9 ideas
| 472 | No things would be clear to us as entity or relationships unless there existed Number and its essence [Philolaus] |
| Full Idea: No existing things would be clear to anyone, either in themselves or in their relationship to one another, unless there existed Number and its essence. | |
| From: Philolaus (On the Cosmos (lost) [c.435 BCE], B11), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.03.8 |
| 1556 | By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias] |
| Full Idea: I regard you all as relatives - by nature, not by convention. By nature like is akin to like, but convention is a tyrant over humankind and often constrains people to act contrary to nature. | |
| From: Hippias (fragments/reports [c.430 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 337c8 |
| 1518 | Everything must involve numbers, or it couldn't be thought about or known [Philolaus] |
| Full Idea: Everything which is known has number, because otherwise it is impossible for anything to be the object of thought or knowledge. | |
| From: Philolaus (On the Cosmos (lost) [c.435 BCE], B04), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.21.7b |
| 1519 | Harmony must pre-exist the cosmos, to bring the dissimilar sources together [Philolaus] |
| Full Idea: It would have been impossible for the dissimilar and incompatible sources to have been made into an orderly universe unless harmony had been present in some form or other. | |
| From: Philolaus (On the Cosmos (lost) [c.435 BCE], B06), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.21.7d |
| 473 | There is no falsehood in harmony and number, only in irrational things [Philolaus] |
| Full Idea: The nature of number and harmony admits of no falsehood; for this is unrelated to them. Falsehood and envy belong to the nature of the Unlimited and the Unintelligent and the Irrational. | |
| From: Philolaus (On the Cosmos (lost) [c.435 BCE], B11), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 469 | Existing things, and hence the Cosmos, are a mixture of the Limited and the Unlimited [Philolaus] |
| Full Idea: Since it is plain that existing things are neither wholly from the Limiting, nor wholly from the Unlimited, clearly the cosmos and its contents were fitted together from both the Limiting and the Unlimited. | |
| From: Philolaus (On the Cosmos (lost) [c.435 BCE], B02), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.21.7a |
| 476 | Self-created numbers make the universe stable [Philolaus] |
| Full Idea: Number is the ruling and self-created bond which maintains the everlasting stability of the contents of the universe. | |
| From: Philolaus (On the Cosmos (lost) [c.435 BCE], B23), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 13605 | Gravity isn't a force, because it produces effects without diminishing [Mayer] |
| Full Idea: If gravity be called a force, a cause is supposed which produces effects without itself diminishing, and incorrect conceptions of the causal connexions of things are thereby fostered. | |
| From: J.R. Mayer (Remarks on the forces of inorganic Nature [1842], p.199), quoted by Brian Ellis - Scientific Essentialism 8.03 | |
| A reaction: This seems like a brilliant prelude to the proposal that gravity is actually the 'curvature' of space (whatever that is!). |
| 1787 | Philolaus was the first person to say the earth moves in a circle [Philolaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Philolaus was the first person to affirm that the earth moves in a circle. | |
| From: report of Philolaus (On the Cosmos (lost) [c.435 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 08.Ph.3 |