Xenophanes

Definition: Xenophanes of Colophon (c.570-475 B.C.) was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, which was named for its location in Elea, in the Greek area known as Campania, in Italy. Xenophanes recited poetry at the court of Hiero(n), tyrant of Sicily (r. c. 478-466 B.C.), and may have died while in Sicily. He says he was still creating poetry (elegies, iambics, and, possibly, a 2000 line poem in hexameters about the founding of Elea) when he was 92 (Burnet). Theophrastus claims Xenophanes heard the Pre-Socratic philosopher Anaximander. While in Magna Graecia, Xenophanes is said to have taken up Pythagorean philosophy, possibly leading the Pythagorean school for many years, although this conflicts with Xenophanes' personal statement that from the age of 25, he led the life of a wanderer (Burnet).

Beliefs of Xenophanes

Xenophanes rejected the anthropomorphic deities of Homer and Hesiod and considered there to be one incorporeal god. He may have been the first skeptic [but see Pyrrho the Skeptic], according to James H. Lesher, in "Xenophanes' Scepticism," (Phronesis , Vol. 23, No. 1 (1978), pp. 1-21) in that Xenophanes may have asserted that men may have beliefs, but they don't have certain knowledge.

Aristotle on Xenophanes

In his Metaphysics 986.b, Aristotle slights Xenophanes when he writes:

But Xenophanes, the first exponent of the Unity (for Parmenides is said to have been his disciple), gave no definite teaching, nor does he seem to have grasped either of these conceptions of unity; but regarding the whole material universe he stated that the Unity is God. This school then, as we have said, may be disregarded for the purposes of our present inquiry; two of them, Xenophanes and Melissus, may be completely ignored, as being somewhat too crude in their views.

Limitations on Our Knowledge of the Pre-Socratics

We have first hand material of the Pre-socratics only from the end of the sixth century/start of the fifth B.C. Even then, material is spotty. So our knowledge of the Pre-Socratic philosophers comes from fragments of their works included in the writing of others. The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts, by G.S. Kirk and J.E. Raven provides these fragments in English. Diogenes Laertius provides biographies of the Pre-Socratic philosophers: Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library. DK=Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, by H. Diels and W. Kranz, is the standard edition on the Pre-socratics.

References:

• _{"Studies in Xenophanes" by Aryeh Finkelberg; Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 93, (1990), pp. 103-167}
• _{Early Greek Philosophy, by John Burnet}