Editing Plato (section)

==== Pythagoreanism ====
{{main|Pythagoreanism}}
[[File:Kapitolinischer Pythagoras adjusted.jpg|right|upright|thumb|The mathematical and mystical teachings of the followers of Pythagoras, pictured above, exerted a strong influence on Plato.]]
After the conclusion of the [[Corinthian War]], Plato travelled to southern Italy to study with [[Archytas]] and other Pythagoreans.{{sfn|Waterfield|2023|p=112}} The influence of these Pythagoreans appears to have been significant. According to [[R. M. Hare]], this influence consists of three points:
# The platonic Republic might be related to the idea of "a tightly organized community of like-minded thinkers", like the one established by Pythagoras in Croton.
# The idea that mathematics and, generally speaking, abstract thinking is a secure basis for philosophical thinking as well as "for substantial theses in [[science]] and [[morals]]".
# They shared a "mystical approach to the soul and its place in the material world".<ref>R.M. Hare, Plato in C.C.W. Taylor, R.M. Hare and Jonathan Barnes, Greek Philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999 (1982), 103–189, here 117–119.</ref>

Pythagoras held that all things are number, and the cosmos comes from numerical principles. He introduced the concept of form as distinct from matter, and that the physical world is an imitation of an eternal mathematical world.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Calian |first=Florin George |url=https://brill.com/display/book/9789004467224/BP000010.xml |title=Numbers, Ontologically Speaking: Plato on Numerosity |year=2021 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-46722-4 |language=en |access-date=10 April 2023 |archive-date=7 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230507230433/https://brill.com/display/book/9789004467224/BP000010.xml |url-status=live }}</ref>