Pherecydes of Syros 580–520 BCE

Pherecydes of Syros c. 580–520 BCE

In the early sixth century BCE, on the rocky island of Syros in the Cyclades, far from the philosophical ferment of Ionia and even further from the great Greek cities of Italy and Sicily, there lived a strange, quiet, solitary thinker whose influence would ripple outward in ways neither he nor his contemporaries could have fully imagined. Pherecydes—sometimes written Pherekydes—occupies an unusual position in the history of philosophy. He stands between myth and reason, between poetic cosmogony and speculative argument, between epic storytelling and metaphysical system-building. He predates Pythagoras, overlaps with Thales and Anaximander, and is sometimes named as the teacher of Pythagoras himself. But his thought is neither purely mythic like Hesiod nor purely naturalistic like the Miles ...