Introduction

It would be nothing new to write that Arabic translators selected texts which had been left to them by Late Antiquity, in particular by the intellectual circles of Alexandria. The contents of this heritage determined both what the Arabic intellectuals knew about the lives and ideas of Greek philosophers. Importantly, it was not only the ‘pure knowledge’ that was translated; to a certain degree, the attitudes displayed by late antique authors towards earlier philosophers were transmitted as well. These attitudes, in turn, had a strong influence on the position and reputation of a given philosopher within Arabic philosophy and philosophical historiography; they could, for instance, determine whether a particular philosopher was to be marginalised or to receive extensive attention. For this reason, Arab attitudes towards Pythagorean philosophy are closely connected with the prominence of Aristotle and his commentators in Late Antiquity.

Aristotle himself was rather critical of Pythagoreanism, and his treatment of this philosophical current is always selective and sometimes dismissive. In general, this was his approach towards all of his predecessors. He selected the elements he needed in order to present his own theories, but considered the earlier philosophers to be imperfect pioneers who anticipated only some elements of his own philosophy. Therefore, his aim was not to present the ideas of the Presocratic thinkers, nor to affiliate himself with any of the philosophers or philosophical currents he quoted.