Burkert

Ahora presentar la postura de Burkert, quien presenta argumentos suficientes para demostrar que Aristteles presenta a los pitagricos en trminos de su conveniencia: Pg ! Aristotle does not present his reports on the Pythagoreans as an impartial historian of philosophy, but always in the context of his own exposition, which has purposes of its own. The thing that lends the confrontation with the Pythagoreans its special immediacy for Aristotle is their connection with the Academic teaching on first principles, which he criticizes vigorously while at the same time making it his own point of departure.1 And, in the organization of his in uiries about first principles !"#$%&' in the first two books of the (etaphysics, the Pythagoreans are not only treated separately, among the )pre* +ocratics)

P"g #$

%f the num&ers are identical 'ith things, the( are space) and time) &ound* Aristotle actuall( speaks of their origin, in a cosmogonic sense,$+ and sa(s that the( are e,tended, that their units possess

magnitude*$! %t is naturall( against this thesis that the principal logical and ph(sical o&-ections are directed,$. and /eller 'anted to e,clude the report a&out 0e,tended units0 completel(, as Aristotelian interpretation* 1 But at least there can have &een nothing to refute such an Aristotelian interpretation* 2he P(thagoreans did not differentiate &et'een num&er and corporealit(, &et'een corporeal and incorporeal &eing* $ 3ike all the pre)4ocratics, these P(thagoreans take ever(thing that e,ists in the same 'a(, as something material* 5or ever( Platonist this e,position of Aristotle6s is an e,cruciating anno(ance, 'hich even the superficialit( of the commentators of late antiquit( could not cause them to overlook* 4(rianus felt this most keenl(, and devised a trul( modern remed(): Aristotle has no relia&le or adequate o&-ection to the 789:; of the P(thagoreans* 5or the most part, if % am to speak the truth frankl(, he does not even hit them, &ut launches his o&-ections against h(potheses he has invented himself*

Pg #

2he differences e,tend further* 0<lements0 of the num&ers are, according to P(thagorean doctrine, the 0even0 and the 0odd0= the 0odd0 is at the same time 0limit,0 the 0even0 is 0unlimited*0 %n the pair limit)un>mited 'e have a primeval cosmic opposition l(ing &ehind the num&er 'hich is the 'orld* ? 2o @reek linguistic feeling, 0limit0 is the positive principle= A it is conceived at the same time as masculine, the 0unlimited0 as feminine, and correspondingl( the odd num&er is also masculine, and the even feminine* B Aristotle gives a complicated e,planation of the correspondence of odd and limit, even and unlimited, at the &asis of 'hich lies the representation of num&ers &( arrangements of pe&&les* 5Csica 1#D$# 4ince Burnet the significance of this allusion to the graphic &asis of P(thagorean num&er speculation has &een recogniEed= ! it is not the cipher or numeral Flike 0A0G 'hich serves as pictorial representation of a num&er, &ut the shape of an area Hthe sort of thing 'e are familiar 'ith from dice or dominoes*

Iherniss FPres* #.ft, ??ff,

?f, #!+J tries to sho' that the P(thagoreans had no

doctrine of the origin of num&er, and that Aristotle onl( produces this impression &( his pro-ection of Platonic 'a(s of thinking* 2o esta&lish this he must, at Ket*

i1.iai#f5, make a radical separation of the cosmic Lne F0the universe itselfMMG and the 0numerical unitM6: 0Aristotle is confusing *** the cosmogon( 'ith the num&er)theor(M6 Fp* #.G* But Aristotle sa(s unequivocall( that the P(thagoreans kne' onl( one kind of num&er, the cosmic F..oa iG, that is, that the( thought of num&er theor( as cosmogon(, of cosmogon( as the development of arithmetic* Pg #!

Pg* ?1, AristNteles ( su todo el cielo es nOmerosP