Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 1 (of 3)
Georg Hegel · en
(_γ_) Further consideration of this opposition, in which Pythagoreans
differ from one another, shows us the imperfect beginning of a table
of categories which were then brought forward by them, as later on by
Aristotle. Hence the latter was reproached for having borrowed these
thought-determinations from them; and it certainly was the case that
the Pythagoreans first made the opposite to be an essential moment in
the absolute. They further determined the abstract and simple Notions,
although it was in an inadequate way, since their table presents a
mixture of antitheses in the ordinary idea and the Notion, without
following these up more fully. Aristotle (Met. I. 5) ascribes these
determinations either to Pythagoras himself, or else to Alcmæon “who
flourished in the time of Pythagoras’ old age,” so that “either Alcmæon
took them from the Pythagoreans or the latter took them from him.” Of
these antitheses or co-ordinates to which all things are traced, ten
are given, for, according to the Pythagoreans, ten is a number of great
significance:—
1. The finite and the infinite.
2. The odd and the even.
3. The one and the many.
4. The right and the left.
5. The male and the female.
6. The quiescent and the moving.
7. The straight and the crooked.
8. Light and darkness.
9. Good and evil.
10. The square and the parallelogram.
This is certainly an attempt towards a development of the Idea of
speculative philosophy in itself, _i.e._ in Notions; but the attempt
does not seem to have gone further than this simple enumeration.
It is very important that at first only a collection of general
thought-determinations should be made, as was done by Aristotle; but
what we here see with the Pythagoreans is only a rude beginning of the
further determination of antitheses, without order and sense, and very
similar to the Indian enumeration of principles and substances.
(_δ_) We find the further progress of these determinations in Sextus
(adv. Math. X. 262-277), when he speaks about an exposition of the
later Pythagoreans. It is a very good and well considered account of
the Pythagorean theories, which has some thought in it. The exposition
follows these lines: “The fact that these two principles are the
principles of the whole, is shown by the Pythagoreans in manifold ways.”