When the Dog Speaks, the Philosopher Listens

by Nigel McGilchrist

We distinguish easily between random noise and the beauty of harmonic music. 2,500 years ago, one thinker explained very clearly why this was. He had a simple experiment to prove it. He went on to suggest that the same phenomenon lay behind the difference between chaos and the multiform universe we inhabit. He also proposed that this principle should govern the conduct of our lives, our relations with one another, and with the natural world. He suggested that it ordered the movement of the heavenly bodies. For him, it was simply what filled the whole cosmos, rather than the will of capricious, squabbling, deities. In conceiving these things, he opened the gates of philosophy and scientific speculation, and ushered us through. He travelled, wrote little or nothing, and thought a lot. He listened carefully to a number of fascinating ideas and observations which intrigued him, and which came out of the East, from Asia. He took them and transformed them in a way that was to change the nature of human consciousness and the thinking of the West for ever. He came from a place that naturally ‘transformed’ everything, because it was the bridge between Asia and Europe – East and West. That place was Greece. His name was Pythagoras. In this un-stuffy, but beautifully and passionately written, book, one of history’s least understood geniuses is brought to life for us, and takes us by the hand.

Genres: Philosophy, Biography

300 pages, Paperback

Published April 3, 2023

About the author

Nigel McGilchrist is an art historian with a long-standing interest in the Mediterranean region. He lives in Italy.

Reviews

[Barksdale Penick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating look at the man behind the name we all know. From a paucity of specific information about Pythagoras, McGilchrist paints a credible portrait of a man living in a time and place where influences from the East were drifting West. The Pythagorean theorem was known in practice elsewhere, but had not been precisely articulated before Pythagoras. He also demonstrated that pleasing musical combinations of note bear specific mathematical relationships.

McGilchrist deviates from the main biographical theme to discuss many topics, such as why Greece developed such an unusual artistic culture. For example, most other nations were ruled by autocrats of one type or another and there had royal courts which channels artistic development in certain channels, whereas Greece never had a central ruler and art and architecture were free to develop in novel directions.

On occasion I found the discussion slightly obscure, such as when McGilchrist discusses three words in great depth. I believe that he meant that Pythagoras actually coined these words but could not be sure from the text.

McGilchrist also explains why the name Pythagoras was associated in ancient times with slightly kooky dictates, like never eating fava beans. Late in life he moved from a Greek island to a Greek settlement in mainland Italy and after his death schools adopting his name sprung up and continued for centuries, but they certainly were not truly teaching the lessons of the man. And then McGilchrist covers a variety of Roman "historians" who purported to write biographies of the man in rarely accurate terms. But they continued the fame of the name, so that we know it today.

Not a conventional biography, given the dearth of hard facts. But McGilchrist avoids the "Stacy Schiff" approach seen in Cleopatra, where she attempts to paint a picture of daily life that really is not illuminating to today's reader (perhaps Cleopatra rode in a barge down the Nile that day, perhaps with oranges and flowers littered about and perhaps her hair was rich with bergamot oils ...). McGilchrist necessarily speculates about aspects of the life of his subject, such as whether Pythagoras traveled to the East, but he makes his case and that reasoning in central to his overall portrait.

A fine biography.

[Robin Redden · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thought-provoking biography (of sorts) of Pythagoras, the 6th century BC ancient Greek genius and philosopher famous for the mathematical theorem that bears his name.

Scant information survives from Pythagoras’ time but philosophers in later times wrote about him. He was intellectually one of the most important men that ever lived. Plato and Aristotle were strongly influenced by his thinking, and while the actual information is sketchy, assumptions can be made about his philosophy. Along the way we also get a history of the ancient world.

The novel reimagines the contemporary world around Pythagoras and the cognitive revolution occurring at that time. Pythagoras takes Eastern thinking and transforms it through the culture of Ancient Greece creating a wholly new Western body of thought. McGilchrist takes us through the various connections between these geographical areas that influenced Pythagoras and have influenced thought since.

Pythagoras may have been the first to conceive of Earth as a sphere in space, a revolutionary idea in his time. He was also a feminist! He preached doing no harm to any living beings, human, animal, or plant. Pythagoras felt the greatest aspiration was to understand harmony (and thus order, specifically mathematical order) and cultivate beauty in all things. To respect intuition. To free the mind to think and reflect. To be open to other perspectives and ways of thinking.

An Interesting and enjoyable book.