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Xenophanes

File:Xenophanes_in_Thomas_Stanley_History_of_Philosophy.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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Xenophanes

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Also known as Xenophanes of Colophon

Xenophanes of Colophon ( ; ; – c. 478 BC) was a Greek philosopher, theologian, poet, and critic of Homer. He was born in Ionia and travelled throughout the Greek-speaking world in early classical antiquity.

OverviewAI-generated

Xenophanes (570 BCE–478 BCE) was an Ancient Greek philosopher, poet, writer, and theologian. Born in Colophon, he was associated with the Pre-Socratic movement and held a deistic worldview. He died in Syracuse. His student included Parmenides, and he wrote in Ancient Greek.

His philosophical views included the statement that there is one god, greatest among gods and men, who is similar to mortals neither in shape nor in thought. He also noted that all things are from the earth and to the earth all things come in the end. Various sources list different counts of his works, with titles including *Testimonianze e frammenti* and *Tegen de fabels van weleer*.

Synthesized by Vinony from 35 facts across 8 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, Open Library, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, Wikiquote, Europeana Sparql, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born
ca. 570 B.C.
Died
ca. 478 B.C.
Works
8

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Gender
Male
Origin
Greece
Discogs

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
19
Total plays
392

Tags

latinized name

Xenophanes is the soon to be progressive project from acclaimed salt lake city multi-instrumentalist Nicholaos. A good mix of progressive, jazz, metal, and salsa, the midi tracks of the debut album Digiventure Land will blow your video game brain! <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Xenophanes">Read more on Last.fm</a>

via Last.fm · Xenophanes

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

  1. Die Fragmente

    · 1983 · cited 9x

  2. Testimonia, Part 2: Doctrine (D)

    · 2016

  3. Testimonia

    · 1999

  4. Testimonia, Part 3: Reception (R)

    · 2016

  5. Testimonia, Part 1: Person (P)

    · 2016

via Crossref · CC0

Quotes

  • “There is one god, greatest among gods and men, similar to mortals neither in shape nor in thought.”
  • “For all things are from the earth and to the earth all things come in the end.”

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Philosopher.region
Western philosophy
Philosopher.era
Pre-Socratic philosophy
Philosopher.birth_date
c. 570 BC
Philosopher.birth_place
Colophon, Ionian League
Philosopher.death_date
c. 478 BC (aged c. 92)
Philosopher.death_place
Syracuse, Sicily(modern-day Italy)
Philosopher.main_interests
Social criticismKataphasisNatural philosophyEpistemology
Philosopher.notable_ideas
Religious polytheistic views as human projectionsEarth and water is the arche The distinction between knowledge and mere true belief.
Philosopher.image
Xenophanes in Thomas Stanley History of Philosophy.jpg
Philosopher.image_size
190px
Philosopher.caption
Fictionalized portrait of Xenophanes from a 17th-century engraving

via Wikipedia infobox

Works in European collections

2 objects attributed to Xenophanes, held across European museums, libraries & archives · via Europeana

Xenophanis Colophonii carminum reliquiae

Xenophanis Colophonii carminum reliquiae

Reliquiae operum Philosophorum Graecorum veterum, praesertim qui ante Platonem floruerunt.. Recensuit et illustravit Simon Karsten. 1,1. Xenophanis Colophonii Carminum Reliquiae : De Vita Ejus Et Studiis Disseruit ... Simon Karsten

Reliquiae operum Philosophorum Graecorum veterum, praesertim qui ante Platonem floruerunt.. Recensuit et illustravit Simon Karsten. 1,1. Xenophanis Colophonii Carminum Reliquiae : De Vita Ejus Et Studiis Disseruit ... Simon Karsten

~18 min read

Encyclopedic overview

31 sections
Contents
  • Life
  • Poems
  • Satires
  • ''On Nature''
  • Philosophy
  • Social criticism
  • Divine nature
  • Natural philosophy
  • Epistemology
  • Legacy and influence
  • Influence on Eleatics
  • Influence on Pyrrhonism
  • Pantheism
  • Notes
  • References
  • Bibliography
  • Ancient primary sources
  • Biography
  • Apothegems
  • Descriptions of poems
  • Doctrines
  • Fragments, elegies
  • Fragments, silloi
  • Fragments, ''On Nature''
  • Imitation
  • Modern criticism
  • Modern scholarship
  • Translations of the fragments with commentary
  • Extended studies and reviews
  • Further reading
  • External links

Xenophanes of Colophon ( ; ; – c. 478 BC) was a Greek philosopher, theologian, poet, and critic of Homer. He was born in Ionia and travelled throughout the Greek-speaking world in early classical antiquity.

As a poet, Xenophanes was known for his critical style, writing poems that are considered among the first satires. He composed elegiac couplets that criticised his society's traditional values of wealth, excesses, and athletic victories. He criticised Homer and the other poets in his works for representing the gods as foolish or morally weak. His poems have not survived intact; only fragments of some of his work survive in quotations by later philosophers and literary critics.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Xenophanes” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (10)

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via Wikidata sitelinks · CC0