Ontologizacija brojeva
Ontologization of Numbers

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, the author sketches the basic parameters of the Pythagorean doctrine presented in Aristotle's corpus, especially the part of it which says that "beings are numbers", or that they "imitate" (mimesis) or "represent" numbers, to the point that Italian thinkers "supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things, and the whole heaven to be a harmonia and a number." Consideration of the layered Pythagorean teaching has shown that the prominent position of their philosophy is the thesis that number is the substance of all things. The interpretation and situation of the Pythagorean postulates in the text were then carried out from the perspective of Stagirite's causal schematism, with two questions that arose: with how many causes did the Pythagoreans "operate" and what were the causes? The author, first of all, regards that the Pythagoreans were the only pre-Parmenidian philosophers who "handled" for two causes in their work. And then, the two causes used by the Pythagoreans are the material and the formal cause. Based on Aristotle's notes, finally, it can be concluded that they give priority to the formal cause in relation to the hitherto inviolable material cause.

• Details
• Contents