πανήγυρις, i.e. like the company that assembled from all quarters at the games. Some came to compete, some to traffic, but the best came to look on. So in life, some had a slavish nature, seeking for glory or profit: but the others, the philosophers, sought truth. The parable is clearly meant to explain the meaning and use of φιλόσοφος. The contemplative life is the ideal, and man has two alternatives to it - the search for honour and the search for glory. This clearly implies that Pythagoras used the three words φιλόσοφος φιλότιμος φιλοκερδής, which are the characteristic names in Plato for the three parts of the soul, or words closely related to them. The use of φιλόσοφος or σοφός would no doubt be continued on the one side by the belief that the wisest are not really wise but only seekers after wisdom, and on the other by the desire for a form analogical to φιλότιμος and φιλοκερδής. But we have not to rely on a mere inference from this story for evidence of the fact that Pythagoras used the notion of a tripartite soul before Plato did. The Platonic division into λογισμός, θυμός and έπιθυμία is attributed by Galen on the authority of Posidonius to Pythagoras, though Galen adds that Posidonius inferred this not from any writings of Pythagoras (since none had been preserved) but from the writings of 'some of his disciples'. (Stocks 1915: 209)

Sophists are the "adepts" of wisdom, philosophers the seekers after wisdom. The anecdote about (presumably Olympian) games and the audience is poignant, naturally leading up to the distinction between active and contemplative life. The Platonic division is slightly different than the one(s) given by Pliny Earle Chase but still hit the spot.

New apart from the connexion with the Pythagoreans the interesting point in this tradition is the implied assertion that the tripartite psychology is an integral part of a wider doctrine, which Burnet calls the theory of the three lives, and which involves that exaltation of the activity of contemplation which is common to Aristotle and Plato and finds its noblest and most complete expression in the philosopher-king of the Republic. If tre this is important. It would justify us in asserting that whenever we meet the exaltation of the philosophic or contemplative above the practical life we have, implicit at least, the tripartite soul. (Stocks 1915: 210)

Calling it a "tripartite psychology" is very accurate - specifically because it makes a strong comeback in 19th century rational or faculty psychology (e.g. Alexander Bain and numerous others in The Proceedings of The Aristotelian Society).

The Doctrine. - The parable attributed to Pythagoras divides humanity into three classes, the covetous, the ambitious, and the curious, each being named after the ruling passion. But it is too much to suppose that the covetous are wholly incurious or the curious wholly unambitious. What the division specifies is the three typical motives of the human action, and all three motives will be found operating at different times in every normal human soul. Thus the classification of lives or men becomes a classification of motives, or, in the vague modern sense of that word, of [|] desires. Every human soul has implanted in it at birth a natural tendency to seek these there things, profit, honour, and knowledge. Now in general it is true - though exceptions are to be found - that the three pursuits are incapable of combination. To seek profit is to forgo for the time being the pursuit of profit or honour. Thus prima facie at least it appears that human nature is three-sided, and while one side is being satisfied the other two are being starved. The counsel of the moralist might be that each side should be satisfied in turn, or it might be that one side was evil and should be starved altogether, or again that one was all-important and should receive so far as possible exclusive attention. We know as a matter of fact that the last is the advice given in the Phædo, and that in the Republic an attempt is made to show that in knowledge there is both honour and profit, so that in a sense exclusive attention to one of these three sides of our nature results in the satisfaction of all three, while exclusive attention to any other brings misery and disaster. (Stocks 1915: 210-211)

Holy shit! This is brilliant! And already familiar from Bourdieu! Covetous-profit is his financial capital. Ambitious-honour is social capital. And curious-knowledge is Bourdieu's cultural capital. And the logic is exactly the same - cultural capital can be exchanged most profitably into social and financial capital. God damn. The discussion about which one of these three sides dominates is already a beginning of what I frequently have called "hierarchical functionalism".

Socrates's counsel in the Phædo and in the Republic is that the love of knowledge should be the leading motive in life. Nothing is to stand in the way of its satisfaction. Attention to anything else is only excused by necessity. Pleasure and honour, as such, are not to be sought at all. The undivided pursuit of knowledge, and that alone, brings a man success in this world and in the next. The knowledge to be sought is called knowledge by no figure of speech: it is not a knowledge of arms or ships or houses, not a knowledge of human good nor of anything else that might be supposed to be useful to the citizen or to the politician. It is metaphysics or theology - knowledge of the eternal real - which is the title to supremacy in the soul and in the State. If this is a paradox, it is certainly deliberate and intended. No attempt is made either in the Phædo or in the Republic to show that from this metaphysical knowledge conclusions can be deduced which are directly applicable to the ordinary affairs of life. These are not the fruits of philosophy. (Stocks 1915: 212)

This makes all kinds of sense. A special emphasis should be put on success in the "next" world, as this aspect is most closely aligned with other religious doctrines according to which it is wisdom and self-knowledge which lead to liberation or extinction.

Any society whatever is bound in some degree to exhibit all three, even though the social organisation which is called the State refused to explicit recognition to one or another. The healthy State which does no violence to nature must needs recognise all three; and the only question for Plato is in what form are they to be expressed. He is not relying on any hazardous parallel between the soul of man and the soul of the State, but on the plain fact that State-organisation must take account of every need and demand of man's nature. The activities of the community then will necessarily fall into these three classes. There will be the work of production - the economic or profit-seeking activity - the work of self-protection and self-assertion, inspired by the love of honour, and the search for truth inspired by the love of wisdom. Every State has these three interests, and in forming the ideal State we must see that the organisation makes due provision for each. So far the doctrine of the tripartite soul will carry us, and Plato does not attempt to push it any farther. He does in fact argue that each of these three interests should be in the professional keeping of separate bodies of men - honour in the keeping of the army, knowledge in that of the ruling elders, production in the hands of craftsmen who may neither fight nor rule. But the separation of classes is not based on any inference from the division of functions. (Stocks 1915: 213)

This is where Charles Fourier comes in. These three categories of human needs he further subdivides according to some Pythagorean precepts. Thus, 5 "passions" for Luxury, or things to be produced for the senses; 4 for Affective - I would say social - needs, it now seeming implicit that love, friendship, family and ambition pertain to self-protection and self-assertion; and 3 for the proper Distribution (combination) of the previous two, which indicate that his conception of "wisdom" spans the whole gamut of senses and preoccupations. This analysis could be carried further but a thorough reading of Republic is necessary. The main take-away is that although Fourier retains some system of classes (low, middle, and high), his ideal society combines the three occupations in a way that does away with the need for ruling and protection and instead expands craft and love of knowledge (curiously, primarily of the practical kind, e.g. cooking) to the utmost extreme.

The class of craftsmen have a special function to perform, viz. the production of the necessaries of life, but the proper performance of this function does not of itself constitute any State-virtue. For it is no virtue in a man to see that he does not lack the necessaries of life; and the love of money or profit, is only a common and pernicious preversion of the innocent desire for a competency. No action of a man or of a State should be a seeking for wealth: that unnatural passion is the root of all evil: but all should be inspired or at least controlled by the love of wisdom, and some should be inspired by the indignant rejection of dishonour. Thus the life of honour and the life of pleasure are both excluded; for if a man is to live for honour he must give up knowledge altogether, and if he is to live for pleasure he must give up both honour and knowledge. (Stocks 1915: 214)

Here the discord Fourier had with "philosophers" (as such) comes to the fore. In a world described as "post-scarcity", there indeed is a "virtue" (Fourier would no doubt condemn this term) in guaranteeing the necessities of life to everyone (moving from the individual level to the societal, in this regard). Seeking after wealth on the contrary may be one of the most natural passions of the human species. Fourier does not deny us this passion, but he does channel it into something more altruistic.

The State originates as a purely economic association. Co-operation makes the necessaries of life less precarious; and the infant society, the 'minimum city' (άναγκαιοτάη πόλις), as Plato calls it, might be defined as an association for the satisfaction of the necessary appetites. Next, provisino begins to be made for the amenities of life. This means that unnecessary appetites (which may of course be quite innocent) are recognised and their satisfaction is socially organised. By this door luxury and wealth enter; and they bring in their train war. And the exigencies of war will no doubt provide a check and a discipline for the growing tribe of unnecessary appetites. Temper (θυμός) now takes command instead of appetite. But the warrion needs atraining, and the State must devise a system of education for him. Once attention is turned to education there is no stopping place short of complete knowledge. The goal is the production of the philosopher, and when he comes knowledge must supplant temper as the ruler of the State. When the philosopher rules, the city will be purged of all luxury and ostentation. The unnecessary appetites will be suppressed, the swagger of the soldire will be corrected, and the full-grown State will be ready for united action at home and abroad. (Stocks 1915: 215)

Some verbiage here clearly harmonizes with Fourier (e.g. association and luxury). His deal is taking co-operation to the extreme - every kind of work will be done in groups - and the necessities of life will not only be made less precarious but abundant (e.g. meals will be had five times per day). Clearly, Fourier's ideal society will not be that of the philosopher; no doubt there will be a prevalent place for philosophers but luxury and ostentation would not be prohibitive to seeking after knowledge. What's more, the most poignant reversal here concerns the "unnecessary appetites" - Fourier would not only not suppress them but encourage them; every hobby that interests around nine people will be legitimate. This is in fact where we're currently heading - the internet exposes the infinity of niches.

The application of all this to the individual is plain. Nothing interests or occupes the infant but the necessaries of life. But alongside of the necessary appetites and out of them spring by degrees opportunities for enjoyment. Out of such enjoyment emerges the notion of the self as a thing to prize and develop. Hence a somewhat competitive self-assertiveness, which at once operates as a check upon the exploitation of the appetites. (Stocks 1915: 215)

Completely misguided. The child is naturally curious (the prime seeker of knowledge), and crafty - which Fourier would enable with miniature workshops for children to try out every imaginable craft and find out what pleases him or her most.

'Parts' of the Soul. - In what sense does this doctrine involve us in the assertion of 'parts' of the soul? The treatment of this question is commonly confused and prejudiced by the modern psychological classification of the elements of consciousness under the three heads of Denken, Fühlen, Wollen - Thought, Feeling, Desire - Cognition, Affection, Conation. The doctrine is treated as a stammering utterance of this great truth, and under the spell of the Evolutionary Method historians of philosophy treat Plato as a child who talked bad English or German instead of as a grown-up man who talked good Greek. But the modern classification, whether it is adequate or inadequate, proceeds upon an entirely different principle from the Greek. The point need not be argued in detail. It is at once evident from the fact that our psychologists are careful to infrom us that their triad is in simultaneous occupation of consciousness; all three are present in every 'psychosis' thought in varying proportions; while the Greek triad is often represented (as we have seen) as a triad of alternatives, each excluding the others, and each striving on occasion to supplant whichever of the other two is in possession. A man cannot choose whether he shall think, feel, or desire: he must do all three: but man can and must choose whether he shall pursue truth, honour, or profit. No direct comparison, therefore, is possible between these two classifications. (Stocks 1915: 216)

Profound. Plato's triad in the Republic naturally concerns the interests of life. The psychological triad on the other hand characterise mental activities, which is here garbed in the outdated term "psychosis" (the parallel with "semiosis" is obvious).

The modern looks inside himself and finds on every occasion three elements forming a complex whole which he calls a psychosis; the ancient looked at man's conduct and observed in it three tendencies, he looked at life and saw in it three necessary functions, and since life and conduct are manifestations of soul, he was bound to attribute the triplicity to soul. The difference is typical of the difference between the Greek and the modern view of soul. We are apt to think of soul as a thing we shall see if we turn our gaze inward, while the Greeks thought of it as the sum of those functions which are observed to differentiate living from lifeless matter. Hence we moderns, being ourselves men, think that only men have souls, while the Greeks had to credit plants with them. They did not mean that plants were capable of the inward gaze, but simply that plants were alive. A candid comparison of these two ways of regarding soul can hardly fail to result in the admission that the advantage lies wholly with the Greeks. (Stocks 1915: 217)

I cannot help speculating that this change of focus was brought on by the Christian era, specifically St. Augustine. The modern looks for his soul through introspection, regarding it as something ephemeral and separate from the body, whereas the ancient Greek view - as put forth here, at least - is that soul is almost coterminous with life. The difference can perhaps be summarized as that between having a soul and being one.

In the preceding argument I have tried to show in detail that the diversity characterising Plato's tripartite soul is a diversity of function. As much is implied in the names by which Plato usually describes his triad. He calls them, as is well known, 'forms' (εΐδη), 'kinds' (γένη), 'characters' (ἦθη), 'modes' (τρόποι), even 'souls' (φυχαί), and only occasionally 'parts' (μέρη, μόρια). The division is what is known as logical division, the division of a genus into species. 'Souls' means kinds of souls, and parts of soul means precisely the same thing. (Stocks 1915: 218)

There was a similar diversity of labels amongst psychologists contemporary to Stocks (e.g. McDougall and Shand).

When, for instance, in the first book of the Republic, Socrates proves the superiority of the just man to the unjust under the three heads of wisdom, strength, and happiness, consciously or unconsciously he is guided by the three forms and applying in succession the tests of attainment recognised by each. In another passage of the same book the reference is more definite. Socrates says that it is difficult to persuade the best men to rule: for a high salary will not tempt them and they are not ambitious. The love of honour and the love of money are mentioned: only the love of wisdom in omitted. But the paradox of the rule of philosophy is implied as plainly as can be - and this in Book I., which is often thought to be some years earlier than the rest of the Republic and to belong to the 'Socratic' period. Similarly Aristotle's Ethics begins with a reference to the three lives: the vulgar seek pleasure, sometimes perverted into money, the politician seeks honour, and finally there are the spectators, who live the life of contemplation. (Stocks 1915: 219)

I've noticed something of this sort in others. When I recognize that a certain thinker has succumbed to this kind of "triadomania", it is best to read every opposition between two terms as including an unmentioned third, whatever it may be on that occasion. Immanuel Kant (1855) and Friedrich Schiller (1845), for example, were fun to read with this problem in mind.

It is not necessary here to search the records of Greek philosophy for further detailed evidence of the profound and continued influence of the doctrine; but we may remark in conclusion that all probabilities favour the truth of the traditino of its Pythagorean origin. The pure Ionic tradition [|] from Thales to Democritus knows nothing of the three lives, and it is probable that no Greek thinker prior to Socrates called himself a φιλόσοφος outside the Pythagorean School. (Stocks 1915: 219-220)

That seems to be the case. This paper was extremely informative. Too bad it said so little about Pythagoreanism.

The doctrine of the three forms is quite compatible with everything else that we know of the Pythagorean school. We know that they preached a doctrine of purification which was a kind of heretical Orphicism, and the burden of their heresy can hardly have been anything else but that 'the purgative is philosophy' as the Socrates of the Phædo teaches. And that doctrine as expounded by Socrates, who pretends to no originality, involves the three forms. (Stocks 1915: 220)

I have an incling that this view of philosophy, in other words that wisdom is the road to liberation, has something important to do with Plato's "philosopher-king". What, exactly, I hope to find out soon enough.

Veljan, Darko 2000. The 2500-Year-Old Pythagorean Theorem. Mathematics Magazine 73(4): 259-272. [JSTOR / DOI: 10.2307/2690973]

When you see a paper with "Pythagorean theorem" in its title, you might say "I know this stuff" and skip it. But I think it's still worthwhile thinking about the "good old Pythagorean theorem," to which this paper is devoted. (Veljan 2000: 259)

Also because there are reportedly thousands of ways to prove the same thing. "About 400 different proofs of the Pythagorean theorem are known today" (ibid, 262).

Pythagoras was born about 570 B.C. on the island of Samos and died about 490 B.C. Many other well-known philosophers lived and worked around the same time, but in other civilizations. Let us mention only Gautama Buddha in eastern Asia, Confucius (or Kung Fu-tse) in China, Zoroaster (or Zarathustra) in Persia, and the prophet Isaac (or Iitzak) in Judea. Was this simultaneous flowering of philosophy a mere accident? (Veljan 2000: 259)

Zarathustra's dating is dubious. Isaac not even dated on Wikipedia. Not named in these lists but approximately at the same time there was Charvaka (or Lokāyata) school of philosophy in India but we know it only through critical fragments that opposed it.

Pythagoras was well educated, learning to play the lyre and to recite Homer. Most important among his teachers was Thales of Miletus (ca. 624-548 B.C.), who introduced Pythagoras to mathematical ideas and to astronomy, and sent him to Egypt to learn more of these subjects. (Veljan 2000: 259)

Not sure about this until I see who wrote it down.

Among the beliefs of Pythagoras were these: (1) reality is fundamentally mathematical; (2) philosophy can lead to spiritual purification; (3) the soul can rise to union with the divine; (4) certain symbols have mystical significance; and (5) all members of the order should observe strict loyalty and secrecy. (Veljan 2000: 259)

Actually a good breakdown. "Reality is fundamentally mathematical" perhaps the best one - at some point I may have to compile a list of such statements and compare them (e.g. "all is number", etc.). That symbols have mystical significance and secrecy must be kept not so much beliefs as practices ("certain symbols" also doesn't adequately convey the point of the symbola, which are better compared to the parables of Jesus).

Pythagoras believed that all of nature and its order could be reduced to numerical relations. He studied properties of even, odd, triangular, and perfect numbers, and he assigned to each number its own "personality." Numbers might be masculine or feminine, perfect or incomplete, beautiful or ugly, etc. Ten was regarded as perfect: it contained the first four integers (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10) and when written in dot notation formed a perfect triangle. (Veljan 2000: 259)

Another variation upon "all is number". Not sure if any number could have gender or just 2 and 3. From what I've seen elsewhere, the justification of 10 being perfect also includes the fact that people tend to count to ten (probably on their fingers) and then start again from one.

One well-known story (perhaps mythical) holds that Egyptian peasants used a rope with evenly spaced knots to form a 3-4-5 right triangle, which they used to re-measure their agricultural plots flooded each year by the river Nile. Thus, the Pythagorean theorem was an early example of an important fact rediscovered independently and often. But Pythagoras first formulated it in general. (Veljan 2000: 260)

This story may be well-known but it is new to me. The rest of the paper illustrates various uses of the Pythagorean theorem and all of them are beyond me. I'm soul searching, not looking for quick maffs.

Solmsen, Friedrich 1983. Plato and the Concept of the Soul (Psyche): Some Historical Perspectives. Journal of the History of Ideas 44(3): 355-367. [JSTOR / DOI: 10.2307/2709171s]

More than sixty years ago John Burnet, in a Lecture to the British Academy, argued that the necessity to take care of one's psyche constituted the essence of Socrates' teaching. Utterly familiar as the need of caring for the soul was to become in the adminitions of Hellenistic philosophers and the Christian teachers, in the late fifth century B.C. the idea must have been something new and astonishing; Burnet even describes it as "shocking." His thesis has been widely accepted, and not a few scholars may be attracted by his suggestion that the supreme value attached to the soul resulted from a synthesis of the previously distinct religious and secular traditions about psyche. (Solmsen 1983: 355)

Now consider how materialist "self-care" has become in modern discourse. It now amounts to taking a break or a bath.

In all these instances psyche is considered a very sensitive and delicate organ. What it records is experiences of a distinctly private and personal kind in which it itself is passive; its emotions are "sufferings" (pathe). (Solmsen 1983: 356)

This may be a very superficial interpretation, but perhaps Malinowski meant his phatic communion as "insufferable" conversation?

While the full story of psyche's emergence in late fifth-century Greek tragedy must be left to a philological study, here we merely add as significant the new habit of characterizing a man's or woman's personality by referring to them as e.g., a "mighty psyche," a "strong-minded psyche," a "sweet psyche," a "harsh psyche" or (a [|] dubious compliment for Odysseus) a "wicked psyche always peering around corners," and by other combinations of psyche with a qualifying word or phrase. (Solmsen 1983: 356-357)

Visa Hing (Die Hard).

The ethics of the Phaedo is wholly individualistic, centered on a person's spiritual welfare. What we read about the philosopher's endeavor does not lead us to visualize him in a political role. Considering how completely this corresponds to what we have larned about the distinctly personal and private character of psyche it strikes us as nothing less than paradoxical that in the Republic Plato founds the ideal city on his conception of psyche. Earlier dialogues have shown us the philosopher averse to political activity and have described such activity as endangering the integrity of his psyche. (Solmsen 1983: 360)

This is the shift of emphasis that can be explained by Plato's travels to Italy, buying three manuscripts from Philolaus, and beginning to "Pythagorize".

For it is actually in getting ready for the uncongenial political task that the psyche fort he first time receives a structure and is equipped with organs and capacities some of which it was to retain long after the tie with the polis had been dissolved. What Plato knows about the inside of the psyche is far more than its three "parts," the rational, the spiritual, and the appetitive. (Solmsen 1983: 361)

If this says that the three parts of the soul gained a stability only in Republic then it is patently false. This may be the impression if you only consider some odes and Plato's oeuvre, only pay some little lip-service to Pythagoras and are completely unaware of the Zoroastrian connection.

Even if intellectual functions of the psyche had been more widely recognized than we discerned, it was an innovation of the greatest consequence that Plato [|] made Mind (nous) a part of the psyche. Thanks to the presence and ruling position of Mind the psyche is no longer passive and subject to the play of the emotions. Mind enables it to rise above the subjective-personal level and to orient itself by objective, universally valid realities. It is to these realities that the philosopher-rulers look when they maintain the city in the right order, and no more than the city can psyche itself possess order (taxis and kosmos) without mind. (Solmsen 1983: 361-362)

"The Boo, or principle of intelligence" (Fraser 1834: 115) was one part of the human soul already in the philosophy of Zoroaster, if this old source is to be trusted. In a modern source this is given as "consciousness (bōy)" (Skjærvø 2012: 93). According to this source it was a particular effort to systematize Iranian thinking on the mind.

In the Laws assurance is furnished that the individual soul will receive its deverved place in the course of reincarnations that are dispensed by an all-embracing Providence (903d-905c). About the relation between the individual soul and the great cosmic psyche the Timaeus is more enlightening. Three doctrines stand out: the human soul and the cosmic soul are homogeneous, being made of the same non-material soul-stuff (41d ff.); the human soul, or at least its immortal part, is meant to return to its original abode in the heavenly area (42b, 90a), and our task in life is to bring the operations of soul's best part, mind, into conformity with those of the cosmic model, assimilating our intelligence to the perfection grasped by it and turning the disorder within ourselves into order (47b, f., 90 f.). (Solmsen 1983: 365)

Metempsychosis, world-soul, and the highest role of Reason, to reach for the laws of nature.

"Care for the soul" and "cure of the soul" - epimeleia psyches and therapeia psyches - are the message we hear alike from Epicureans (beginning [|] with the master himself), Stoics, Neopythagorean and Cynics. It informs Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, Horace's poetic and Seneca's prose epistles, and is the theme of Epictetus' and many other popular preachers' admonitions; yet we find it also in some treatises of Plutarch and ni Galen's On the passions of the soul. (Solmsen 1983: 366-367)

Galen can be found here, though from context online I assume it is way ahead of what I'm interested in and too involved with what I'm not interested in (Stoics and Epicureans).

0 comments | Labels: , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)