AIP 347 Music, Mathematics, and Mysticism: The Pythagorean and Platonic Tradition (EP, NP)
Pythagoras believed that reality was mathematical, and he was also the head of a mystical cult that held secret rites and believed in reincarnation. He also claimed that the heavenly bodies made music as they moved in their orbits. In the Middle Ages, a number of both Christian and Jewish theologians were committed to numerology in a Neopythagorean form. Further, the great early modern astronomer Kepler, for example, was a committed Pythagorean. Copernicus saw the Pythagoreans as his precursor in positing the heliocentric model of the solar system. In addition, there are distinctive Pythagorean elements in Plato’s work. The creation myth in the Timeaus is decidedly Pythagorean, and Socrates’s discussion of reincarnation in the Phaedo likewise has an unmistakable Pythagorean coloring. This course will examine the various doctrines attributed to Pythagoras, the Pythagorean aspects of Plato’s writing, and the supposed fulfillment of Pythagoreanism in early modern science. We will examine issues such as the transmigration of the soul, virtue and the good life, the mathematical foundations of nature, God as geometer, the nature of mathematical objects, and the mathematical nature of music.
Prerequisite
One previous PHIL course