“Are flute-players better than philosophers?” Sextus Empiricus on music, against Pythagoras

After providing an accurate analysis of the specific way in which – through the use of different labels – Sextus Empiricus presents statements attributed either directly to Pythagoras or indirectly to his followers, the present paper focuses more in detail on the attack which Sextus launches against the Pythagorean doctrine in some passages of his Against the Musicians (see e.g. Adv. Math. VI 8 and 23). According to Sextus, this doctrine assigns to music a power of harmonious persuasion capable of soothing human passions and of bringing about a substantial ethical transformation in man. This power is connected to the use of a specific instrument (the flute) and a particular melody (the so-called “spondean” tune), which in Pythagoras' view – at least according to Sextus' account – would be capable of subduing even “a state of Bacchic frenzy from drunkenness”. Against the backdrop of a more general attack seeking to de-emphasise whatever function may be attributed “by nature” (physei) to certain musical tones, the real core of Sextus Empiricus' objection would appear to be levelling a more radical critique: for Pythagoras' stance risks placing flute-players above philosophers. Pythagoras' praise of music and its cathartic function, in other words, would not only entail a kind of yielding to inappropriate and theoretically indefensible irrational elements; it would also (and perhaps most importantly) be depriving philosophy – in a way that goes against the very premises of the Pythagorean thought – of its fundamental role as a thoroughgoing ‘way of life’, namely as a practical exercise, guiding force and means for ethical reform through which one can attain true inner balance and individual happiness.