Xenophanes

Greek philosopher

• Born: c. 570 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Colophon, Asia Minor (now near Ephesus, Turkey)
• Died: c. 478 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Magna Graecia (now in southern Italy)

Xenophanes’ critique of the Homeric gods marks the beginning of both systematic theology and the rational interpretation of myth in ancient Greek society.

Early Life

The childhood of Xenophanes (zeh-NOF-uh-neez), like that of most early Greek philosophers, is shrouded in mystery. By the time that Xenophanes himself appears in the literary record of ancient Greece, he is already a grown man, traveling from town to town as a professional poet. Scholars cannot even be certain of his father’s name, since several ancient authorities have listed it as Dexius, others as Dexinus, and still others as Orthomenes. Scholars are certain, however, that Xenophanes was born in the city of Colophon (near the coast of Asia Minor) sometime during the middle of the sixth century b.c.e. Moreover, it is likely that he left this area in his youth, probably as the result of Persia’s policy of imperial expansion. It was, then, during the very period of Xenophanes’ youth that the Persian conquest of new territories began to lead, inevitably, to war between Persia and Greece.

Xenophanes himself would later allude to this stage of his life with these ambiguous words, taken from what is known as fragment 8:

Already there have been seven and sixty years tossing my thoughts up and down the land of Greece. And from my birth there were another twenty-five in addition to these, if indeed I know how to speak truly of such things.

Since in another fragment Xenophanes had mentioned “the coming of the Mede,” it seems probable that he left Colophon at about the time that this city fell to Harpagus the Mede in 546. For the rest of his life, Xenophanes would support himself through his poetry. He became a traveling rhapsodist, composing songs on various topics as he journeyed throughout the Greek world. Unlike many other archaic rhapsodists, however, Xenophanes used only his own compositions in his performances. It is probably from these works that the extant fragments are derived.

Diogenes Laertius states that Xenophanes spent much of his life in Sicily. Other authorities support this view, maintaining that Xenophanes had participated in founding the city of Elea, in what is modern Italy. Xenophanes, according to these scholars, is thus the spiritual forebear of the philosophers known as the Eleatics and one of the actual founders of Elea itself. The accuracy of this claim seems questionable, however, and the belief that Xenophanes was instrumental in founding Elea may have arisen solely because the philosopher had written a poem commemorating the event. In fact, Xenophanes seems unlikely to have had any permanent residence; he must have spent most of his life traveling extensively throughout Greece and Sicily, pausing in each community only for brief periods.

Xenophanes’ lifelong travels had a profound influence on his thought. For example, after he had observed fossils in a quarry near Syracuse, Xenophanes developed the theory that life on earth is cyclic: Those creatures who had lived in earlier eras, he believed, were repeatedly “dissolved” by the encroaching seas, and life had to develop all over again. Yet even more important than what Xenophanes observed during these travels was his contact with the intellectual revolution in Greek philosophy, which, by this time, was well under way. For example, Thales of Miletus, whose views about the composition of matter are regarded as the origin of Greek philosophy, had by then been active for more than forty years. Anaximander, who was Thales’ successor and who had originated the notion of the apeiron (the “unbounded” or “unlimited” as the source of all creation), died in about the same year that Colophon fell. Anaximenes of Miletus, who had believed that all matter was composed of rarefied or contracted air, is also likely to have lived in roughly the same period as Xenophanes.

The ideas of these philosophers were of great importance in the Greek world where Xenophanes traveled, lived, and wrote his poetry. The young philosopher seems to have listened to the theories of his predecessors, considered them, and then combined their views with his own thought to create the subjects of his songs. Unlike many other pre-Socratics, however, Xenophanes has left the modern world substantial portions of his poetry, written down either by himself or by those who studied with him. It is from these surviving words of Xenophanes—about 120 lines in all—that modern readers are able to form their clearest picture of the philosopher and of his life’s work.

Life’s Work

As was common among the pre-Socratic philosophers, Xenophanes devoted a substantial portion of his thought to considering the nature of the physical universe. Although it is uncertain whether he actually wrote the work titled Peri physeōs (on nature), which Stobaeus and Pollux attributed to him, a large number of Xenophanes’ surviving fragments are concerned with matters of astronomy and the weather. In these passages, Xenophanes reveals that he was strongly influenced by Anaximenes, who had argued that clouds were merely condensed, or “thickened,” masses of air. Xenophanes expressed a similar view, substituting only the notion of “sea” or “water” for that of air. In Xenophanes’ theory, the sea gives rise to the clouds, winds, and rivers; the sun and heavenly bodies are created from thickened, or “ignited,” bits of cloud. Rainbows, too, are said to be nothing more than colored fragments of cloud.

In two other passages, Xenophanes says that everything in the universe is made of earth and water. This theory is apparently an attempt to combine Thales’ recognition that water is necessary to life and, as ice or steam, can change its shape with Anaximenes’ belief that there must be some general process (condensation or rarefaction) that accounts for this change. That same general line of thought may also lie behind Xenophanes’ belief that each day the sun is created anew, arising from fiery bits of dilated cloud.

Yet far more influential than these physical theories of Xenophanes were the philosopher’s theological views and his statements about the nature of God. Xenophanes disagreed with earlier authors such as Homer and Hesiod who had presented the gods as immoral and had endowed them with the same physical traits and limitations as ordinary men. In two famous fragments, Xenophanes criticized the common assumption that the gods were merely immortal creatures similar in most ways to ordinary human beings:

The Ethiopians claim that their gods are snub-nosed and black, the Thracians that theirs have blue eyes and blond hair. . . . But if cows and horses or lions had hands or could draw and do all the other things that men do, then horses would draw images of the gods which look like horses, and cows like cows, and they would depict the bodies of their gods in the same form as they had themselves.

The argument here is that all people wrongly assume the gods to be like themselves, in form and (it is suggested) in their vices and faults.

Xenophanes’ own understanding of divinity was quite different. To begin with, Xenophanes was a monotheist, believing that there exists only a single god who is unlike humankind both in form and in character. Second, Xenophanes said that this deity perceives the universe differently from humankind, using all of its “body” simultaneously to think, to hear, and to see. Finally, in two important fragments, Xenophanes anticipated Aristotle’s theory of the Prime Mover, asserting that this one god remains in a single place and guides the universe without movement, relying solely on the power of Mind.

Yet, by Xenophanes’ own admission, even these statements about divinity are subject to debate. For “no man,” he says, “either has known or will know the clear truth about the gods. . . . Belief [and not certain knowledge] is produced for all men.” While not as general in focus as the skepticism of Plato’s Academy, Xenophanes’ remarks here do anticipate some of the views that would arise in later periods of Greek philosophy. His distinction between “believing” and “knowing,” for example, was to have a crucial influence on the work of Plato himself. Moreover, Xenophanes’ theory that human knowledge is necessarily limited would reappear in the works of many later Platonic scholars.

Significance

If Xenophanes’ statements about his life in fragment 8 are to be believed, he had already reached the age of ninety-two when those words were written. Xenophanes’ lifetime would have encompassed a period of Greek history that witnessed the birth of both tragedy and philosophy in the Western world. At the time of his death, the Persian Wars were drawing to a close and the classical period of Greek history was about to begin.

The picture of Xenophanes that emerges from his writings is thus that of a man who was representative of his day: diverse in his interests, immensely curious, and unwilling to remain content with the dogma of the past. These are traits that characterize many of the other pre-Socratic philosophers as well.

Yet Xenophanes was also important for the impact that he would have on later scholars. His perception of divinity would influence Aristotle and, ultimately, Saint Thomas Aquinas. His belief that human knowledge was inherently limited was to reemerge in the skepticism of the Academy. Xenophanes was, in other words, a pivotal figure who helped to transform the empirical philosophy of antiquity into the more metaphysical philosophy of the classical age.

Bibliography

Fraenkel, H. “Xenophanes’ Empiricism and His Critique of Knowledge.” In The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Alexander P. D. Mourelatos. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1974. Fraenkel uses Xenophanes’ theory of knowledge, and his rejection of early beliefs about the gods, as the basis for an exploration of the philosopher’s worldview. Perhaps the best short summary available on the thought and contribution of Xenophanes to Greek philosophy.

Freeman, Kathleen. Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A Complete Translation of the Fragments in Diels, “Fragmente der Vorsokratiker.” Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971. The most convenient source of information for anyone who is interested in examining the surviving texts of the pre-Socratics. Freeman translates, without commentary or interpretation, all the fragments included in Diels’s exhaustive edition of the pre-Socratics.

Freeman, Kathleen. The Pre-Socratic Philosophers. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953. In this excellent survey, Freeman, taking each historical figure in turn, digests and summarizes all that is known about the philosophical views of the pre-Socratics. The fragments on which she has based her information are all listed in concise footnotes. A very thorough summary of the philosopher’s life begins each entry. At the end of the work is an invaluable list that presents, in a sentence or two, an encapsulated view of what is known about the authors who are the sources for the fragments.

Jaeger, Werner Wilhelm. “Xenophanes’ Doctrine of God.” In The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers. Translated by Edward S. Robinson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. The premise of Jaeger’s book is that the pre-Socratics are important for their theological views as well as for their (more famous) doctrines on the physical universe. Xenophanes, as arguably the most theological of the pre-Socratics, naturally plays a central role in this work.

Kirk, Geoffrey S., and John E. Raven. The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts. 1957. Rev. ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. A useful summary of pre-Socratic philosophers and their philosophy, containing both the major texts of the philosophers and reliable commentary on those texts. The extant fragments are grouped by topic rather than by number (as in many other editions). The 1983 edition contains more recent interpretations and a much-improved format: Translations follow Greek passages immediately, rather than in footnotes. Includes a short but important bibliography on each author.

Xenophanes. Xenophanes of Colophon: Fragments, a Text and Translation with a Commentary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992. Greek text with English translation and commentary by J. H. Lesher. A solid translation with helpful commentary. Includes bibliographical references and an index.