Pythagoras of Samos
570-495 BC · Early Greek Thought · Prominent
Pythagoras was a semi-legendary sage of sixth-century BC Samos, and little about the man is certain. Pluck a string, then halve it, and the same note sounds higher. He took ratios like that as proof that number is what reality is made from, and that harmony runs through the cosmos. His followers at Croton lived by rules, held that souls pass from body to body, and treated philosophy as a way of life.
Signature
The position Pythagoras is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Beauty
- leans Objective
- Death
- Reincarnation
Positions on the 13 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Collectivism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- Beauty
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Universals
- leans Realism (12 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- leans Unchanging (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (25 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Unity (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Conviction
- leans Certain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
7 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Pythagoras refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Panentheism / Polytheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Epistocracy / Clerical Theocracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Wisdom / Knowledge
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Cosmic Dualism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Eternal Return
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Knowledge
- Pure Reason
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Time
- Cyclical Return
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Language
- Logos
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Death
- Reincarnation
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Innate Good
What is human nature?