Talk:Pentad (Greek philosophy)

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[edit] Comments

I haven't read the book on divine proportion; what did this person Hemenway say about how this symbol was used? I just find this image rather surprising, since a) it is complex and multi-coloured, more complex than I would expect for a recognition sign; and b) I haven't seen this image before, and I would expect to have probably seen it in my travels...

Please let us know a bit more about this image. Thanks, Fuzzypeg☻ 04:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I created that image by reproducing it from the book. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

This article is very poor. The pentad is not a symbol of the number 5; it is the number 5. The strange diagram shown in the article is not the pentad, nor it seems, is there any evidence that such a diagram was drawn by the ancient greeks. It is a modern diagram invented by some bloke called Hemenway to illustrate his own ideas regarding divine proportion. A much more common symbol employed by pythagoreans to represent the number 5 was the pentagram, and again I stress that the pentagram was a symbol of the pentad (the number 5), not the number five itself.

There are a series of articles that all labour under the same misconceptions:

• Monad (symbol): Not a symbol!
• Dyad (symbol): It's not a symbol, and it's not a symbol of "two-ness"; it is the number 2.
• Triad (symbol): Not a symbol!
• Decad: Apparently the number ten was not considered a number by the pythagoreans, but an "assembly point". Of course it was considered a number! It was one of the set of natural numbers.

I suspect that Hemenway, from whom most of these factoids have been sourced, is not attempting to represent historical fact about the pythagoreans' beliefs, but is using their ideas as a springboard for his own mysticism.

I left some comments about this a while ago for User:Jossi (who created these articles), but he didn't seem to get what I was on about. Fuzzypeg☻ 22:39, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I will look into this, maybe moving to Pentad (symbol) (same for the other articles in the series), if I can find more sources beyond Hemenway's ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:09, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

On second thoughts.... this series of articles are about the Pythagorean symbols. If there are other uses for the term, the proper course of action would be to disambiguate. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:37, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Jossi. I would suggest we avoid moving Pentad to Pentad (symbol) because the Pentad is not a symbol. I also reckon Monad (symbol), Dyad (symbol) and Triad (symbol) probably need to be moved to different names because they're not symbols either. I suggest Monad (Greek philosophy), Dyad (Greek philosophy) and Triad (Greek philosophy). The point is, "Pentad" is just another name for "five". It's the number itself, rather than a "symbol" of the number. The pythagoreans did use symbols to represent these numbers sometimes, such as the pentagram to represent the pentad (the number 5), or the Tetraktys to represent ten (the decad). But those were just symbols of the numbers, not the numbers themselves. Just as the sulphur-coloured double arch "M" is not a MacDonalds restaurant.

Now when I say that the pentad was just the number 5 to the Pythagoreans, that's true, but it's also a little misleading, since they placed a great deal of importance on each of these numbers, and saw them as fundamental principles in the organisation and operation of the universe. That's the only reason I wouldn't merge this article with 5 (number), even though they are the same thing: the name "Pentad" indicates that we're discussing the number 5 from a Pythagorean perspective.  Fuzzypeg  ^talk  00:29, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, on second thoughts, I think the pentagram was more often a symbol of the golden mean.  Fuzzypeg  ^talk  00:31, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I have no objection to moving these articles to Monad (Greek philosophy), Dyad (Greek philosophy) and Triad (Greek philosophy), etc. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:04, 22 January 2008 (UTC)