THE ORDER OF PYTHAGORAS

The condition on which this entry receives the postable status, and, in fact, the reason why it does, is not to be treated as a separate entry, but only in conjunction with the next two entries, which it introduces. I feel a bit awkward about abandoning a third entry for Xenophilus, but it would be disingenuous for me to create a glaringly artificial and inflated entry just in order to fill the blank at all costs. It goes without saying that in the event of finding some interesting things about the man (apart from his wonderfully meaningful name) I shall be most happy to add Xenophilus to my Personalia Personalissima, and this section will thus receive an always welcome addition.

(Talking about the Pythagoreans, I could not resist the temptation in making up the title to throw in a fleeting allusion to my favorite modern genius J. K. Rowling’s Order of the Phoenix. It should not be surprising to the reader that I have placed this entry after the two Alcmaeonic ones. Alcmaeon may have been a contemporary and a direct pupil of the great Pythagoras, but he cannot be called a Pythagorean per se, having charted his own course through the waters of Western philosophy.)

My next two choices of pre-Socratic philosophers are highly unusual: they are little known, if known at all, and egregiously out of chronological sequence. The reason for such impropriety is that both of them belong to the same Pythagorean tradition, and, having been discussing Pythagoras and his disciples, it is only natural from this perspective to wrap up this discussion with his two most outstanding spiritual followers.

They are Philolaus and Archytas. A third one, Xenophilus, is also known as a Pythagorean philosopher and, aptly, a musician, and we have even mentioned him earlier in Anti-Daedalus, but so little is retrievable about him among my sources that I am definitely not creating a separate entry for him, and it is thus only here that I am giving him an honorable mention.

As for all other Pythagoreans (and there are fairly many of them known as such), none of them is apparently rising to the prominence of these three, and in case my readers wish to know their names, and the precious little of everything else, I’ll direct them to the encyclopedic and internet sources, under the general keyword Pythagoreans.