Xenophanes of Colophon was a philosophically-minded poet who lived invarious parts of the ancient Greek world during the late6^th and early 5^th centuries BCE. He is bestremembered for a novel critique of anthropomorphism in religion, apartial advance toward monotheism, and some pioneering reflections onthe conditions of knowledge. Many later writers, perhaps influenced bytwo brief characterizations of Xenophanes by Plato (Sophist242c–d) and Aristotle (Metaphysics 986b18–27),identified him as the founder of Eleatic philosophy (the view that,despite appearances, what there is is a changeless, motionless, andeternal ‘One’). In fact, the Xenophanes who emerges fromthe surviving fragments defies simple classification. He was atravelling rhapsode who criticised the stories about the gods told bythe poets, and he defended a novel conception of the divine nature.But he was also a reflective observer of the human condition, apractitioner of the special form of ‘inquiry’(historiê) introduced by the Milesianphilosopher-scientists, and a civic counselor who encouraged hisfellow citizens to respect the gods and work to safeguard thewell-being of their city.

• 1. Life and Works
• 2. Criticisms of Greek Popular Religion
• 3. The Nature of the Divine
• 4. Social Criticism
• 5. Scientific Interests
• 6. Reflections on Knowledge
• 7. Xenophanes’ Legacy
• Bibliography
  • Books
  • Articles or Chapters in Books
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Life and Works

In hisLives of the Philosophers (Diels-Kranz, testimoniumA1), Diogenes Laertius reports that Xenophanes was born in the smallIonian town of Colophon and flourished during the sixtieth Olympiad(540–537 BCE). Laertius adds that when Xenophanes was“banished from his native city” he “joined thecolony planted at Elea” (in Italy), and also lived at Zancle andCatana (two Greek communities in Sicily). He credits Xenophanes withcomposing verses “in epic meter, as well as elegiacs and iambicsattacking Hesiod and Homer and denouncing what they said about thegods”, with reciting his own works, and with composing poems onthe founding of Colophon and Elea. Later writers add that “heburied his sons with his own hands”, was sold into slavery, andlater released from it. By Xenophanes’ own account (B8) he“tossed about the Greek land” for sixty-seven years,starting at the age of twenty-five.

Diels-Kranz (DK) provides 45 fragments of his poetry (although B4, 13,19, 20, 21 and 41 would be more accurately classified astestimonia), ranging from the 24 lines of B1 to thesingle-word fragments of B21a, 39, and 40. A number of the‘sympotic poems’ (poems for drinking parties) (B1–3,5, 6, 22, and the imitation in C2) were preserved by Athenaeus, whilethe remarks on the nature of the divine were quoted by Clement(B14–16 and 23), Sextus Empiricus (B11, 12, and 24), andSimplicius (B25 and 26). Other snippets survive in the accounts byDiogenes Laertius and Aëtius, or as marginal notes in ourmanuscripts of various authors, or as entries in later rhetoricalsummaries and dictionaries. Seventy-four selections, of which the mostextensive is the pseudo-Aristotelian treatiseOn Melissus,Xenophanes, Gorgias (MXG), make up the collection oftestimonia in DK. Laertius’ statement (A1) thatXenophanes “wrote in epic meter, also elegiacs, andiambics” is confirmed by extant poems in hexameters and elegiacmeter, with one couplet (B14) a combination of hexameter and iambictrimeter. Ancient writers referred to a number of his compositions assilloi—‘squints’ or satires, and a criticaltone pervades many of the surviving fragments. Three late sourcescredit Xenophanes with a didactic poem under the titlePeriPhuseôs (“On Nature”) but not every allusion toan earlier author’s views “on nature” represented areference to a single work on that subject.

2. Criticisms of Greek Popular Religion

Fragments B11 and B12 describe, and implicitly criticize, the storiesabout the gods told by Homer and Hesiod.

Homer and Hesiod have attributed to the gods
all sorts of things that are matters of reproach and censure amongmen:
theft, adultery, and mutual deception. (B11)

…as they sang of numerous illicit divine deeds:
theft, adultery, and mutual deceit. (B12)

The basis for Xenophanes’ unhappiness with the poets’accounts is not explained, but we may infer from the concluding callto pay due honor to the gods in Xenophanes’ B1 that anattribution of scandalous conduct would be incompatible with thegoodness or perfection any divine being must be assumed to possess(cf. AristotleMeta. 1072b; Plato,Rep. 379b.)

In the well-known fragments B14–16, Xenophanes comments on thegeneral tendency of human beings to conceive of divine beings in humanform:

But mortals suppose that gods are born,
wear their own clothers and have a voice and body. (B14)

Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black;
Thracians that theirs are are blue-eyed and red-haired. (B16)

B15 adds, probably in a satirical vein, that if horses and oxen hadhands and could draw pictures, their gods would look remarkably likehorses and oxen. B17, “…and bacchants of pine stand roundthe well-built house” may represent a criticism of the commonancient belief that a god could assume possession of a physical objectso as to offer protection to its possessor. The ridiculing ofPythagoras’ claim to have recognized the soul of a departedfriend in the voice of a barking dog (B7), together with the attackson divination credited to Xenophanes in A52, reflect the broaderdenial of knowledge of divine attributes and operations set out inB34. Xenophanes is prepared to offer a positive account of the natureof the deity (see the following section) but his position appears tobe that while no mortal being will ever know about the gods with anydegree of certainty, we can at least avoid adopting beliefs andpractices clearly at odds with the special nature any divine beingmust be assumed to possess.

3. The Nature of the Divine

So far as is known, Xenophanes was the first Greek thinker to offer acomplex and at least partially systematic account of the divinenature. We have already noted how an implicit assumption of divineperfection may underlie his criticisms of Homer, Hesiod, and thetendency to imagine the gods in human form. Of the positivecharacterizations of the divine made in B23–26, perhaps the mostfundamental is B23:

One god greatest among gods and men,
not at all like mortals in body or in thought.

Although the remark has often been read as a pioneering expression ofmonotheism, this reading is made problematic by the nearby referenceto ‘gods’ in the plural in the first line and thepossibility that Xenophanes sought to highlight not theonegod but rather the onegreatest god (cf. Homer,Iliad 12, 243 for the use of ‘one’ (Greekheis) reinforcing a superlative). The relevant measures ofdivine ‘greatness’ are not specified, but the two mostobvious choices would be greatness in honor and power, with honorperhaps the more basic of the two (cf.Iliad 2, 350; 2, 412;4, 515;Od. 3, 378; 5,4; Hesiod,Theogony 49, 534,538, etc.). Greatness in power would in turn explain thecharacterizations of the divine as perceptive and conscious in all itsparts (B24), able to shake all things by the exercise of his thought(B25), and able to accomplish everything while remaining forever inthe same place or condition (B26). It is unclear, however, how farXenophanes himself realized the interconnections among the differentdivine attributes or sought to exploit those connections for didacticpurposes. At least as they have come down to us, none of the remarkson the divine nature (B23–26) contains any of the inferentialparticles (gar, epei, oun, hoti, etc.) one would normallyexpect to find in a piece of reasoned discourse.

Some later writers (A28.6, 31.2, 34–36) report that Xenophanesidentified his ‘one greatest god’ with the entire physicaluniverse—often termed ‘the whole’ or ‘allthings’, and some modern accounts portray Xenophanes as apantheist. But this understanding of Xenophanes’ doctrines seemsinconsistent with his assertion that “god shakes allthings” (B25) that “all things are from the earth and tothe earth all things come in the end” (B27), and that “allthings which come into being and grow, are earth and water”(B29). On the whole, Xenophanes’ remarks on the divine natureare perhaps best read as an expression of a traditional Greek piety:there exists a being of extraordinary power and excellence, and it isincumbent on each of us to hold it in high regard.

4. Social Criticism

Five fragments touch on traditional subjects of Greek sympoticverse—on proper conduct at symposia (drinking parties), themeasures of personal excellence, and the existence of various humanfoibles or failures. Xenophanes appears to have been particularlyinterested in identifying and discouraging conduct that failed to paydue honor to the gods or posed a risk to the stability and well-beingof the city (or perhaps both). Although these passages may beinsufficiently abstract and demonstrative in character to count as‘philosophical teachings’, they do represent an importantbridge between Greek poetry of the archaic period and the kind ofmoral theorizing practiced by many 5th and 4th-century thinkers.Xenophanes’ disparagement of the honors accorded to athletes(B2), his call to censor the stories the poets tell about the gods(B1), and counsel to live a life of moderation (B3 and 5, and perhapsB21) all anticipate views expressed in Plato’sRepublic(cf. 607a, 378b, 372b.) His criticism of the pursuit of uselessluxuries (B3) also anticipates Socrates’ rebuke of his fellowcitizens for caring more about wealth and power than about virtue (cf.Apology 30b.) His cautionary remarks about knowledge (B34)and reminder of the subjectivity of human taste (B38: “If godhad not made yellow honey, they would think that figs were farsweeter”) also reflect a traditional view of human judgment aslimited and conditioned by personal experience. In each of theseareas, Xenophanes’ social commentary represents a continuationof the Greek poetic tradition as well as a step toward explicitphilosophical theorizing.

5. Scientific Interests

We may reasonably conclude from several surviving fragments and alarge number oftestimonia that Xenophanes was well aware ofthe teachings of the Milesian philosopher-scientists (Thales,Anaximander, and Anaximenes), and sought to improve on them. Whilemany of the details of his own ‘scientific’ views remainobscure, the range and interconnectedness of his interests make him animportant figure in the development of Ionian scientific theory.Theodoretus, Stobaeus, and Olympiodorus (all in A 36) credit him witha view of earth as thearchê or “firstprinciple” of all things. Yet Galen (also in A36) rejects thisattribution, and B29 equates “all things which come into beingand grow” with “earthand water”. Atwo-substancearchê would, moreover, be compatible withthe many references to physical mixtures. A33 credits Xenophanes witha view of the sea as containing many mixtures, while B37 notes thepresence of water in rocky caves, and A50 reports a view of the soulas earth and water. Insofar as some natural bodies are described asconsisting entirely of water (or of a part of water, as in A46 where“the sweet portion” of the water is drawn up from the seaand separated off), it would be best to understand Xenophanes’“two-substance theory” in a distributed sense: all thingsare either earth, or water, or earth combined with water.

Xenophanes appears to have explored many of the same phenomena studiedat an earlier date by the Milesians. B28 presents a view of the natureand extent of the earth’s depths; B30 identifies the sea as thesource of clouds, wind, and rain; B32 comments on the nature of Iris(rainbow); B37 notes the presence of water in caves; B39 and 40mention “cherry trees” and “frogs”;A38–45 discuss various astronomical phenomena, and A48 indicatesan interest in periodic volcanic eruptions in Sicily. Hippolytus (A33)credits Xenophanes with a theory of alternating periods of world-wideflood and drought that was inspired, at least in part, by thediscovery of fossilized remains of sea creatures at inland locations.Whether or not Xenophanes himself traveled to Syracuse, Paros, andMalta where these remains were found, his use of this information asthe basis for a broad explanation of phenomena is an implicittestimonial to the heuristic value of information gained throughtravel and observation.

Manytestimonia credit Xenophanes with an interest inmeteorological and astronomical phenomena. Not only are these commentsof interest in their own right, they also present us what was arguablyhis single most important scientific contribution--his contention thatclouds or cloud-like substances play a basic role in a great manynatural phenomena. The termnephos (“cloud”)appears only twice in the fragments of his work (in B30 and 32) butmanytestimonia either bear directly on the nature of cloudsor make use of clouds in order to explain the nature of otherphenomena. To cite an example of the first type, according to DiogenesLaertius “he says…the clouds are formed by thesun’s vapor [i.e. vapor caused by the heat from the sun’srays] raising and lifting them to the surrounding air”(A1.24–5). Aëtius (A46) provides a similar account:

Xenophanes (says that) things in the heavens occur through the heat ofthe sun as the initial cause; for when the moisture is drawn up fromthe sea, the sweet portion, separating because of its fineness andturning into mists, combines into clouds, trickled down in drops ofrain due to compression, and vaporizes the winds.

B30 gives us essentially the same view in Xenophanes’ ownwords:

The sea is the source of water and of wind,
For without the great sea, there would be no wind
Nor streams of rivers, nor rainwater from on high
But the great sea is the begetter of clouds, winds, and rivers.

Having accounted for the formation of clouds in mechanistic termsthrough processes of vaporization and compression Xenophanes proceedsto make use of clouds to explain a large number of meteorological andastronomical phenomena. The general claim appears in thepseudo-PlutarchMiscellanies: “he says that the sun andthe stars come into being from the clouds” (A32), andAëtius gives us many specific applications:

The stars come into being from burning clouds (A38).

The sort of fires that appear on ships--whom some call the Dioscuri[St. Elmo’s fire]--are tiny clouds glimmering in virtue of thesort of motion they have (A39).

The sun consists of burning clouds…a mass of little fires,themselves constructed from the massing together of the moistexhalation (A40).

The moon is compressed cloud (A43).

All things of this sort [comets, shooting stars, meteors] are eithergroups or movements of clouds (A44).

Flashes of lightning come about through the shining of the cloudsbecause of the movement (A45).

As it happens, clouds are natural candidates for theexplanans in a scientific account. Since they are midway inform between a solid and gaseous state they are easily linked withsolids, liquids, and gases of various kinds. And since they occupy aregion midway between the surface of the earth and the upper regionsof the heavens, they are well positioned to link the two basicsubstances of earth and water with many astronomical phenomena.

Another important feature of Xenophanes’ cloud-based approach tounderstanding natural phenomena is the application of this theory to aset of phenomena closely linked with traditional religious belief. Wehave already seen this in the thoroughly naturalistic accounts givenof the “great sea”, sun, moon, and stars, but nowhere isthe contrast of the old and new ways of thinking more evident than inhis comments on “Iris”--rainbow:

And she whom they call Iris, this too is by nature a cloud.
Purple, red, and greenish-yellow to behold. (B32)

For the members of Xenophanes’ audience “Iris”referred to the messenger goddess of Homer’sIliad (2,686) and Hesiod’sTheogony (780) and a set ofatmospheric phenomena (halos, coronae, and cloud iridescence) commonlyconsidered portents or signs of the intentions of divine beings. Asthe daughter of Thaumas (“marvel”) Iris was the naturalmarvelparexcellence. Yet for Xenophanes,‘she’ is really an ‘it’ and a‘this’ (the Greek neuter demonstrativetouto), bynature a purple, red, and greenish-yellow cloud. It is, moreover,something that is there for us ‘to behold’ or ‘tolook at’ (idesthai). Perhaps nowhere in presocraticphilosophy can we find a clearer expression of the character of theIonian ‘intellectual revolution’—a decision to putaside an older way of thinking about events grounded in a belief indivine beings in favor of an approach to understanding the world thatemploys wide-ranging inquiry and direct observation and resorts tostrictly physical causes and forces. Having deprived the gods of humanform and clothing and removed the divine to some permanent and distantlocation, Xenophanes proceeds to strip a wide range of naturalphenomena of all vestiges of religious or spiritual significance. Hisde-mythologized account of natural phenomena is, in short, the logicalcomplement to his thoroughly de-naturalized account of the divinenature.

Despite its several virtues, Xenophanes’ physical theory appearsto have had little impact on later thinkers. Anaxagoras followed hislead on the nature of the rainbow (cf. DK 59 B19) and Empedocles knew(but repudiated) his claim of the earth’s indefinitely extendeddepths (DK 31 B39). But both Plato and Aristotle appear to haveignored Xenophanes’ scientific views or assigned them littleimportance. One factor that may have contributed to this chillyreception was the absence of any expression by Xenophanes of the kindof commitment to teleology that both Plato and Aristotle regarded asessential to a proper understanding of the cosmos. Xenophanes’universe is controlled by a set of forces, but it is never describedas “heading toward the best” nor is it directed towardsome best result by a controlling intelligence. (Xenophanes’divine does “shake all things” by the thought of his mind(alone), but he is never described as in any way directing orcontrolling particular events.) It is also obvious thatXenophanes’ heavenly bodies would have fallen far short of thelevel of perfection that, with Aristotle, became a hallmark ofclassical astronomical theory. Not only are Xenophanes’ heavenlybodies not divine beings, they undergo creation and destruction atregular intervals. Only from the perspective of a much later periodcan the merits of Xenophanes’ scientific views be fairlyappreciated. Many centuries would have to pass before an emphasis ondirect observation and the use of entirely natural causes and forceswould become the scientific orthodoxy.

6. Reflections on Knowledge

Five surviving fragments and roughly a dozentestimoniaaddress what might be termed ‘epistemologicalquestions’—“How much can any mortal being hope toknow?”, “Does truth come to us through our own efforts orby divine revelation?”, and “What role do our sensefaculties play in the acquisition of knowledge?” Unfortunately,the picture that emerges from many of thetestimonia largelycontradicts what appear to be the views Xenophanes himself expressed.According to the summary in the pseudo-PlutarchMiscellanies,Xenophanes “declares that the senses are deceptive and generallyrejects reason along with them” (A32.) Similarly, in hisConcerning Philosophy Aristocles reports that“…since they think that sense perceptions and appearancesmust be rejected and trust only reason. For at one earlier timeXenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus said something of thissort” (A49). Similarly, Aëtius declares that“Pythagoras, Empedocles, and Xenophanes (say that) senseperceptions are deceptive” (A49). Yet, as we have noted, B28refers without qualification to “the upper limit of the earththat is seen (horatai) here at our feet” and B32appears to encourage those in Xenophanes’ audience to‘look at’ or ‘observe’ (idesthai) themulti-colored cloud that is the rainbow. The realistic description ofthe sumptuous banquet in B1 and the wide range of Xenophanes’reported geographical and geological interests all sit poorly with anEleatic “rationalism” that would dismiss all informationgained through our faculties of sense and construct on the basis ofreason alone a view of “what is” as a motionless,changeless and eternal unity.

Xenophanes’ most extended comment on knowledge is B34:

…and of course the clear and certain truth no man has seen
nor will there be anyone who knows about the gods and what I say aboutall things.
For even if, in the best case, one happened to speak just of what hasbeen brought to pass,
still he himself would not know. But opinion is allotted to all.

Portions of these remarks were quoted, and thereby preserved forposterity, by the ancient skeptics who hailed Xenophanes as thefounder of their particular variety of philosophical skepticism.Recent interpretations of B34 reject the skeptical interpretation infavor of other less extreme readings. On some accounts, B34 isconcerned to deny only a direct perceptual awareness. Others find inhis comments a distinction between natural science, where onlyprobabilities can be achieved, and theology, where certainty ispossible. Still others read Xenophanes’ remarks as a blanketendorsement of “fallibilism”—the view that whileeach individual is free to express his or her opinion, the possibilityof error can never be completely excluded.

Since B34 opens with the phrase “and indeed…” it islikely that we do not have the whole of the remark, or all thepremises from which its main conclusion was intended to follow.However, the use of the termsaphes (“clear”, inthe first line of the fragment) by Xenophanes’ Ioniancontemporary, the historian Herodotus, provides a helpful clue to thelogic of the argument. At several points in hisHistoryHerodotus speaks of what issaphes, or what can be known in asapheôs manner, as what can be confirmed to be the caseon the basis of first-hand observation:

And wishing to gain sure knowledge of these things (thelônde toutôn peri saphes ti eidenai) from a point where thiswas possible, I took ship to Tyre in Phoenicia, where I heard therewas a very holy temple of Heracles. There I saw it (eidon)richly equipped… Then I went to Thasos where I also found atemple of Heracles…Therefore what I have discovered by inquiryclearly shows (ta men nun historêmena dêloisapheôs) that Heracles is an ancient god. (HistoryII, 44)

Since the gods were believed to inhabit a realm far removed from thatof mortal beings, it would be natural for Xenophanes to hold that noaccount of their nature and activities could possibly be confirmed onthe basis of first-hand observation, hence known for certain to becorrect. And since the pioneering cosmological accounts put forward byhis Milesian predecessors held that a single material substanceunderlay phenomena inall places and times it would beequally impossible for any individual to confirm such a universalclaim on the basis of first-hand observation, hence know for certainthat it was true—even if in fact it was true. The sentimentsexpressed in lines three and four can be read as reinforcing thiscautionary sentiment. Their point would be that no one (moreover)should be credited with knowledge (of the certain truth concerning thegods or the nature of all things) simply on the basis of havingcorrectly described, perhaps even predicted, individual events as theytake place (perhaps a reference to self-styled paragons of wisdom andpredictors of events such as Epimenides and Pythagoras). The overallmessage of B34, from its opening reference to “no man” toits concluding phrase “fashioned for all” would have beenthat there never has been nor ever will be anyone who has the capacityto achieve certainty with respect to these important matters.

Xenophanes’ reference to a second-best level of comprehension orawareness—‘opinion’ or ‘conjecture’(dokos) should not be read as inherently negative ordismissive. By Platonic standards, opinion—even whencorrect—would be an inferior possession, unstable and subject toremoval through persuasion. But we have no reason to assume thatXenophanes shared Plato’s view on this topic. And in fact B35,quoted by Plutarch in connection with encouraging a bashful speaker toexpress his views, appears to present what one ‘opines’ orbelieves in a fairly positive light:

…Let these things be believed (dedoxasthô) aslike the realities…

The similarity between the verbaldedoxasthô of B35 andthe nominativedokos of B34 permits us to combine the twofragmentary remarks into a single coherent view: of course there canbe no knowledge of the certain truth concerning the gods and the basicprinciples governing the cosmos, butdokos—opinion orconjecture—is available and should be accepted when itcorresponds with how things really are.

The full sense of B36, however, may never be determined. Neither itscontext (a grammatical treatise of Herodian) nor its wording(“…however many they have made evident for mortals tolook upon”) provides definitive guidance. Perhaps Xenophanes wasseeking to set an upper limit to the range of things that can be knownby human beings (i.e. to caution others that they could know only asmany as things as the gods had made available to them to experience).But it is equally possible that the remark was intended (as B32 above)to encourage the members of his audience to explore and inquire ontheir own (i.e. to encourage them to investigate “however manythings” the gods have made available to them to experience).

B18 has often been hailed as an expression of an optimistic outlook or“faith in human progress”—the conviction thathumankind has made and will continue to make improvements in the artsand conditions of life generally. Yet none of the other survivingfragments reflects such an optimism and several (e.g. B2 and 3)suggest that Xenophanes was not at all optimistic about hiscity’s prospects for survival. In the light of his reportedrepudiation of divination (A52), de-mythologizing of various naturalphenomena (B30 and 32), and evident enthusiasm for inquiry into a widerange of subjects, B18 is perhaps best read as an expression of faithin the value of ‘inquiry’ or ‘seeking’ as thepreferred approach to gaining knowledge of ‘allthings’.

To sum up: Xenophanes’ attitude toward knowledge appears to havebeen the product of two distinct impulses. While he believed thatinquiry in the form of travel and direct observation was capable ofyielding useful information about the nature of things, he remainedsufficiently under the influence of an older piety to want to cautionothers against seeking to understand matters that lay beyond thelimits of all human experience. Here, as in other aspects of histhought, Xenophanes stands with one foot in the world of the archaicpoet and the other in the “new science” of the late 6thand early 5th centuries BCE

7. Xenophanes’ Legacy

Many later writers identified Xenophanes as the teacher of Parmenidesand the founder of the Eleatic “school ofphilosophy”—the view that, despite appearances, what thereis is a motionless, changeless, and eternal ‘One’. Thisview of Xenophanes is based largely on Plato’s reference to“our Eleatic tribe, beginning from Xenophanes as well as evenearlier” (Sophist 242d) and Aristotle’s remarkthat “...with regard to the whole universe, he says that the oneis the god” (Meta. A5, 986b18), along with some verbalsimilarities between Xenophanes’ description of the “onegreatest, unmoving god” and Parmenides’ account of a“motionless, eternal, and unitary being”. But theXenophanes who speaks to us in the surviving fragments is acombination of rhapsode, social critic, religious teacher, and keenstudent of nature. Euripides’Heracles 1341 ff. echoeshis attack on the stories told about the gods by Homer and Hesiod(B11–12) and a passage of Euripides’Autolycusquoted by Athenaeus (C2) repeats portions of the attack on the honorsaccorded to athletes delivered in B2. In theRepublic, Platoshows himself the spiritual heir of Xenophanes when he states that theguardians of his ideal state are more deserving of honors and publicsupport than the victors at Olympia, criticizes the stories told aboutthe gods by the poets, and calls for a life of moderate desire andaction. A pronounced ethic of moderation, sometimes bordering onasceticism, runs through much of ancient Greek ethical thought,beginning with Solon and Xenophanes and continuing through Socratesand Plato to the Epicureans and Cynics. Xenophanes’ conceptionof a “one greatest god” who “shakes all things bythe thought (or will) of his mind” (noou phreni) mayhave helped to encourage Heraclitus’ belief in an‘intelligence’ (gnômê) that steersall things (B41), Anaxagoras’ account of thenous thatorders and arranges all things (B12), and Aristotle’s account ofa divinenous that inspires a movement toward perfectionwithout actually doing anything toward bringing it about(Metaphysics Lambda.)

In his Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697) Pierre Bayle beganthe modern philosophical discussion of the problem of evil by quotingXenophanes’ remark (as reported in Diogenes Laertius 9.19) that“most things give way to mind” (ta pollahêssô nou). Accepting the conjecture proposed by theclassical scholar Méric Casaubon, Bayle took Xenophanes to beasserting that God was unable to make all things conform to hisbenevolent will. Bayle then assembled a set of texts in support of theview that in fact the amount of evil in the universe far exceeds theamount of good. Bayle’s article sparked a reply from Leibniz (inhis Théodicée of 1710). In his Candide (1759), Voltairesupported Bayle’s view by ridiculing Leibniz’s contentionthat this is the best of all possible worlds. Although there may be nodirect line of influence, we may also consider Feuerbach’scritique of religious belief as a ‘projection’ of humanattributes, and Freud’s analysis of religious belief as aninstance of ‘wish-fulfillment’, as two modern successorsto Xenophanes’ observation of the general tendency of humanbeings to conceive of divine beings in terms of their own attributesand capacities.

Xenophanes’ most enduring philosophical contribution wasarguably his pioneering exploration of the conditions under whichhuman beings can achieve knowledge of the certain truth. Thedistinction between knowledge and true opinion set out in B34 quicklybecame an axiom of ancient Greek accounts of knowledge and survives inmodern garb as the ‘belief’ and ‘truth’conditions of the ‘standard’ or ‘tripartiteanalysis’ of knowledge. It can be plausibly argued that everylater Greek thinker, at least until the time of Aristotle, undertookto respond to the basic challenge posed in Xenophanes’B34—how, given the severely limited character of humanexperience, anyone can plausibly claim to have discovered the truthabout matters lying beyond anyone’s capacity to observefirst-hand. Xenophanes may also be credited with expanding the rangeof topics considered appropriate for philosophical inquiry anddiscussion. His Ionian predecessors had initiated the study ofphenomena “above the heavens and below the earth” but, sofar as we know, they did not turn their critical fire against theleading poets of ancient Greece nor did they seek through theirteachings to correct or improve the conduct of their fellow citizens.Although many aspects of his thought remain the subject of scholarlydebate, Xenophanes was clearly a multi-dimensional thinker who lefthis mark on many aspects of later Greek thought.

Bibliography

Books

• Bryan, Jenny, 2012,Likeness and Likelihood in thePresocratics and Plato, Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.
• Gemelli Marciano, M. L., 2007,Die Vorsokratiker. 1, Thales,Anaximander, Anaximenes, Pythagoras und die Pythagoreer, Xenophanes,Heraklit, Düsseldorf: Artemis and Winkler (in German).
• Heitsch, E., 1983,Xenophanes: Die Fragmente, Munich andZurich: Artemis Verlag (in German).
• –––, 1994,Xenophanes und die Anfangekritischen Denkens, Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und derLiteratur; Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag (in German).
• Lesher, J.H., 1992,Xenophanes of Colophon: Fragments: A Textand Translation with Commentary, Toronto: University of TorontoPress (Greek texts of the fragments; translation, commentary, andnotes in English).
• Palmer, J., 2010,Parmenides and Presocratic Philosophy,Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Schäfer, C., 1996,Xenophanes von Kolophon: einVorsokratiker zwischen Mythos und Philosophie, Stuttgart: B.G.Teubner (in German).
• Tor, S., 2017,Mortal and Divine in Early Greek Epistemology: AStudy of Hesiod, Xenophanes, and Parmenides, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.
• Untersteiner, M., 1956,Senofane: Testimonianze eframmenti, Florence: La “Nuova Italia” (Greek textsof the fragments, commentary in Italian).
• Wöhrle, G. and Strobel, B., 2020,Xenophanes,Berlin: de Gruyter (in German).

Articles or Chapters in Books

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• “Xenophanes Fragments”, Arthur Fairbanks, ed. and trans., London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner,1898), 65–85; scanned and proofread for the web by Aaron Gulyas(May 1998) and Jonathan Perry (March 2001), for the Hanover HistoricalTexts Project.
• Xenophanes, a short podcast by Peter Adamson (Philosophy, Kings CollegeLondon).

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