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Sextus Empiricus brings his discussion of the so-called ‘liberal arts’ (Math. 1–6) to a close by attacking the epistemic and therapeutic pretences of a would-be science of musicology. He presents two kinds of arguments that bring about and preserve a state of suspension of judgement about the claims of those who profess knowledge in this domain. First, he borrows material from Epicureans purporting to establish that expertise in matters of music holds no prospects for a happy life. Second, he argues that fundamental notions of music theory do not correspond to anything in reality, and thus that the science itself does not exist. The emerging Sextan critique of musicology provides an interesting angle on the Pyrrhonian project as well as on Sextus’ authorial methods. In this paper, I present the agenda of the treatise as being compatible with Pyrrhonism as described in Sextus’ Outlines (Section 1), discuss the arguments employed by Sextus (Sections 2–4), and argue that the treatise does not support readings according to which his treatment of music requires Sextus to abandon the suspensive stance (Section 5).
The Peripatetic view of Pythagoras mirrors the split in the tradition that was present in the earliest sources: Aristoxenus of Tarentum follow Empedocles in being overwhelmingly positive, whereas Dicaearchus and Hieronymus are heirs to Heraclitus' bitter critique. In terms of amount of material, the Peripatetics put greatest emphasis on the way of life of Pythagoras and later Pythagoreans. Theophrastus succeeded Aristotle as head of the Lyceum in 322 and remained until 287. He certainly referred to the Pythagoreans in his contribution to the Peripatetic survey of human knowledge, the Physical Opinions, which systematically collected early Greek views about the natural world. A text about the Pythagoreans in the later tradition can, with more or less plausibility, be traced back to Eudemus. Dicaearchus, writing at the same time as Theophrastus, Eudemus and Meno, focuses not on Pythagorean contributions to the sciences but rather on the life of Pythagoras himself.
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