Last time I ended class with this thought: Xenophanes
changed the Homeric views on god. It helps us question if religions define god
for what it truly is. With the progression of their theories, I see the
Milesians and Xenophanes and think that maybe the mind needs to be constantly
evolving to get closer to the truth.
Reading Pythagoras made me think about the relationship between truth
and knowledge.
Curd shows us a fragment were Plato makes a parallel
between Homer and Pythagoras. They look alike in the fact that they both had
people that followed them. The major distinction is Pythagoras striving for
knowledge, his followers the mathematikoi and akousmatikoi both looking to gain
knowledge in what they each venerated, while Homer convinced his followers by his stories that reflected some of the truth
about their society.
Curd mentions this fragment “Much learning does not teach insight.
Otherwise it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras and moreover Xenphanes and
Hecataeus.” Does that mean that truth and knowledge cannot have a relationship?
To what extent can knowledge skew you from the path of the truth? Pythagoras
was hugely known for constructing his wisdom, his theory on numbers setting the
order for existence. There is some truth about this knowledge on numbers but
did this bring him closer to the truth? Maybe not as much because he was ridiculed
for his theory on transmigration of souls. This is a question that I still do
not know how to answer, but I thought that it was an important observation to
make.
In addition to all that was said, the path that
early philosophers took to develop the concept of morality is getting more
evident. As it is known the akousmatikoi is the branch of Pythagoreans who are
not solely philosophical but pursue the proper way to live. This is showing
that there is starting to be a sense of what is right or wrong, no matter if
the way in which the akousmatikoi lived was the right way.
That is a good question about the relationship between truth and knowledge and insight. I would say the relationship is less necessary than we think.
ReplyDeleteI think that what the fragment is saying is that despite learning many different things, they were far from being able to see the world in a coherent and accurate way, organizing their disparate bits of knowledge appropriately.
ReplyDeleteTraditionally knowledge is thought to include access to truth. But maybe we can distinguish a kind of truth that involves the Person, and not just the person's beliefs, making contact with reality...