Philosophy and Circularity

Circularity seems to have rarely been more than a peripheral explicit topic in Philosophy. Typical of its treatment is its status in the legacy of Pythagoreanism--while triangularity and musical tones are the best-known features of that doctrine, both, for Pythagoras himself, are grounded in circular patterns. Plato recognizes the perfection of the Circle, without entertaining it as the Form of the Good. For Aristotle, the self-sufficiency of the Circle informs his Ethical ideal, i. e. thought thinking itself. In modern Philosophy, the Circle serves Hegel as a symbol of Infinity, but the 'revolutions' of neither Kant's Copernican turn nor Marxism seem to have much rotational about them. It does become more prominent for Nietzsche, but his interest in Eternal Recurrence is primarily its repetition and unboundedness, rather than its circularity per se. In fact, if there is one Philosophical context in which Circularity is an explicit theme, it is in negative terms, i. e. in Logic.