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    Alcmaeon was not a Pythagorean — Carmelics
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    Alcmaeon was not a Pythagorean

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    1 reason against

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Alcmaeon's book opens with an epistemological distinction between divine certainty and human inference, reflecting Xenophanes rather than Pythagorean doctrine.
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    • 2.Pythagorean philosophy centers on number as the arche of all things, yet Alcmaeon never invokes number as an explanatory principle in any surviving fragment.
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    • 3.The Pythagorean community had identifiable membership criteria and practices; Alcmaeon's work shows none of the numerical mysticism or communal doctrines associated with it.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Diogenes Laertius's late attribution of Alcmaeon to Pythagorean lineage reflects a well-documented ancient tendency to absorb independent Presocratic thinkers into famous schools.
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    • 2.The single textual basis for the Pythagorean claim—a shared interest in opposites—constitutes a superficial parallel, since opposites were a widespread explanatory framework across early Greek thought.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Aristotle wrote a separate book on Alcmaeon distinct from his two books on the Pythagoreans
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    • 2.Aristotle and Theophrastus refer to Alcmaeon multiple times but never identify him as a Pythagorean
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    • 3.Aristotle's comparison of Alcmaeon to the Pythagoreans in Metaphysics I only makes sense if Alcmaeon was not himself a Pythagorean
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    Topics

    Truth & KnowledgeAll sources support it

    Connections

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    Philosophy of Language2 linkedSkepticism2 linked

    Related

    Alcmaeon's book opens with an epistemological distinction between divine certain...Aristotle and Theophrastus refer to Alcmaeon multiple times but never identify h...Aristotle wrote a separate book on Alcmaeon distinct from his two books on the P...Aristotle's comparison of Alcmaeon to the Pythagoreans in Metaphysics I only mak...
    +7 moreShow less
    Diogenes Laertius's late attribution of Alcmaeon to Pythagorean lineage reflects...Most of the opposites crucial to Alcmaeon do not appear in the Pythagorean table...No ancient source earlier than Diogenes Laertius (ca. 200 AD) calls Alcmaeon a P...

    Similar

    In a Prisoner's Dilemma, (C,C) is not a Nash Equilibrium.87%You cannot know that you are not a BIV.85%Epicharmus should not be classified as a Pythagorean85%Simplicius notes that Aristotle explicitly denies Alcmaeon is a Pythag...82%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: alcmaeon
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    Diogenes Laertius, in his Lives of the Philosophers (3rd century AD), includes Alcmaeon among the Pythagoreans and says that he studied with Pythagoras (VIII. 83). Later authors such as Iamblichus (VP 104, 267), Philoponus (De An. p. 88), and the scholiast on Plato (Alc. 121e) also call Alcmaeon a Pythagorean. A majority of scholars up to the middle of the twentieth century followed this tradition. However, it is not true that the ancient “tradition is unanimous in presenting him as a Pythagorea
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Pythagorean philosophy centers on number as the arche of all things, yet Alcmaeo...
    The Pythagorean community had identifiable membership criteria and practices; Al...
    The single textual basis for the Pythagorean claim—a shared interest in opposite...
    There is no trace of the crucial Pythagorean opposition between limit and unlimi...
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit