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Philolaus (circa 480 BC - circa 405 BC), was a Greek mathematician and philosopher.
A classic philologist August Boeckh (1785-1867) places his life between the 70th and 95th Olympiads (496 BC-396 BC). Philolaus was a contemporary of Socrates
and Democritus, but senior to them, and was probably somewhat junior to
Empedocles, and a contemporary of Zeno of Elea, Melissus and Thucydides, so that his birth may be placed at about 480 BC.
Philolaus was probably born in Croton (after a Greek historian Diogenes Laėrtius) or in Tarentum or Heraclea. He lived around 475 BC and he was in Croton during the persecution of the Pythagoreans.
He was said to have been intimate with Democritus, and was probably one of his teachers. He was an immediate pupil and
transcriber of Pythagoras and after the death of his teacher great dissentions
prevailed in the cities of lower Italy. According to some accounts, Philolaus, obliged to
flee, took refuge first in Lucania and then
at Thebes, where he had as pupils Simmias and Cebes (Crito), who subsequently, being still young men, were present at the death of Socrates in 399 BC. Before this Philolaus had returned to Italy, where he was the teacher of Archytas (428 BC - 347
BC). Philolaus was perhaps also connected with the Pythagorean exiles at Phlius mentioned in Plato's Phaedo.
Philolaus spoke and wrote in a Greek Doric dialect and was the first
to propound the doctrine of the motion of the Earth; some attribute this doctrine to
Pythagoras, but there is no evidence in support of their view and also to younger Hicetas (circa 400 BC - circa 335 BC) of Syracuse. Philolaus supposed that the sphere of the fixed stars, the five
planets, the Sun, Moon and Earth, all moved round the central fire, but as these made up only nine revolving bodies he conceived, in
accordance with his number theory, a tenth, which he called
counter-earth. The central holy fire was not the Sun for him, but some mysterious thing between the Earth and counter-earth. He
named it "estia", the hearth of the universe, the house of Zeus, and the mother of the gods, after the goddess of fire and hearth Hestia. He kept an idea of the Earth's rotation around its axis. Probably he misunderstood his teacher, because he entangled the idea and he introduced a certain "primordial
Earth", the "antichthon", for these numerological reasons, which together with
the Earth and the Sun revolves around the central fire. The Earth and the Sun lie in this
occasion always opposite to each other. His idea was restored and resumed around 345 BC
by Heraclides of Heraclea (circa 388 BC-310 BC). This mysterious counter-earth was never seen,
because its positions in view to the Earth was the same as mutual position of the Earth and the Sun as at two spheres, which are
connected with a rope. In his deliberations Philolaus used a lot of his imagination and he did't explain what he might be able to
do in another way. His further advanced idea about the Earth's rotation around its axis was important and it influenced on
Aristarchus. The Earth has several kind of movements and it belongs to the
planets. Such a solar system
theory quite well explained the movement of the Sun and different lengths of days through the
year. It is not known how accurate it was.
According to Nicolaus Copernicus Philolaus already knew
about the Earth's revolution in a circular orbit around the Sun.
He supposed the Sun to be a disk of glass which reflects the light of the universe. He
made the lunar month consist of 29 1/2 days, the lunar year of 354, and the solar year of 365 1/2 days.
He was the first who published a book on the Pythagorean doctrines, a treatise of which Plato made use in the composition of
his Timaeus.
Philolaus represented the philosophical system of his school in a work Peri fyseos (About the nature).
Speusipus, the Plato's successor at the Academy summarized Philolaus's work.
Philolaus entered deeply into the distinctively Pythagorean number theory, particularly dwelling on the properties inherent in
the decad - the sum of the first four numbers, consequently the fourth triangular number, the tetractys - which he called great,
all-powerful, and all-producing. The great Pythagorean oath was taken by the sacred tetractys. The discovery of the regular solids is attributed to
Pythagoras by Eudemus, and Empedocles is
stated to have been the first who maintained that there are four classical elements. Philolaus, connecting these ideas, held that the elementary nature of bodies depends
on their form, and assigned the tetrahedron to fire, the octahedron to air, the icosahedron to water, and the cube to earth; the dodecahedron he assigned to a fifth element,
aether, or, as some think, to the universe. This theory, however superficial from the standpoint of observation, indicates considerable knowledge of
geometry and gave a great impulse to the study of the science. Following Parmenides, Philolaus regarded the soul
as a "mixture and harmony" of the bodily parts; he also assumed a substantial soul, whose existence in the body is an exile on
account of sin.
Partly adapted from the 1911
Encyclopedia Britannica.
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