PYTHAGORAS

PYTHAGORAS

 (b.  c. 580, Samos, Ionia [now in Greece]—d.  c. 500  BCE ,

Metapontum, Lucania [now in Italy])

Pythagoras was a Greek philosopher and mathematician. Born in what is modern-day Greece, Pythagoras migrated to southern Italy about 532  BCE , apparently in an effort to escape the merchant and territorial ruler Samos’s tyrannical ways. After he arrived in southern Italy, Pythagoras proceeded to establish his ethical and political academy at Croton (now Crotone, Italy). At this academy, he founded the Pythagorean brotherhood, which, although religious in nature, formulated principles that influenced the thought of Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle. In addition, it contributed to the development of mathematics and Western rational philosophy. Pythagoreans followed a very structured way of life. They believed that the human soul resided in a new human or animal body after a person died.

It is diffi cult to distinguish Pythagoras’s teachings from those of his disciples.

None of his writings have survived, and Pythagoreans invariably supported their doctrines by indiscriminately citing their master’s authority. Pythagoras, however, is generally credited with the theory of the functional signifi cance of  numbers in the objective world and in music. Other discoveries often attributed to him (e.g., the incommensurability of the side and diagonal of a square, and the Pythagorean theorem for right triangles) were probably developed only later by the Pythagorean school. More probably the bulk of the intellectual tradition originating with Pythagoras himself belongs to mystical wisdom rather than to scientifi c

scholarship.

Pythagoras demonstrating his Pythagorean theorem in the sand using a stick. © Photos.com/Jupiterimages

ARISTOTLE

(b. 384 BCE, Stagira, Chalcidice, Greece—d. 322 BCE, Chalcis, Euboea)

Aristotle (Greek: Aristoteles) was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, and one of the greatest intellectual figures of Western history. He was the author of a philosophical and scientific system that became the framework and vehicle for both Christian Scholasticism and medieval Islamic philosophy. Aristotle’s intellectual range was vast, covering most of the sciences and many of the arts, including biology, botany, chemistry, ethics, history, logic, metaphysics, rhetoric, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, physics, poetics, political theory, psychology, and zoology. He was the founder of formal logic, devising for it a finished system that for centuries was regarded as the sum of the discipline. Aristotle also pioneered the study of zoology, both observational and theoretical, in which some of his work remained unsurpassed until the 19th century. His writings in metaphysics

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This statue of Aristotle, the Greek philosopher who taught Alexander the

Great, stands in the Palazzo Spada in Rome. Popperfoto/Getty Images

and the philosophy of science continue to be studied, and his work remains a powerful current in contemporary philosophical debate.

Physics and Metaphysics

Aristotle divided the theoretical sciences into three groups: physics, mathematics, and theology. Physics as he understood it was equivalent to what would now be called “natural philosophy,” or the study of nature; in this sense it encompasses not only the modern field of physics but also biology, chemistry, geology, psychology, and even meteorology. Metaphysics, however, is notably absent from Aristotle’s classification; indeed, he never uses the word, which first appears in the posthumous catalog of his writings as a name for the works listed after the Physics. He does, however, recognize the branch of philosophy now called metaphysics. He calls it “first philosophy” and defines it as the discipline that studies “being as being.”

Aristotle’s contributions to the physical sciences are less impressive than his researches in the life sciences. In works such as On Generation and Corruption and On the Heavens, he presented a world-picture that included many features inherited from his pre-Socratic predecessors. From Empedocles (c. 490–430 BCE) he adopted the view that the universe is ultimately composed of different combinations of the four fundamental elements of earth, water, air, and fire. Each element is characterized by the possession of a unique pair of the four elementary qualities of heat, cold, wetness, and dryness: earth is cold and dry, water is cold and wet, air is hot and wet, and fire is hot and dry. Each element also has a natural place in an ordered cosmos, and each has an innate tendency to move toward this natural place. Thus, earthy solids naturally fall, while

fire, unless prevented, rises ever higher. Other motions of the elements are possible but are considered “violent.” (A relic of Aristotle’s distinction is preserved in the modernday contrast between natural and violent death.)

Aristotle’s vision of the cosmos also owes much to Plato’s dialogue Timaeus. As in that work, the Earth is at the centre of the universe, and around it the Moon, the Sun, and the other planets revolve in a succession of concentric crystalline spheres. The heavenly bodies are not compounds of the four terrestrial elements but are made up of a superior fifth element, or “quintessence.” In addition, the heavenly bodies have souls, or supernatural intellects, which guide them in their travels through the cosmos.

Even the best of Aristotle’s scientific work has now only a historical interest. The abiding value of treatises such as the Physics lies not in their particular scientific assertions but in their philosophical analyses of some of the concepts that pervade the physics of different eras— concepts such as place, time, causation, and determinism.

Philosophy of Science

In his Posterior Analytics, Aristotle applies the theory of the syllogism (a form of deductive reasoning) to scientific and epistemological ends (epistemology is the philosophy of the nature of knowledge). Scientific knowledge, he urges, must be built up out of demonstrations. A demonstration is a particular kind of syllogism, one whose premises can be traced back to principles that are true, necessary, universal, and immediately intuited. These first, self-evident principles are related to the conclusions of science as axioms are related to theorems: the axioms both necessitate and explain the truths that constitute a science. The most important axioms, Aristotle thought, would be those that define the proper subject matter of a science. Thus, among the axioms of geometry would be the definition of a triangle. For this reason much of the second book of the Posterior Analytics is devoted to definition.

The account of science in the Posterior Analytics is impressive, but it bears no resemblance to any of Aristotle’s own scientific works. Generations of scholars have tried in vain to find in his writings a single instance of a demonstrative syllogism. Moreover, the whole history of scientific endeavour contains no perfect instance of a demonstrative science.

Thank you so much.

HIPPOCRATES

(b. c. 460 BCE, island of Cos, Greece—d. c. 375 BCE, Larissa, Thessaly)

Hippocrates was an ancient Greek physician who lived during Greece’s Classical period and is traditionally regarded as the father of medicine. It is difficult to isolate the facts of Hippocrates’ life from the later tales told about him or to assess his medicine accurately in the face of centuries of reverence for him as the ideal physician. About 60 medical writings have survived that bear his name, most of which were not written by him. He has been revered for his ethical standards in medical practice, mainly for the Hippocratic Oath, which, it is suspected, he did not write.

Life and Works

What is known is that while Hippocrates was alive, he was admired as a physician and teacher. In the Protagoras Plato called Hippocrates “the Asclepiad of Cos,” who taught students for fees. Further, he implied that Hippocrates was as well known as a physician as Polyclitus and Phidias were as sculptors. Plato also referenced Hippocrates in the Phaedrus, in which Hippocrates is referred to as a famous Asclepiad who had a philosophical approach to medicine.

Meno, a pupil of Aristotle, specifically stated in his history of medicine the views of Hippocrates on the causation of diseases, namely, that undigested residues were produced by unsuitable diet and that these residues excreted vapours, which passed into the body generally and produced

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diseases. Aristotle said that Hippocrates was called “the Great Physician” but that he was small in stature.

Hippocrates appears to have traveled widely in Greece and Asia Minor practicing his art and teaching his pupils. He presumably taught at the medical school at Cos quite frequently. His reputation, and myths about his life and his family, began to grow in the Hellenistic period, about a century after his death. During this period, the Museum of Alexandria in Egypt collected for its library literary material from preceding periods in celebration of the past greatness of Greece. So far as it can be inferred, the medical works that remained from the Classical period (among the earliest prose writings in Greek) were assembled as a group and called the works of Hippocrates (Corpus

Hippocraticum).

The virtues of the Hippocratic writings are many, and, although they are of varying lengths and literary quality, they are all simple and direct, earnest in their desire to help, and lacking in technical jargon and elaborate argument. The works show such different views and styles that they cannot be by one person, and some were clearly written in later periods. Yet all the works of the Corpus share basic assumptions about how the body works and what disease is, providing a sense of the substance and appeal of ancient Greek medicine as practiced by Hippocrates and other physicians of his era. Prominent among these attractive works are the Epidemics, which give annual records of weather and associated diseases, along with individual case histories and records of treatment, collected from cities in northern Greece. Diagnosis and prognosis are frequent subjects.

Other treatises explain how to set fractures and treat wounds, feed and comfort patients, and take care of the body to avoid illness. Treatises called Diseases deal with serious illnesses, proceeding from the head to the feet, giving symptoms, prognoses, and treatments. There are works on diseases of women, childbirth, and pediatrics. Prescribed medications, other than foods and local salves, are generally purgatives to rid the body of the noxious substances thought to cause disease. Some works argue that medicine is indeed a science, with firm principles and methods, although explicit medical theory is very rare. The medicine depends on a mythology of how the body works and how its inner organs are connected. The myth is laboriously constructed from experience, but it must be remembered that there was neither systematic research nor dissection of human beings in Hippocrates’ time. Hence, while much of the writing seems wise and correct, there are large areas where much is unknown.

Over the next four centuries, imaginative writings, some obviously fiction, were added to the original collection of Hippocratic works and enhanced Hippocrates’ reputation, providing the basis for the traditional picture of Hippocrates as the father of medicine. Still other works were added to the Hippocratic Corpus between its first collection and its first scholarly edition around the beginning of the 2nd century CE. Among them were the Hippocratic Oath and other ethical writings that prescribe principles of behaviour for the physician.

Hippocratic Oath

The Hippocratic Oath dictates the obligations of the physician to students of medicine and the duties of pupil to teacher. In the oath, the physician pledges to prescribe only beneficial treatments, according to his abilities and judgment; to refrain from causing harm or hurt; and to live an exemplary personal and professional life. The text of the Hippocratic Oath (c. 400 BCE) provided below is a translation from Greek by Francis Adams (1849). It is

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considered a classical version and differs from contemporary versions, which are reviewed and revised frequently to fit with changes in modern medical practice.

I swear by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius, and Health, and All-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation—to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this Art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art. I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not, in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret. While I continue to keep this Oath un-violated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!

Influence

Technical medical science developed in the Hellenistic period and after. Surgery, pharmacy, and anatomy advanced; physiology became the subject of serious speculation; and philosophic criticism improved the logic of medical theories. Competing schools in medicine (first Empiricism and later Rationalism) claimed Hippocrates as the origin and inspiration of their doctrines. For later physicians, Hippocrates stood as the inspirational source, and today Hippocrates still continues to represent the humane, ethical aspects of the medical profession.

Thank you so much.

ASCLEPIUS

In the Iliad, the writer Homer mentions Asclepius only as a skillful physician and the father of two Greek doctors at Troy, Machaon and Podalirius. In later times, however, he was honoured as a hero, and eventually worshiped as a god. Asclepius (Greek: Asklepios, Latin: Aesculapius), the son of Apollo (god of healing, truth, and prophecy) and the mortal princess Coronis, became the Greco-Roman god of medicine. Legend has it that the Centaur Chiron, who was famous for his wisdom and knowledge of medicine, taught Asclepius the art of healing. At length Zeus, the king of the gods, afraid that Asclepius might render all men immortal, slew him with a thunderbolt. Apollo slew the Cyclopes who had made the thunderbolt and was then forced by Zeus to serve Admetus.

Asclepius’s cult began in Thessaly but spread to many parts of Greece. Because it was supposed that Asclepius effected cures of the sick in dreams, the practice of sleeping in his temples in Epidaurus in South Greece became common. This practice is often described as Asclepian incubation. In 293 BCE his cult spread to Rome, where he was worshiped as Aesculapius.

Asclepius was frequently represented standing, dressed in a long cloak, with bare breast; his usual attribute was a staff with a serpent coiled around it. This staff is the only true symbol of medicine. A similar but unrelated emblem, the caduceus, with its winged staff and intertwined serpents, is frequently used as a medical emblem but is without medical relevance since it represents the magic wand of Hermes, or Mercury, the messenger of the gods and the patron of trade. However, its similarity to the staff of Asclepius resulted in modern times in the adoption of the caduceus as a symbol of the physician and as the emblem of the U.S. Army Medical Corp.

The plant genus Asclepias, which contains various species of milkweed, was named for Asclepius. Many of these plants possess some degree of medicinal value.

CONFUCIUS

ConfuCius

(b. 551 BCE, Qufu, state of Lu [now in Shandong Province, China]—d.

479 BCE, Lu)

Confucius (originally named Kong Qiu) is China’s most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist, and

his ideas have influenced the civilization of East Asia and some other parts of the surrounding area.

Confucius’s life, in contrast to his tremendous importance, seems starkly undramatic, or, as a Chinese expression states, it seems “plain and real.” Confucius’s humanity was not revealed truth but an expression of self-cultivation and the ability of human effort to shape its own destiny. The faith in the possibility of ordinary human beings to become awe-inspiring sages and worthies is deeply rooted in the Confucian heritage, and the insistence that human beings are teachable, improvable, and perfectible through personal and communal endeavour is typically Confucian.

Although the facts about Confucius’s life are scanty, they do establish a precise time frame and historical context. Confucius was born in the 22nd year of the reign of Duke Xiang of Lu (551 BCE). The traditional claim that he was born on the 27th day of the eighth lunar month has been questioned by historians, but September 28 is still widely observed in East Asia as Confucius’s birthday. It is an official holiday in Taiwan, referred to as “Teacher’s Day.”

Confucius was born in Qufu in the small feudal state of Lu in what is now Shandong Province, which was noted for its preservation of the traditions of ritual and music of the Zhou civilization. His family name was Kong and his personal name was Qiu, but he is referred to as either Kongzi or Kongfuzi (Master Kong) throughout Chinese history. The adjective “Confucian,” derived from the Latinized Confucius, is not a meaningful term in Chinese— nor is the term Confucianism, which was coined in Europe as recently as the 18th century.

Confucius’s ancestors were probably members of the aristocracy who had become virtual poverty-stricken commoners by the time of his birth. His father died when Confucius was only three years old. Instructed by his mother early in life, Confucius then distinguished himself as an indefatigable learner in his teens. He recalled toward the end of his life that at age 15 his heart was set upon learning. A historical account notes that, even though he was already known as an informed young scholar, he felt it appropriate to inquire about everything while visiting the Grand Temple.

Confucius had served in minor government posts, managing stables and keeping books for granaries before he married a woman of similar background when he was 19. It is not known who Confucius’s teachers were, but he made a conscientious effort to find the right masters to teach him, among other things, ritual and music. His mastery of the six arts—ritual, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy, and arithmetic—and his familiarity with the classical traditions, notably poetry and history, allowed him to become a teacher himself in his 30s.

Confucius is known as the first teacher in China who wanted to make education broadly available and who was instrumental in establishing the art of teaching as a vocation and as a way of life. Before Confucius, aristocratic families had hired tutors to educate their sons in specific arts, and government officials had instructed their subordinates in the skills needed to perform their jobs. But Confucius was the first person to devote his whole life to learning and teaching for the purpose of transforming and improving society. He believed that all human beings could benefit from self-cultivation. He inaugurated a humanities program for potential leaders, opened the doors of education to all, and defined learning not merely as the acquisition of knowledge but also as character building.

For Confucius the primary function of education was to provide the proper way of training exemplary persons (junzi), a process that involved constant self-improvement and continuous social interaction. Although he emphatically noted that learning was “for the sake of the self,” he found public service integral to true education. Confucius confronted those who challenged his desire to serve the world. He resisted the temptation to live apart from the human community, opting instead to try to transform the world from within. For decades Confucius tried to be actively involved in politics, wishing to put his humanist ideas into practice through government channels.

In his late 40s and early 50s, Confucius served first as a magistrate, then as an assistant minister of public works, and eventually as minister of justice in the state of Lu. He likely accompanied King Lu as his chief minister on one of the diplomatic missions. Confucius’s political career was, however, short-lived. His loyalty to the king alienated him from the power holders of the time—the large Ji families—and his moral rectitude did not sit well with the king’s inner circle, who enraptured the king with sensuous delight. At 56, when he realized that his superiors were uninterested in his policies, Confucius left the country in an attempt to find another feudal state to which he could render his service. Despite his political frustration, he was accompanied by an expanding circle of students during this twelve-year exile. His reputation as a man of vision and mission spread. A guardian of a border post once described him as the “wooden tongue for a bell” of the age, sounding heaven’s prophetic note to awaken the people (Analects, 3:24). Indeed, Confucius was perceived as the heroic conscience who knew realistically that he might not succeed but, fired by a righteous passion, continuously did the best he could. At the age of 67, he returned home to teach and to preserve his cherished classical traditions by writing and editing. He died in 479 BCE, at the age of 73. According to the Records of the Historian, 72 of his students mastered the “six arts,” and those who claimed to be his followers numbered 3,000.

Thanks so much for your spending your special times to see this.

Buddha Gautama

Buddha Gotama

(fl. c. 6th–4th century BCE, Lumbini, near Kapilavastu, Śākya republic, Kosala kingdom [India]—d. Kusinārā, Malla republic,

Magdha kingdom [India])

Buddha Gotama (also called Siddhārtha) was the founder of Buddhism. The term buddha, literally meaning “awakened one” or “enlightened one,” is not a proper name but rather a title, and Buddhists traditionally believe that there will be innumerable buddhas in the future as there have been in the past and that there are other buddhas in other presently existing cosmos as well. The Buddha who belongs to the present era of the cosmos in which we are living is often referred to as Gotama. When the term the Buddha is used, it is generally assumed that it refers to the Buddha Gotama.

According to virtually all Buddhist traditions, the Buddha lived many lives before his birth as Gotama; these previous lives are described in Jātakas (birth stories), which play an important role in Buddhist art and education. Most Buddhists also affirm that the Buddha’s life was continued in his teachings and his relics. The Pāli Tipitaka, which is recognized by scholars as the earliest extant record of the Buddha’s discourses, and the later Pāli commentaries are the basis of the following account in which history and legend are inextricably intertwined.

The Buddha was born in the 6th or 5th century BCE in the kingdom of the Śākyas, on the borders of presentday Nepal and India. Gotama is said to have been born of the king and queen of the Śākyas, Suddhodna and Mahāmāyā. The Buddha’s legend, however, begins with an account of a dream that his mother, Mahāmāyā, had one night before he was born. A beautiful elephant, white as silver, entered her womb through her side. Brahmins (Vedic priests) were asked to interpret the dream, and they foretold the birth of a son who would become either a universal monarch or a buddha. The purported site of his birth, now called Rummindei, lies within the territory of Nepal. (A pillar placed there in commemoration of the event by Aśoka, a 3rd-century BCE Buddhist emperor of India, still stands.) The child was given the name Siddhattha (Siddhārtha in Sanskrit), which means

“one whose aim is accomplished.”

Gotama is said to have led a sheltered life of great luxury, which was interrupted when, on three excursions outside of the palace, he encountered an old man, an ill man, and a corpse. Each time he asked a servant to explain the phenomenon and was told that all men are subject to such conditions. Gotama then met up with a wandering ascetic and decided that he must discover the reason for the man’s display of serenity in the midst of such misery. Renouncing his princely life, Gotama went in search of teachers who could instruct him in the way of truth. He took up the practice of various austerities and extreme self-mortifications, including severe fasting. These experiences eventually led Gotama to the conviction that such mortifications could not lead him to what he sought.

Buddhist mythology states that the Buddha went to meditate beneath a pipal tree (Ficus religiosa), now known as the bodhi tree. There he was tempted by Mara (the Buddhist Lord of the Senses), but Gotama remained unmoved. Later that night the Buddha realized the Four Noble Truths, achieving enlightenment during the night of the full moon day of the month of May (Vesakha) at a place now called Bodh Gayā.

After this enlightenment, the story continues that the Buddha sought out five companions and delivered to them his first sermon, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (“Sermon on Setting in Motion the Wheel of Truth”), at Sarnath. An ancient stupa marks the spot where this event is said to have occurred. The Buddha taught that those in search of enlightenment should not follow the two extremes of self-indulgence and selfmortification. Avoiding these two extremes, the Thatāgata (“He Who Has Thus Attained”) discovers the middle path leading to vision, knowledge, calmness, awakening, and nirvana.

This middle path is known as the Noble Eightfold Path and consists of right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right living, right endeavor, right mindfulness, and right concentration. The First Noble Truth is that sentient existence is dukkha, always tainted with conflict, dissatisfaction, sorrow, and suffering. The Second Noble Truth is that all this is caused by selfish desire— craving or tanha, “thirst.” The Third Noble Truth is that there is nirvana—emancipation, liberation, and freedom for human beings from all this. The Fourth Noble Truth, the Noble Eightfold Path, is the way to this liberation.

After this sermon the five companions became the Buddha’s first disciples, were admitted by him as monks (bhikkhus), and became the first members of the sangha (“community,” or “order”). After the Buddha had trained followers, his mission was fulfilled. At Kusinara (now called Kasia) on the full moon day of the month of Vesakha (May), the Buddha Gotama entered parinirvān· a—an end to the cycle of being reborn. His body was cremated by the Mallas in Kusinara, but a dispute over the relics of the Buddha arose between the Mallas and the delegates of rulers of several kingdoms. It was settled by a venerable Brahmin on the basis that they should not quarrel over the relics of one who preached peace. Stupas were then built over these relics.