Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/661

 PYRRHONISM

587

PTTfiAOORAS

schools at the end of the eighteenth century. Pyrker also wrote several short stories: "Die Perlen der heiligen Vorzeit" (1821); "Bilder aus dcin Lebcn Jesu und der Apostel" and"Legenden der Heiligen auf alle Sonntage und Festtage des Jahres" (1842). As a lyric poet Pyrker published only a few mono- graphs, e. g. "Lilienfelds Freude", and "Liederder Sehnsucht nach den Alpen" (1845).

G&DEKE, Grundriss der detttschen Dicfttung; BriJhl, Gesch. der Literatur Deutschlands vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart (1861), 340 sqq. : WuRZBACH, Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiser- tums Oesterreich, XXIV. 115 aq.; Sauer, Allgemeine deutsche Biographie; Herold, FHedrich August Klemens Werlhes u. die deulschen Zrinydramen (1898); Scheid, Der Jesuit Masen u. P. N. Avancini, S.J. (Cologne, 1898-9).

N. Scheid.

Pyrrhonism, a system of scepticism, the founder of which was Pyrrho, a Greek philosopher, about whom verj' little is known except that he died in 270 b. c. The best known of Pyrrho's disciples was Tinion of Philius, known as the sillographer. Pyrrho's scepti- cism was so complete and comprehensive that the word Pyrrhonism is sometimes used as a synonym for scepticism. The scepticism of Pyrrho's school covered three points. (1) All the dogmatists, that is to say, all the philosophers who believed that truth and certitude can be attained, were mere sophists; they were self-deceived and deceivers of others.

(2) Certitude is impossible of attainment, not only because of the possibility that our faculties deceive us, but also because, in themselves, things are neither one thing nor the other, neither good nor evil, beau- tiful nor ugly, large nor small. Or, rather, things are both good and evil, beautiful and ugly, large and small, so that there is no reason why we should affirm that they are one thing rather than the other. This conviction was expressed in the famous saying, oiSir fiaWov, nothing is more one thing than another; the paper is not more white than black, the piece of sugar is not more sweet than bitter, and so forth.

(3) The reality of things being inaccessible to the human mind, and certitude being impossible of attain- ment, the wise man doubts about everything; that is, he recognizes the futility of inquiry into reality and abstains from judging. This abstention is called ^T'oxv- It is the foundation of happiness. Because he alone can attain happiness who cultivates imperturbability, drapa^la ; and then only is the mind proof against disquietude when we realize that every attempt to attain the truth is doomed to failure.

From this account of the principles of Pyrrhonism, it is evident that Pyrrho's aim was ethical. Like all the philosophers of the period in which he lived, he concerned himself principally with the problem of happiness. The Stoics sought to found happi- ness on the realization of the reign of law in human nature as well as in nature. The Ep- icureans grounded happiness on the conviction that transitory feeling is the one important phenomenon in human life. The Eclectics placed the intellectual basis of happiness in the conviction that all systems of philosophy are equally true. The Pyrrhonist, as well as the other sceptics of that period, believed that there is no possibility of at- taining happiness unless one first realizes that all systems of jihilo.sophy are equally false and that the real truth of things cannot be attained. Pyrrhonism is, therefore, an abdication of all the supposed rights of the mind, and cannot be dealt with by the ordinary rules of logic or by the customary canons of philo- sophical criticism.

Broderskn, De Philox. Pyrrhonis (Kiel, 1819); Lanqhei.n- RICH, Diss. Tres de Timane Sillographo (Leipzig, 1720); Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics, tr. Reichel (London. 1892) ; Tdrner, History of Philosophy (Boston, 1903). 184 sqq.

William Turner.

Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism.— Pythagoras, the Greek [)hilsapher and mathematician and

founder of the Pythagorean school, flourished about .530 B. c. Very little is known about the life and per- sonality of Pythagoras. There is an abundance of biographical material dating from the first centuries of the Christian era, from the age of neo-Pythagore- anism, but, when we go back to the centuries nearer to Pythagoras's time, our material becomes very scanty. It seems to be certain that Pythagoras was born at Samos about the year 550 or 560 b. c, that he travelled to Magna Graecia in Southern Italy about the year 530, that he founded there a school of philosophy, and that he died at Metapontum in Sicily. The detailed accounts of how he invented the musical scale, performed miracles, pronounced proph- ecies, and did many other wonderful things, be- long to legend, and seem to have no historical foun- dation. Similarly the story of his journey into Egypt, Asia Minor, and even to Babylon is not at- tested by reliable historians. To the region of fable belongs also the description of the learned works which he wrote and which were long kept secret in his school. It is certain, however, that he founded a school, or, rather, a religious philosophical society, for which he drew up a rule of life. In this rule are said to have been regulations imposing secrecy, a protracted period of silence, celibacy, and various kinds of abstinence. The time-honoured tradition that Pythagoras forbade his disciples to eat beans, for which various reasons, more or less ingenious, were assigned by ancient and medieval writers, has been upset by some recent writers, who understand the phrase, "Abstain from beans" {Kvd/xoiv dir^xf"), to refer to a measure of practical prudence, and not to a gastronomic principle. Beans, black and white, were, according to this interpretation, the means of votmg in Magna Grtecia, and "Abstain from beans" would, therefore, mean merely "Avoid politics" — a warning which, we know, was warranted by the troubles in which the school was involved on account of the active share which it took during the founder's lifetime in the struggles of the popular with the aris- tocratic party in Southern Italy. The school was instructed by its founder to devote itself to the cul- tivation of philosophy, mathematics, music, and gym- nastics, the aim of the organization being primarily ethical. The theoretical doctrines taught by the master were strictly adhered to, so much so that the Pythagoreans were known for their frequent citation of the ipse dixit of the founder. Naturally, as soon as the legends began to grow up around the name of Pythagoras, many tenets were ascribed him which were in fact introduced by later Pythagoreans, such as Philolaus and Archytas of Tarentum.

It seems to be certain that, besides prescribing the rules that were to govern the society, Pythagoras taught: (1) a doctrine of transmigration of souls which he probably borrowed from the Bacchic and Orphic mysteries, the whole spirit of the doctrine being religious and ethical, intended to show, by successive incarnations of the soul in the bodies of different animals a system by which certain vices and virtues were to be punished and rewarded after death; (2) in a general way, the doctrine that math- ematics contains the key to all philosophical knowl- edge, a germ, so to speak, which was afterwards developed into an elaborate number-theory by his followers; and (3) the notion that virtue is a harmony, and may be cuhivated not only by contemplation and meditation but also by the practice of gymnastics and music. The subsequent elaboration of these three central doctrines into a complicated system is the work of the followers of Pythagoras. The Pythagorean philosophy in its later elaboration is dominated by the number-theory. Being the first, apparently, to observe that natural phenomena, es- pecially the phenomena of the astronomical world, may be expressed in mathematical formulas, the