Xenophanes, son of Dixios or, as Apollodorus of Orthomne of Colophon, was a philosopher , poet , born in Colophon ( Ionia ) (now Turkey) and scientific Greek. Exiled from Colophon fell under the domination Persian , he seems to have emigrated to Sicily and fleeing first to Zancle and Catania, before going to Elea or he created the school of Elea. It is not known if he died or if he finally returned to Colophon. He seems to have lived very old, if one believes the few who remained to him.

Summary 1 Biography 2 Philosophical doctrine 3 Doctrines and scientific beliefs 4 Bibliography 4.1 Fragments and Testimonials 4.2 Studies 5 Notes 6 See also 7 References

Biography

The dates for the period he lived still very controversial .

Philosophical doctrine

It would follow, or at least listened to the teaching of Anaximander and seems to be informed of the Milesian cosmology. We also know by Diogenes Laertius , that Xenophanes vigorously fought the system of Pythagoras, as well as systems Epimide and Thales , and he was best known for his violent criticism of the anthropomorphic descriptions that Hesiod and Homer made the gods.

Clement of Alexandria quotes Xenophanes:

"If oxen and lions had hands and could paint like men do, they would give to the gods they all draw bodies like theirs, putting the horses in the shape of horses, oxen in the shape of oxen. "

It then leases the philosopher of having incorporeal God and saying:

"Unique and almighty, sovereign of the strongest,

God is like us or mind or body. Humans, by the gods in their image,

Them their thoughts, their voices and faces. "

- ( Clement of Alexandria , Stromata Doctrines and scientific beliefs

In antiquity, a thinker was as much a philosopher as a "scholar". Xenophanes, like other Greek thinkers, too, had proposed his own worldview, cosmology, explanations of natural phenomena.

For Xenophanes Indeed, the Earth was flat and infinite or not floating on the water as claimed by Thales , nor in a vacuum as was Anaximander , she had no limits, nor sideways, or below and s extending in all directions. The stars: Sun, Comets, Planets clouds were glowing. The movement of the stars was straight, so the stars we saw were never the same. Each evening they went out into the sea or the desert and there was, by extension, an infinity of different Suns. He said the world was coming to Earth and one day return to Earth. For now, it was made from a mixture of earth and water with intermediate states consisting of mud. To prove the interweaving of these elements in the other, he had the idea to refer to fossils of plants, fish and shellfish found near Syracuse. Xenophanes attributed the presence of petrified shells found near the sea and the fish prints quarries of Sicily that the sea had once covered the continent.

These considerations should not be considered solely from the standpoint of their scientific values, what is important here is more the problem that arose Xenophanes that the explanations he offers in response.

Bibliography

Fragments and Testimonials

Studies

• Eduard Zeller , The Philosophy of the Greeks (1844-1852), vol. I and II, trans. Emile Boutroux, Paris, 1882 Read Online Volume 2 on Gallica

Notes

See also

• Eleatic school
• Parmenides
• Origin of Philosophy

References

• The Presocratics, Gallimard, coll. "The Pleiades", Paris, 1988.