Italian school (philosophy)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Italian school of pre-Socratic philosophy refers to Ancient Greek philosophers in Italy or Magna Graecia in the 6th and 5th century BC.[1][2][3] Contemporary scholarship disputes the Italian school as a historical school rather than simply a geographical one.[4]
The doxographer Diogenes Laërtius divides pre-Socratic philosophy into the Ionian and Italian school.[5][6][7] According to classicist Jonathan Barnes, "Although the Italian 'school' was founded by émigrés from Ionia, it quickly took on a character of its own."[8] According to classicist W. K. C. Guthrie, it contrasted with the "materialistic and purely rational Milesians."[9]
The Italian school included the Pythagorean school,[1][10] Parmenides and the Eleatic school, Xenophanes, and Empedocles. According to Diogenes Laërtius, the succession goes Pythagoras (“pupil of Pherecydes”), Telauges (his son), Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, Leucippus, Democritus (“who had many pupils”), Nausiphanes [and Naucydes] (“in particular”), and Epicurus (Succession ends).[7][11][12] Parmenides, Xenophanes, and Empedocles all wrote in verse.[13]
Aristotle notes, as he criticizes the Pythagorean view of a Counter-Earth, "Most people...say it lies at the center. But the Italian philosophers known as Pythagoreans take the contrary view."[14][15]