Philolaus Quotes on Knowledge
Philolaus of Croton was a Greek Pythagorean philosopher and the first member of the Pythagorean school whose writings survived into the classical period. This page collects quotes attributed to Philolaus on the topic of knowledge, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to Philolaus:
“All things which can be known have number; for it is not possible that without number anything can be either conceived or known.”
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Attributed to Philolaus:
“Without number, nothing could be distinguished or thought.”
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“Quoted by Aristotle , Metaphysics (ca. 350 BC) Tr. Thomas Taylor , The Philosophical and Mathematical Commentaries of Proclus on the First Book of Euclid's Elements (1792) Vol. 1 , p. xix.”
[Number is] the commanding and self-begotten container of the eternal duration of mundane concerns. -
“Quoted by Clemens Alexandrinus , Stromata , Book III (ca. 190 AD) Tr. Thomas Taylor , The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries: A Dissertation (1891)”
The ancient theologists and priests... testify that the soul is united with the body as if for the sake of punishment; and so is buried in body as in a sepulchre. -
“Quoted by Johannes Stobaeus , Eclogues (5th-century CE) Phys. p. 51, Tr. Thomas Taylor , The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus (1824) p.156.”
There is a fire in the middle at the centre, which is the Vesta of the universe, the house of Jupiter , the mother of the Gods, and the basis coherence and measure of nature. -
“Fragment 2. All things, at least those we know, contain number ; for it is evident that nothing whatever can either be thought or known, without number. Number has two distinct kinds: the odd, and the even, and a third, derived from a mingling of the other two kinds, the even-odd. Each of its subspecies is susceptible of many very numerous varieties; which each manifests individually.”
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“Fragment 3. The harmony is generally the result of contraries; for it is the unity of multiplicity, and the agreement of discordances . (Nicom.Arith.2:509).”
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