I open this post with Xenophanes's rejection of the traditional Greek Olympian gods. This struck me for a few reasons one being that after reading the trial and death of Socrates, this to me seems like a punishable offense in some city-states in ancient Greece. Also struck me that he has a belief in a unmoving, but all seeing, all hearing and all thinking god. Close to what most monotheistic religions of today think of as an All Good, all powerful, and All knowing god (AGAPAK god for short). He also believes in a gap between what humans can possible know and what this god knows. And to differ from the beliefs that people can know all he makes the distinction between knowing and believing. This further separating humans and this god. Making another parallel to monotheistic religions of today. He also believed that because we are human we are inclined to believes that gods look like us but if a horse or oxen could draw and think like humans their gods would look like horse or oxen. He believed that god was non-anthropomorphic or did not look like humans.
Like most pre-socratic philosophers not a lot is know about his life. He was born in Colophon in Asia Minor, near Miletus, in abut 570 BCE. He focused on religious and philosophical topics with some poems. But in later account of his views, he shifted focus on natural philosophy like the Milesians.
good sense of what Xenophanes believed. What I find interesting is that these views about the divine were around long before Socrates.
ReplyDeleteYour connection to Socrates is nice as it leads us to consider that there could have been great costs for Xenophanes having the views he had.
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