Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism

by Walter Burkert, Edwin L. Minar Jr. (Translator)

For the first English edition of his distinguished study, Weisheit und Wissenschaft: Studien zu Pythagoras, Philoloas und Platon, Mr. Burkert has extensively revised both text and notes, taking into account additional literature that has appeared since 1962.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Nonfiction, Religion

535 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Walter Burkert was a German scholar of Greek mythology and cult. Professor Emeritus of Classics, University of Zurich, Switzerland, he taught in the UK and the US.

Reviews

[Dr. George H. Elder · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books you must read to have any understanding of the evolution of mathmatical thought in the era between roughly 500 BCE through about 400 AD. Of course, we begin with Pythagoras, but the real problem is that the first generation of Pythagoreans seldon committed much of their work to writing, much prefering to pass down knowledge by word-of-mouth--the agrapha Dogmata. However, Plato and many many other inculcated many of the Pathorean ideas into their works, so the material was not lost. In later generations, the Pythagoreans changed markedly in their religious orientations and metaphysical orientation, although they never strayed far from the realm of numbers and geometry. Some of there ideas went well beyound the ideas of Pythagorus himself, so the developments cannot be regarded as linear. Burkert does a resonable job in detailing these shifts and developments as they evolved, and this dynamism is no easy task to track. Indeed, it is the effort to apply a historical context to the changes in Pythagorean thought that is this book's strength. In many ways, this is a text for people who like historical metaphysics, and it is reasonably accessible to a lay audience.

[Ricardo Vega · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most influential books I have ever read. It reopened the world of Greeks mathematics to me, as well the pre-socratic philosophy, in such a profound way, that I have never been able to stop researching what seems to be an inexhaustible source of intellectual challenge, as the foundation of western thought.