Xenophanes

The poet-philosopher Xenophanes of Colophon (in Ionia, now western Turkey) was active in the 6th to 5th centuries bce. While his precise dates are uncertain, it is plausible that he was born toward the beginning of the 6th century (perhaps around 570–560 bce), and he himself claimed to have lived into his nineties. The biographical tradition suggests that he traveled widely, and he is often associated with Elea, in southern Italy. On some accounts, he is named as the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, and even as the teacher of its most prominent figure, Parmenides of Elea, but neither claim is certain. Xenophanes composed verse in both hexameter and elegiac meter, but only some forty-five fragments of his work survive. These fragments are preserved as quotations in the works of various later authors, and our understanding of Xenophanes relies on reading these in combination with the ancient testimonia (accounts given by other authors) on his life and thought. The elegiac fragments indicate a concern with proper behavior within the civic and sympotic contexts. Some of his hexameter fragments are critical, particularly of contemporary theology, and these came to be labelled Silloi (Satires). Xenophanes is often classed as part of the tradition of Ionian natural philosophy, and some of the fragments indicate an interest in providing rationalizing explanations of natural phenomena as well as a commitment to earth, water, and cloud as basic physical principles. Xenophanes is perhaps best known as a critic of contemporary anthropomorphic religion, which he appears to have rejected in favor of some sort of rational monotheism. His rejection of anthropomorphic religion is tied to criticism of Homer and Hesiod as its most prominent representatives. In addition to his interests in morality, theology, and natural philosophy, Xenophanes offers a couple of intriguing epistemological fragments, and there is a long-running debate over the nature and extent of his skepticism. Scholars have noted a possible connection between Xenophanes’ concerns with civic propriety and critique of the gods in poetry on ethical grounds and similar ideas found in Plato’s Republic. Xenophanes’ fragments do not present philosophical argument as such, tending instead toward assertion and critique. Scholarship on Xenophanes’ thought tends to rely on attempts to build up implications and connections within and between the fragments.