Eurytus as a Disciple of Philolaus

Abstract

In this article we analyse the teaching of one of the last Early Pythagoreans, Eurytus of Tarentum – which is known to us through his performance of «defining» a thing with the number of pebbles needed to draw its silhouette — by comparing it with the philosophy of his teacher, Philolaus of Croton. We strive to find signs of Philolaus' ideas in Eurytus' practice. Our quest focuses on Philolaus' teaching on first principles, harmony, generation of cosmos, knowability, number and musical intervals. Our principal goal is a separation of these fifth-century concepts from misrepresentations which arose due to intense practice of retelling and reinterpretation of Early Pythagorean thought during the following centuries; specifically, we emphasise the impossibility of an abstract notion of number in Early Pythagoreanism. We conclude that the structure of Eurytus' demonstrations correctly expresses all fundamental aspects of Philolaus' philosophy and thus gives us a trustworthy representation of genuine Early Pythagorean thought.