learn about 43 major philosophers

Pythagoras was a mathematician and a mystic. At Croton, in southern Italy, he founded and led a community of scholars who were his disciples. A pupil of Aristotle named Dicaerchus wrote:
“What [Pythagoras] used to teach his associates, no one can tell with certainty; for they observed no ordinary silence. His most universally celebrated opinions, however, were that the soul is immortal; then that it migrates into other sorts of living creature; and in addition that after certain periods what has happened once happens again, and nothing is absolutely new; and that one should consider all animate things as akin.”

‘Metempsychosis’ is the term for the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. Within the Pythagorean community there were some prohibitions designed to establish and maintain the purity of the soul. Fore example:

• Abstain from beans.
• Do not look in a mirror beside a light.
• When rising from bed, rollt he bedclothes together and smooth out the impress of your body.
• Be not possessed by irrepressible mirth.

Number, for Pythagoras, is both matter and the meaning of the cosmos. He held that odd and even together produce unity and that unity produces number, the source of all things.

I have decided to start with a simple introduction. I ordered The Story Of Philosophy by Bryan Magee. I chose this book after reading the customer reviews. A few things people said:

“It opens up learning of the subject to a broader audience. Magee’s book seems almost perfect as an introduction, overview, and rough history of philosophy. It should make an excellent introduction and light reference book to the non-expert reader.”

“This is quite simply the easiest and best one volume introduction to philosophy there is.”

The book was criticized for being more like a coffee table book due to illustrations, but I have nothing against pictures. :)