Pitagorejska recepcija bivstva pravde
Pythagorean Reception of the Substance of Justice

Summary/Abstract: In this paper the author at first describes basic parameters of Pythagorean doctrine, expressed primarily with Aristotle, more precisely the part of which states that “things are numbers”, or that they “imitate” or “represent” numbers, even that Italian thinkers “supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things, and the whole heaven to be a musical scale and a number”. Bearing in mind the fact that according to Pythagoreans the number is the substance of all things the segment of diverse Pythagorean learning of numbers in regard to their view of justice is particularly being considered. Two definitions of justice are in the focus of the author’s investigation: in the first place the one which was negatively formulated from Magna Moralia (1182a11-14), which states that justice is not a square number. Then the segment of Nicomachean Ethics (1132b21-23) is quoted according to which the justice is some sort of reciprocity i.e. they defined justice simply as requital to another. The numerical expression of such definitions later became the subject of confrontation for the commentators, however the analysis has shown that the justice was expressed with at least five numbers. Most frequently the numbers were 4 and 9, but in the literature the numbers 8, 5, and 3 are also being mentioned. The paper, eventually, lists the deficiencies of such identifications, particularly in reference to Hegel’s objections to such determination and emphasizing that, in his opinion, mathematics can not grasp the reality which postulates itself and which exists in its own concept since its relation to the reality is external and nonconceptual.

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