{"id":112461,"date":"2018-06-11T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=112461"},"modified":"2018-06-04T10:48:31","modified_gmt":"2018-06-04T09:48:31","slug":"pythagoras-on-the-purpose-of-life-and-the-meaning-of-wisdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/06\/pythagoras-on-the-purpose-of-life-and-the-meaning-of-wisdom\/","title":{"rendered":"Pythagoras on the Purpose of Life and the Meaning of Wisdom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abiding insight into the aim of human existence from the man who revolutionized science and coined the word \u201cphilosopher.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Greek polymath Pythagoras<\/strong> (c. 570\u2013c. 495 BC) ignited the golden age of mathematics with the development of numerical logic and the discovery of his namesake theorem of geometry, which furnished the world\u2019s first foothold toward the notion of scientific proof and has been etched into the mind of every schoolchild in the millennia since. His ideas went on to influence Plato,\u00a0Copernicus,\u00a0Descartes, Kepler, Newton, and Einstein, and the school he founded made the then-radical decision to welcome women as members, one of whom was Hypatia of Alexandria<\/a> \u2014 the world\u2019s first known woman astronomer.<\/p>\n

Alongside his revolutionary science, Pythagoras coined the word philosopher<\/em> to describe himself as a \u201clover of wisdom\u201d \u2014 a love the subject of which he encapsulated in a short, insightful meditation on the uses of philosophy in human life. According to the anecdote, recounted by Cicero four centuries later, Pythagoras attended the Olympic Games of 518 BC with Prince Leon, the esteemed ruler of Phlius. The Prince, impressed with his guest\u2019s wide and cross-disciplinary range of knowledge, asked Pythagoras why he lived as a \u201cphilosopher\u201d rather than an expert in any one of the classical arts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Pythagoras
Art by J. Augustus Knapp, circa 1926<\/p><\/div>\n

Pythagoras, quoted in Simon Singh\u2019s altogether fascinating Fermat\u2019s Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World\u2019s Greatest Mathematical Problem<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (public library<\/em><\/a>), replies:<\/p>\n

Life\u2026 may well be compared with these public Games for in the vast crowd assembled here some are attracted by the acquisition of gain, others are led on by the hopes and ambitions of fame and glory. But among them there are a few who have come to observe and to understand all that passes here. <\/em><\/p>\n

It is the same with life. Some are influenced by the love of wealth while others are blindly led on by the mad fever for power and domination, but the finest type of man gives himself up to discovering the meaning and purpose of life itself. He seeks to uncover the secrets of nature. This is the man I call a philosopher for although no man is completely wise in all respects, he can love wisdom as the key to nature\u2019s secrets.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Complement with Alain de Botton on how philosophy undoes our unwisdom<\/a>, then revisit other abiding mediations on the meaning and purpose of life from Epictetus<\/a>, Toni Morrison<\/a>, Walt Whitman<\/a>, Richard Feynman<\/a>, Rosa Parks<\/a>, Fyodor Dostoyevsky<\/a>, and Martha Nussbaum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

_________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Brain Pickings<\/em> is the brain child of Maria Popova, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large obsessed with combinatorial creativity who also writes for <\/em>Wired<\/em> UK and <\/em>The Atlantic<\/em>, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow. She has gotten occasional help from a handful of guest contributors<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 brainpickings.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abiding insight into the aim of human existence from the man who revolutionized science and coined the word \u201cphilosopher.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":112463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspirational"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}