Pythagoras, the Philosopher and Grammar Teacher (Br. Lib. Add. MS 37516 recto)

István Bodnár*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to Book/Report typesChapterpeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

The paper is about a chreia—a one-liner used as a grammatical exercise sentence—that presents Pythagoras as proscribing an expression from admissible linguistic usage. This injunction is funny, because it can be construed as Pythagoras railing against the use of a particular variant form of an adjective—and also as against the use of items denoted by that adjective. In the paper I add to this line of interpretation the further point that the chreia also claims that in this latter construal the injunction was Pythagoras’s signature insight, making him the philosopher that he was.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationInternational Archives of the History of Ideas/Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Idees
PublisherSpringer Nature
Pages3-19
Number of pages17
DOIs
StatePublished - 2023

Publication series

NameInternational Archives of the History of Ideas/Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Idees
Volume242
ISSN (Print)0066-6610
ISSN (Electronic)2215-0307

Keywords

  • Ancient grammarians on morphology
  • Autonymy
  • Classroom exercises
  • Epic language
  • Jokes
  • Mention and use
  • Pythagoras
  • Vegetarianism
  • chreia

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