Sem. Ysmael R. Gonzales IV-Year A.

B Philosophy

Rev. Ricky Joe M. Noble

Professor

Reflection: Mathematical Things of the world

In Ancient times Pythagoreans especially in the person of Pythagoras is very much popular because of the Pythagorean Theorem and the mathematical things in the world. As Pythagoreans devoted themselves to mathematics; they were the first to advance the study and having been brought up in it they thought its principles were the principles of all things. According to Pythagoras all things are numbers or resembles numbers this concept means all things in this world have their numbers. Just like for example earth is only one, ears of a human being have one pair, and fingers on the left and right hand are 10. For them even musical scale were expressible in numbers, elements of the numbers are elements of all things and the whole heaven to be a musical scale. Mathematics is very important to the Pythagoreans because for them numbers retained a mystical significance as the key to the divine cosmos. But for me it is less important because it is already common to all and seems there is nothing new in it to learn because it is understood the moment human being see things and counts it. If all things are numbers even the letters in the book can be considered as numbers and man cannot understand the message of the book that has to convey to the readers. They said that the principles of numbers are more than the fire, earth, and water because even justice is a square number. But Aristotle in his Metaphysics contradicts Pythagoras saying that his study is inappropriate because he says that justice is a square number and not a virtue. As I reflect I can say that number are definite like 1,2,3,4,5. Even though it changes still it remains as a number. Definite means easy to identify or identifiable meaning to say all things are identifiable because we can easily say and identify if how many are the things exist based on what we see. Numbers seem to be the first thing in the whole of nature aside from color, shape, and quality. In this doctrine all the properties of numbers and scales which they could show agree with the attributes and parts and the whole arrangement of heaven. They show relationship of numbers and scales can also be attributed to heaven. Maybe for them even in heaven there are numbers. Pythagoras compared the perfection of heaven to numbers it is stated that the number 10 is thought to be perfect and to comprise the whole nature of numbers. Bodies which move through the heavens are ten, but as the visible bodies are only nine, to meet this they invent a tent counter earth. For them the movement of the bodies produces harmony that every time a star moves it creates sound for they believed that numbers are connected music.

They think all things are number because even sounds they recognized as beautiful inherent, objective has mathematical order. Like 1to 4- 1:2 Octave; 3:2 fifth; 4:2 fourth.