Xenophanes of Colophon: founder of the Greek Enlightenment

What is it about?

Despite several attempts, amongst others from K.R. Popper, to re-evaluate the importance of Xenophanes of Colophon, this poet/philosopher is still frequently seen as a “somewhat precarious” figure in the history of philosophy. Xenophanes is mainly remembered for his bitter attacks on the anthropomorphic character of the Olympic gods, while his epistemology was discarded by Empedocles and Aristotle as being “too naïve”. This article tries to examine some of the reasons for this disqualification by analysing Popper’s attempt to rehabilitate Xenophanes as “the founder of the Greek enlightenment”.

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Why is it important?

Xenophanes is one of the first philosophers to reflect on the limitations of human knowledge and does not deserve to be discarded as "too naive".

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