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Brief Lives

Pythagoras (570-495 BCE)

Daniel Toré looks beyond the mathematician to the philosopher.

“Isn’t he the guy that invented triangles?” – Student of mine, 2023

Pythagoras of Samos is, without dispute, one of the towering figures of ancient philosophy. Any first-time reader of classical philosophy will inevitably be welcomed by the Big Three: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and before leaving, they may give a polite glance at the Presocratics, before never looking back. However, in that over-the-shoulder moment, they will see some of the most intriguing and unique thinkers philosophy has to offer: Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and amongst their number, the only deer in the herd with horns: Pythagoras. Considered more than merely human by some of his followers, Plato described him as ‘a semi-divine master’. Or to quote Anthony Kenny, he is “honoured in antiquity as the first to bring philosophy to the Greek world…” (An Illustrated Brief History of Western Philosophy, 1998, p.

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