Xenophanes

For the last 2,500 years literature has been attacked, booed, and condemned, often for the wrong reasons and occasionally for very good ones. ‘The Hatred of Literature’ examines the evolving idea of literature as seen through the eyes of its adversaries: philosophers, theologians, scientists, pedagogues, and even leaders of modern liberal democracies. From Plato to C. P. Snow to Nicolas Sarkozy, literature’s haters have questioned the value of literature―its truthfulness, virtue, and usefulness―and have attempted to demonstrate its harmfulness.

Literature does not start with Homer or Gilgamesh, William Marx says, but with Plato driving the poets out of the city, like God casting Adam and Eve out of Paradise. That is its genesis. From Plato the poets learned for the first time that they served not truth but merely the Muses. It is no mere coincidence that the love of wisdom (philosophia) coincided with the hatred of poetry. Literature was born of scandal, and scandal has defined it ever since.

In the long rhetorical war against literature, Marx identifies four indictments―in the name of authority, truth, morality, and society. This typology allows him to move in an associative way through the centuries. In describing the misplaced ambitions, corruptible powers, and abysmal failures of literature, anti-literary discourses make explicit what a given society came to expect from literature. In this way, anti-literature paradoxically asserts the validity of what it wishes to deny. The only threat to literature’s continued existence, Marx writes, is not hatred but indifference.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Words from Elsewhere
First Trial: Authority
Second Trial: Truth
Third Trial: Morality
Fourth Trial: Society
Conclusion
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

Nell’arco di un cinquantennio, l’itinerario di ricerca di Néstor Cordero ha ruotato prevalentemente intorno al pensiero di Parmenide di Elea. Oltre ad alcuni libri capitali, Cordero ha dedicato all’Eleate numerose pubblicazioni, alcune delle quali oggi non più facilmente reperibili. Questo volume raccoglie venti scritti di Cordero (tra articoli, contributi a volumi collettivi e conferenze) nelle versioni originali in francese e in spagnolo, dedicati sia alla ricostruzione del testo del poema di Parmenide, sia all’interpretazione del suo pensiero e di quello dei suoi cosiddetti “eredi”. Ritornando su questi testi, sarà possibile misurare quanto la storia della tradizione testuale abbia compromesso la comprensione del pensiero parmenideo, e scoprire non solo come sia necessaria una messa in discussione dell’interpretazione classica di Parmenide, ma anche come sia in fondo scorretto ritenere che sia effettivamente esistita una “scuola” eleatica.

Feuerbach is known for his unmasking of the concept of God insofar he solved it in a celestial idealization of the human essence. Xenophanes already rejected the popular idea of the gods, which were described as deified human beings. Our purpose is to compare the process both thinkers followed, because both set the human as the focus of their arguments. Xenophanes’ divinity retained some aspect in common with humans and such a God, despite his diversity from men and his transcendence, is human enough, so that he cannot be taken as a rival of man. Ultimately, one should point out how Christianity fits into this humanistic line of understanding of God and His relationship with man.

A discussion of the quarrel of philosophy and poetry in its various stages in the history of western ideas: from the early poets (e.g., Homer), to the first philosophic attack on poetry (e.g., Xenophanes), to the poetic counter-attack against philosophy (e.g., Aristophanes), to the classical synthesis (e.g., Plato), to the modern solution (Machiavelli to Nietzsche).

La han atacado, denunciado, condenado, con todos los pretextos, bajo todos los regímenes, con las mejores o las peores intenciones, por malas razones y a veces inclusos por buenas. Exiliaron a los poetas, quemaron sus libros -o simplemente expresaron el deseo de hacerlo. Son 2500 años en que la literatura está sujeta a todas las críticas ya todas las acusaciones de parte de filósofos y teólogos, de curas y pedagogos, de científicos y sociólogos, de reyes, de emperadores e incluso de presidentes.

De Platón a Nicolás Sarkozy, este libro provee todas las piezas de ese juicio asombroso, hace el retrato de una increíble galería de grotescos y de ridículos, y retrasa a su manera otra historia de la literatura occidental desde los orígenes, plena de ruido y de furor, de estupidez, de ignorancia, con sus querellas y sus combates, sus derrotas y sus triunfos, sus estrategas, sus traidores y sus héroes.

Con el odio a la literatura se revela la cara oculta de la historia de la literatura -la que le da tal vez su sentido verdadero.

TABLA DE CONTENIDO

Introducción. LITERATURA Y ANTILITERATURA

Prólogo. UNA PALABRA VENIDA DE OTRO LUGAR
Escena ordinaria de la guerra de Troya. Lo que vive Treuco. Deíctico, locomotora y par de tijeras. Lo que vive Helena. La Odisea como meta-epopeya. La Musa. Historia de flores y de Mamuts. El aedo chamán. Relatos de posesión. Danzar sobre el Parnaso. El verso y el trance. Elogio del autodidacta.

Primer juicio. AUTORIDAD 
Héctor saliendo de un sombrero. Génesis de la literatura. El poeta desnudo y exiliado. Parábola de los dos reyes. Jenófanes de Colofón. Autoridad en materia de elefantes que se balancean. Violencia de Heráclito. La vaca de Arquíloco y los piojos de Homero. Tres intentos de definición de la literatura. Un arma de seducción masiva. La mentira, privilegio de Estado. Versatilidad del poeta. La verdad es una idea nueva. Cómo la filosofía reescribió La Odisea. El primer auto de fe. El viejo orador celoso. Un mundo sin revelación. La revolución cultural del presidente Platón. Sin República en la República. Jesús y Pablo contra los letrados. El sorprendente ascenso del novelista católico. Tres santos al rescate de la literatura. Mala conciencia de Isidoro. Un salmo antiliterario. ¿Vale más quemar a los herejes o a los gramáticos? Santidad del barbarismo. A Dios no le preocupa la gramática. Los poetas son paganos. Cómo Tomás de Aquino salvó la literatura. La antiliteratura en Roma.

Segundo juicio. VERDAD
Cinco horas en Cambridge. Donde John F. Kennedy hizo una breve aparición. Una falsa simetría. La homofobia acorde con la antiliteratura. Que la literatura nos lleva directamente a Auschwitz. Benda, un moderado que se ignora. Los escritores son cobardes. Adorno. Una esperanza de Nobel para el barón Snow. Leavis finalmente llegó. Tercera cultura en tercer reino. Arnold y Huxley. La risa homérica del señor Renan. Los niños que se chupan el pulgar. ¿El señor Spock interesado en la literatura? El topógrafo y los poetas. Dios, ¡Qué aburrida la poesía! Traducción sin originales. Abrazo a la poesía, pero para sofocarla. Volver a Platón. Cuando los poetas atacaban a la filosofía. El ideal clásico del hombre sin letras. La taza de café contra la taza de té. El behaviorismo de Homero, Shakespeare y algunos otros. El mito del escritor loco y del nazi amante de literatura. Las luchas por el territorio.

Tercer juicio. MORALIDAD
Madame Bovary en el siglo XVII. Historia de familia. Que se puede ser al mismo tiempo helenista, protestante, liberal y galante. Calvinismo de Sócrates. El hijo prodigio, y la metodología que va con ello. La mejor helenista de Francia. El hijo pródigo y parricida. Los poetas contra natura. La escuela del vicio. David y Moisés, ¿eran ellos poetas? Inmoralidad de la forma y futilidad de la poesía. Una condena burguesa de la literatura. Donde un joven y simpático campeón de la causa literaria hace su entrada. De la cremación de libros heréticos. Un santo patrón y mártir de la antiliteratura. Hacer el tonto con el tonto. Contra la castración de los escritores. El censor censurado. El duelo de los hijos. Versatilidad de Virgilio. Ideal de una poesía seria y sincera. Racine hijo y padre. Psicoanálisis de la antiliteratura. Una crisis de adolescencia prolongada. Un queso de olor pronunciado. Inestabilidad de la lección moral. Todo lector es inmaduro. Un concurso de antiliteratura. Cómo la poesía derribó dos imperios. Hipótesis de poeta zapatero. Rousseau, incendiario de bibliotecas. El ablandamiento literario. Premisas del arte por el arte. Mardi gras en Florencia. La hoguera de las vanidades. Orfeo, el primer sodomita. Las verdades que no hay que decir. Un ciudadano es siempre menor. Irracionalidad de la poesía. Apología de una literatura soviética y sulpiciana. Respuesta de un discípulo a su maestro. Las intrigas virtuosas no tienen ninguna virtud. De la utilidad de las malas pasiones. Platón atrapado en flagrante delito de poesía. Lectura de novelas y la enfermedad del Alzheimero Cuando el veneno es también la cura.

Cuarto juicio. SOCIEDAD
Sueños de auto de fe. ¿Qué mandato para los escritores? La cajera y La Princesa de eleves. Contra la lectura obligatoria de las obras maestras. Cuando un presidente se mortifica por una princesa. Un enigma de la historia literaria. Cuestiones de cultura general. De minimis non curat praetor. ¡Madame de La Fayette, aquí estamos! Francia, nación literaria. Cinco desdichados proustianos alrededor de una mesa. ¡El odio a la literatura! "A pesar de que sea para los doctos un argumento jocoso..." El poeta y el Rey-Sargento. La venganza de un príncipe. Aparición furtiva del Emperador. Variaciones sobre el tema "Si yo tuviera hijos" Prohibición de estudiar la gramática. El odio por los libros y por la manía de escribir. Un profesor de equitación sin educación. Adiós a la poesía y la antinovela. Boína verde de los poetas y estrella amarilla. Una solución final. La antiliteratura se burla de la antiliteratura. La ofensiva de los sociólogos. El nacimiento de los cultural studies. Una colusión antiliteraria objetiva. La literatura como instrumento de segregación. Crítica de la escuela republicana. Antiliteraturas democrática y aristocrática. La literatura nunca tiene razón.

Conclusión. LA CARA OCULTA DE LA LITERATURA

Agradecimientos

Notas

The author argues that Jose Rizal’s mature philosophy of religion  is a combination of agnostic realism and deism, or in short it can properly be described as agnostic deism. It  affirms the existence of a God who  does not  interfere  in  human  affairs  and whose attributes cannot be exactly known.

This paper investigates whether and to what extent Xenophanes could be considered a forerunner of so-called Greek ‘Rationalismus’ (or, according to old-fashioned historico-philosophical patterns, Greek ‘Enlightenment’). Above all, it seeks to understand his conception of human ‘progress’ as it emerges from a fragment that is quoted twice by Stobaeus, viz. 21 B 18 DK (= Xen 204 & 220). So far, this fragment has been read according to three main interpretations: 1) a ‘rationalistic’ interpretation, which considers Xenophanes the forerunner of a ‘secular’ anthropocentrism and of a polemical rejection of any idea of divine disclosure/revelation; 2) a (moderately) ‘progressive’ interpretation, which denies any reference to Kulturgeshichte in the fragment, making it only proof of Xenophanes’ ‘faith’ in the possibilities of mankind to improve its condition; 3) an ‘epistemological’ interpretation, which links the fragment to the image of Xenophanes as a scientist and to his ‘sceptical’ conception of human knowledge. First formulated by M. Untersteiner, this last interpretation is corrected in this paper with respect to two points: a) Xenophanes does not consider himself a God-like sage detached from other people, but rather a scientist and an educator who makes the limits of human reason a conditio sine qua non for the progress of human knowledge; b) Xenophanes’ theological fragments (on his so-called ‘monotheism’ and the attributes of God) are to be read as an attempt to justify the orderly (and therefore theoretically recognizable) structure of reality. Men and God use the same tools of knowledge (‘reason’ and sense perceptions), but God, unlike men, is able to know in a non-partial way and to preserve himself whole. ‘Faith’ in scientific progress, based on an awareness of the ‘divine’ nature of the cosmos, the limited nature of human ‘reason,’ and the continuous (potential) improvement of the steps reached: these are the elements that, to some extent, could be said to make Xenophanes an Aufklärer without running the risk of anachronism.

NB/ cultura CULTURA PRESOCRATICA ha preparato la strada a un volune che ora sta per essere pubblicato, RIPENSARE I PRESOCRATICI.
Di questo libro è disponibile una sinossi. Si trova qui:
https://www.academia.edu/82498263/Ripensare_i_presocratici_SINOSSI_2022

[ last update: 08.06.2020 ]       
INDICE:        Il programma (p. 1) ― An overview / Uno sguardo all'insieme (p. 2) ―  0. Preliminarmente (p. 9) ― 1. Omero (p. 12) ― 2. Saffo (p. 19) ― 3. Talete (p. 26) ― 4. Anassimandro (p. 35) ― 5. Anassimene (p. 46) ― 5bis. Ecateo (p. 55) ― 6. Senofane (p. 59) ― 7. Eraclito (p. 67) ― 8. Pitagora (p. 77)  ―  8bis. Alcmeone (p. 84) ― 9. Parmenide, I parte (p. 88) ― 10. Parmenide, II parte (p. 100) ― 11. Melisso (p. 109) ― Zenone (p. 117).
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Una intera serie di incontri sui Presocratici (e su un articolato insieme di altri intellettuali coevi) ha avuto luogo a Perugia tra il novembre 2017 e il maggio 2018.
Su Youtube sono disponibili sette video. Qui il settimo della serie:: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnG1hsGquYA
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A whole series of public talks, devoted to the Presocratics (plus other Greek 'intellectuals' who were active in the same period) took place in Perugia between November 2017 and May 2018..
On Youtube seven videos are available. Just digit 'Cultura presocratica'. The last one:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnG1hsGquYA

Ksenophanes şair ve filozof kimliğiyle 21. yüzyılın insanını sadece evrenin ve insanın varoluşunu düşünmeye ve sorgulamaya değil, aynı zamanda bizzat toplumun içinde yanlış bildiğimizi yüksek sesle eleştirmeye de çağırıyor. Hiç kuşku yok ki bu, bugünün yanlış inanç ve âdetlerinden sıyrılacak olan yarınki kuşaklarda da yankı bulacak bir çağrıdır. Bu çalışma MÖ 6. yüzyılda yaşayan Ksenophanes’in hayatı ve düşünceleriyle ilgili antik literatürdeki en eski kaynaklar olan fragmanlarının Eski Yunanca ve Latinceden yapılmış çevirisini ve analizini içermektedir. Bu fragmanlar, eserleri günümüze ulaşmayan Ksenophanes’i anlamanın en güvenilir araçlarıdır.

Ils l’ont attaquée, conspuée, condamnée, sous tous les prétextes, sous tous les régimes, avec les meilleures ou les pires intentions, pour de mauvaises raisons et parfois même pour de bonnes. Ils ont exilé les poètes, brûlé leurs livres – ou en ont simplement formulé le souhait. Voilà 2500 ans que la littérature est sujette à toutes les critiques et toutes les accusations de la part de philosophes et de théologiens, de prêtres et de pédagogues, de scientifiques et de sociologues, de rois, d’empereurs et même de présidents.
De Platon à Nicolas Sarkozy, ce livre fournit toutes les pièces de ce procès ahurissant, fait le portrait d’une incroyable galerie de grotesques et de ridicules, et retrace à sa manière une autre histoire de la littérature occidentale depuis les origines, pleine de bruit et de fureur, de bêtise, d’hypocrisie et d’ignorance, avec ses querelles et ses combats, ses défaites et ses triomphes, ses stratèges, ses traîtres et ses héros.
Avec la haine de la littérature se révèle la face cachée de l’histoire de la littérature – celle qui lui donne peut-être son sens véritable.

""В статье обосновывается создание Гераклитом философского метода «исследования (didzesis)», хорошо известного как zetesis в классическую и позднеантичную эпохи. Предпосылки его возникновения и использования можно обнаружить у Ксенофана, название этому методу дает Парменид. Философский поиск противопоставлен спонтанному открытию (heuresis), а его суть может быть описана как путь, который следует пройти, опираясь на определенные знаки, и предполагает, что мы уже знаем то, что мы ищем, знаем определенные характеристики или предикаты искомого объекта, что сопряжено с апорийностью. Трудность осуществления такого поиска позволяет Гераклиту задать аллегорию добычи золота, а нам - назвать его «философским золотоискательством»: результат этого поиска, хотя и крайне незначительный количественно, необычайно ценен. Новый метод у Гераклита универсален: он позволяет получить знание о вещах и объектах чувственно-воспринимаемого мира, о себе и своей душе, а также об универсальных свойствах вещей, т. е. об умопостигаемом.


The article explains Heraclitus motives for introducing a philosophical method of inquiry, didzesis, known later on as zetesis. The method can be traced back to Xenophanes, while the term seems to be introduced by Parmenides. The philosophical inquiry is opposed to spontaneous discovery (heuresis). In its essence it can be compared with a route sketched on a map: the things sought are first met as obstacles (aporia) on the road, then their nature is recognized on the basis of certain signs and familiar features, a sort of preliminary knowledge. This kind of inquiry is very difficult, and Heraclitus compares it with goldmining. So let us call the method a "philosophical gold-digging" and observe that, if successful, it yields rare but very valuable results. The method is universal: it can be applied to the sense-perceptible world, human souls, as well as universal properties of things, i.e., the realm of intelligible.""

In Classical Greece some thinkers (Critias, Prodicus, Democritus) formulated theories about the origins of religion and/or the gods that accounted for religious belief in terms that today qualify as ‟reductionist” explanations. None of these theories represented a direct attack on Greek religion nor propounded explicit atheism, nonetheless for one reason or another they did imply a challenge to traditional religious sentiment. This essay explores the theoretical implications of these theories and argues that it was not because of their atheism that they provoked religious sentiment, but because they accounted for religious belief in terms of some ideological function. Traditional Greek religion, however, was distinctly non-ideological in many ways. Reductionist theories of the Greek Enlightenment resulted from the projection of a reductive conception of the human-human and the human-divine relationship onto Greek religion that misrepresented fundamental aspects of Greek piety.

La conclusion du monologue d’Iphigénie à la fin du premier épisode de l’IT (v. 380-391) contient une critique argumentée des rites en l’honneur d’Artémis, dont la protagoniste est présentée comme l’officiante dans le cadre exotique de la Tauride, ainsi que des récits sur la famille des Tantalides. Les rites et les mythes qui font l’objet de l’analyse d’Iphigénie sont, en effet, les mêmes qui fournissent leur matière à la composition de la pièce. Les commentateurs de l’IT ont remarqué depuis longtemps le lien de parenté entre ce passage et la critique des représentations religieuses traditionnelles développée par les penseurs présocratiques et plus particulièrement par Xénophane de Colophon. À partir d’une analyse précise de ces vers, on vérifie ici la pertinence et les limites de ces rapprochements, tout en dégageant les éléments d’originalité de la réflexion d’Iphigénie, notamment son articulation entre la critique des rites et des mythes traditionnels, et la représentation éthique des dieux qui lui est associée. Dans un second temps, on montre que la réflexion d’Iphigénie aux v. 380-391 dépasse le cadre de la situation dramatique de l’héroïne, en fournissant une justification, en termes savants, de la nouvelle représentation d’Artémis et d’Apollon proposée par la pièce.

I summarise certain aspects of Paul Feyerabend’s account of the development of Western rationalism, show the ways in which that account is supposed to run up against an alternative, that of Karl Popper, and then try to give a preliminary comparison of the two. My interest is primarily in whether what Feyerabend called his ‘story’ constitutes a possible history of our epistemic concepts and their trajectory. I express some grave reservations about that story, and about Feyerabend’s framework, finding Popper’s views less problematic here. However, I also suggest that one important aspect of Feyerabend’s material, his treatment of religious belief, can be given an interpretation which makes it tenable, and perhaps preferable to a Popperian approach.

One of the most debated issues in Parmenides is that of the relation of the content and the form of the poem. The content is presented through an argumentation unparalleled in stringency at the time. Despite its argumentative rigour, however, the poem is put into the mouth of an anonymous goddess, who reveals both the Truth and mortal Doxa to a "youth", the narrator of the poem. Hence, the form strongly suggests that human knowledge is limited and requires superhuman help. The article reviews what has been called the "strong rationalism" and the "strong revelation" interpretations of the poem, assesses their pros and cons and argues that Parmenides could have accepted neither reason nor "revelation" as exclusive sources of knowledge, but believed that they are mutually dependent.


Parmenidész filozófiájának egyik leginkább zavarba ejtő kérdését a tankölteményével kapcsolatos következő tények vetik fel. A költemény ún. "Igazság " (Alétheia) részének kulcstöredékében (B 2) lefektetett elvek alapján szigorúan amellett érvel, hogy a létező (eon) egy, keletkezetlen és pusztulhatatlan, oszthatatlan, mozdulatlan és teljes (B 8). A szigorú érvelés tényében sem az ókori, sem a modern olvasó nem találhat semmi meglepőt, hiszen a költői beszédmóddal szemben a filozófiai beszédmódra korai szakaszától jellemző az implicit vagy explicit argumentáció, ámbár az is igaz, hogy ez talán egyetlen preszókratikus filozófusnál sem olyan explicit és elsöprő, mint Parmenidész esetében. Zavarunk oka azonban az, hogy ezt az elsöprő argumentációval előadott, próto-logikainak nevezhető ontológiát nem közvetlenül a filozófus Parmenidész adja elő, még csak nem is a költemény narrátoraként szereplő "ifjú" (B 1, 24), hanem egy megnevezetlen istennő (thea: B 1, 22), akihez az ifjú elbeszélése szerint a Napleányok egy kancák által vont szekéren egykor elrepítették őt, s aki mindent elbeszél neki. Mi lehet a magyarázata annak az archaikus illetve klasszikus kori görög filozófia történetében igen ritka ténynek, hogy Parmenidész metafizikai illetve kozmológiai tanításait vallási kontextust felidéző reveláció formájában prezentálja, s egy isten nő szájába adja? A tanulmány áttekinti az "erős racionalista" illetve az "erős revelácionista" értelmezések nehézségeit, és amellett érvel, hogy Parmenidész sem az isteni inspirációt, sem a rációt nem fogadhatta el egyedüli ismeretforrásként, hanem úgy vélte, ez a két forrás kölcsönösen egymásra utalt.

Even though there is a large body of scholarly articles devoted to individual Presocratic philosophers and their reflections on the nature of Olympic gods and Greek religion, as well as some good general monographs mapping the "theology" of Greek philosophers (e.g., Jaeger's Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers or, more recently, Drozdek's Greek Philosophers as Theologians), Presocratic hypotheses focused on the origin of religion have received comparatively minor attention. This paper examines the thoughts of Xenophanes, Democritus, Prodicus and the author of the Sisyphus-fragment (traditionally identified as Critias but also more recently as Euripides) in regard to the origin of religious belief while attempting to sketch some connections and similarities between ancient hypotheses and modern theories developed in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Review of Early Greek Philosophy, 9 vol., edd André Laks and Glenn W. Most, Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library), 2016, 4196 pp. and Les débuts de la philosophie, ibid., Fayard, 2016, 1674pp.

Detailed Review of the 9 volume edition of Early Greek Philosophy edited and translated by André Laks and Glenn W. Most.

4784 words + table

Though born in Ionia, the pre-Socratic philosopher Xenophanes lived most of his adult life in the Sicilian cities of Messina and Catania. Plato and Clement of Alexandria identify him as the founder of the Eleatic school. Modern scholars vary widely in their assessment of Xenophanes’ significance. Some have depreciated him as a minor poet who did not develop any innovative philosophical ideas, while others have celebrated him as a revolutionary figure in Western philosophy and science. Most notable of the latter was the 20th century philosopher Karl Popper, who characterized Xenophanes as the founder of the Greek Enlightenment, and a thinker who anticipated Popper’s philosophy of science. While Popper exaggerates Xenophanes’ relation to his own theory of science, Xenophanes did develop a theory of knowledge and modes of inquiry that closely resemble modern scientific methods. This paper attempts to support this claim by showing how Xenophanes used anthropological and paleontological evidence (including the evidence of fossils discovered in Syracuse and Malta) to construct his cosmological and theological theories. These examples show that his preferred method is to infer the best explanation for the observed data. He recognized the fallibility and tentativeness of this method and distinguished it from the allegedly certain knowledge that diviners claimed to receive from the gods. Xenophanes’ methodology is thus a precursor to modern scientific theory construction and empiricism, and a significant intellectual achievement that distinguishes him among the early Greek philosophers.

In his treatise On the eternity of the world , 4-47 Philo of Alexandria sets forth a doxography of opinions of Greek philosophers on the eternity of the cosmos contrasting  the theory of its periodical generation/destruction held by Democritus, Epicurus and the Stoics (generated and destructible) with that of Aristotle (ungenerated and indestructible) and Plato’s mediating position (generated and indestructible) which has been long ago anticipated by Moses in the Book of Genesis. In chapter 39 Philo turns to what he calls the "most demonstrative and irrefutable" argument allegedly used by myriads of philosophers. “Myriad" is a rhetorical exaggeration for “well known” or used by many, Philo’s main source is Aristotle’s lost work “On philosophy” (fr.916 Gigon). This argument is based on a trichotomic division with a subsequent refutation of all three possible assumptions: if the god destroys the present world in order to create a new one, the latter can only be worse, exactly the same or better than the former.  It cannot be worse, since as the two anonymous hexameters have it, “even a woman is not deficient in sound mind to such extent as to prefer what is worse when there is something better”. The new world cannot be the same since in this case the god would behave like a small child playing on a sea shore, erecting and destroying sand hills. The whole passage reveals a striking parallelism with the arguments in favor of the immutability of god ascribed to Xenophanes in De Melisso Xenophane Gorgia, chapter 3, as well as verbal echoes of extant authentic fragments of Xenophanes. We therefore argue that not only the two hexameters, but also the whole trichotomic argument in its archaic form (including the reminiscence of the famous Homeric simile) quoted by Philo derives from the lost monotheistic poem of Xenophanes. On p. 389 we propose a hexametric reconstruction of the original verses. An important outcome of this attribution is that the Xenophanes section of MXG,ch.3-4 is indeed based on Xenophanes’ verses, although the author of MXG omits colorful similes of Xenophanes and paraphrases them in a colorless fourth century B.C. language. The naïve and somewhat sophistic character of argumentation (the god cannot behave like a woman or a child) explains why Aristotle characterized Xenophanes a “somewhat crude” thinker (ἀγροικότερος) in comparison with the strict logic of Parmenides. Another important outcome is that Xenophanes used rationalistic dialectical argument in his monotheistic theology that resemble to some extent the Eleatic style of philosophising. Burnet’s radical separation of Xenophanes from the Eleatic school and from his second home city Elea, contradicted by all extant ancient evidence, was a serious mistake. Xenophanes can be adequately characterized as a Proto-Eleatic thinker.

Ο ρόλος του νερού πρωτοστατεί στην ελληνική κοσμογονία: στον Όμηρο Ξ 200, «λέει η Ήρα: Πηγαίνω εγώ να ιδώ στην τέλειωση της Γης της πολυθρόφας τον Ωκεανό, των θεών τον πρόγονο, και την Τηθύ την μάνα… «(μτφ Καζαντάκη-Κακριδή). Εάν κανείς αναζητήσει την δημιουργία όλης της αλυσίδας ορέων από τα Πυρηναία, τον Άτλαντα Μαρόκου, τα Καρπάθια, τα Απέννινα, τις Άλπεις, τις Διναρίδες, τις Ελληνίδες, τις Ταυρίδες οροσειρές και μέσω της οροσειράς του Ζάκρου στο Ιράν στα Ιμαλάια και νοτιότερα στις οροσειρές της νοτιανατολικής Ασίας, όλο αυτό το σύμπλεγμα του έντονου τοπογραφικού ανάγλυφου, δημιουργήθηκε στην τελευταία ορογενετική φάση του πλανήτη μας, που ονομάστηκε Αλπική Ορογένεση. Η ορογένεση αυτή ξεκίνησε και ολοκληρώθηκε τα τελευταία 130 περίπου εκατομμύρια χρόνια (πολύ μικρό χρονικό (γεωλογικό) διάστημα για την εξέλιξη ενός πλανητικού σώματος ηλικίας 4,62 δισεκατομμυρίων ετών,-αδιανόητα χρονικά διαστήματα για τον ανθρώπινο νου….). Στο διάστημα αυτό «έκλεισε» ένα τμήμα ενός πανάρχαιου ωκεάνιου τμήματος του Πλανήτη μας και αναδύθηκαν από τον πυθμένα του σταδιακά οι ανωτέρω οροσειρές δημιουργώντας υπολειμματικές θαλάσσιες λεκάνες όπως η Μεσόγειος και δίνοντας χώρο για να ανοίξει ο νεώτερος ωκεανός στα δυτικά, ο Ατλαντικός. Ο τεράστιος ωκεανός που δημιουργήθηκε πριν περίπου 250 εκατομμύρια χρόνια ονομάστηκε Πανθάλασσα. Η Πανθάλασσα περιέβρεχε μια υπερήπειρο που ονομάστηκε Πανγαία. Το τμήμα της Πανθάλασσας, το τμήμα από όπου «αναδύθηκαν» οι ορογενετικές αλυσίδες του αλπικού τεκτονικού κύκλου ονομάστηκε ωκεανός της Τηθύος. Η Ομηρική αυτή θεώρηση προτάθηκε το 1893 και έγινε αποδεκτή από την παγκόσμια γεωεπιστημονική κοινότητα από τον γνωστό για το μηχανικό επίτευγμα που φέρει το όνομά του, τον αυστριακό γεωλόγο Eduard Suess, στα πλαίσια της εξελικτικής γεωεπιστημονικής γνώσης. Η Ομηρική αυτή προσέγγιση με «πρωταγωνιστές τον Ωκεανό και την Τηθύ» αποτελεί μέχρι σήμερα τον ακρογωνιαίο λίθο της επαναστατικής και επίκαιρης Θεωρίας των Τεκτονικών Πλακών. Η ανάγκη διαχείρισης των επιφανειακών υδάτων συμπεριλαμβανομένων ποταμών και πηγών είναι συνδεδεμένη με την απαρχή της γεωργίας στην Νεολιθική περίοδο....

On at least one of Plato's visits to the sparkling city of Syracuse, he must have visited its famed theater and taken in a tragedy or two.  He may also have reflected, as he sat there on the marble seats and looked up occasionally to glimpse the Ionian Sea, that his own adventure resembled that of a tragic hero.  It had shining ideals, noble goals, great risk, a bit of hubris, and would end in death, nearly for the philosopher himself, and senselessly for his protégé, Dion.  This connection between philosophy and drama goes back farther than Plato, though.  It has roots in the plays of Syracuse's Epicharmus and can be seen in the earliest intellectual history of Magna Graecia, where such thinkers as Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Empedocles blended philosophy, poetry, and performance.  Sicily and Southern Italy, in particular, seem to have inspired the kind of original ideas that defy disciplinary designation. This collection of essays from a variety of disciplinary perspectives including archaeology, classics, philosophy, and art history, offers a refreshing new outlook on the heritage of Western Greece.

Der nicht nur auf die Nutznießung materieller Güter zu beschränkende Begriff der Konsumption wird außerhalb der Altertumswissenschaften seit längerem erfolgreich dazu benutzt, um unterschiedliche Lebensstile mit ihren jeweiligen Lebenssituationen kausal in Verbindung zu bringen. In diesem Artikel wird der Begriff auf den Umgang mit Texten, Prestigegütern und sozialen Regeln angewandt. Als Beispielsfälle dienen die in die Ilias eingegangenen ‚orientalischen‘ Texte, die von Sappho und Xenophanes unterschiedlich bewerteten lydischen Güter und das Verständnis sozialer Regeln bei Theognis, um ausgehend von der in den homerischen Epen festzustellenden ‚Relativität des Besten‘ Typen von Konsumption voneinander abzugrenzen und dabei auch den jeweiligen Spielraum für die Gestaltung von Lebensstilen zu umschreiben.

Статья посвящена выявлению топосов рационально-теологического дискурса у античных философов досократического периода. Анализируются онтологические представления Фалеса, Пифагора, Анаксагора, Архелая, Гераклита, Ксенофана, Парменида, Эмпедокла на предмет присутствия в них элементов рационального богословия. Констатируется тесная связь философско-теологических взглядов рассматриваемых авторов с ноологией, поскольку мышление у них считается свойством Первоначала по преимуществу или, скорее, самим Богом. Кроме того, у досократиков обнаруживается предвосхищение многих теологических атрибутов и предикатов: единства, свободы, самобытности, инаковости, совершенства, неизменяемости, духовности, простоты, вечности, творения, промышления, всеведения, вездесущности, всемогущества.

The article is devoted to identifying the topoi of rational-theological discourse among the ancient philosophers of the pre-Socratic period. The ontological conceptions of Thales, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Heraclitus, Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Empedocles are analyzed for the presence of elements of rational theology. The close connection of the considered authors’ philosophical and theological views with noology is stated, since intellection is regarded to be a property of the Principle predominantly or, rather, God himself. In addition, the pre-Socratics reveal an anticipation of many theological attributes and predicates: unity, freedom, aseity, otherness, perfection, immutability, spirituality, simplicity, eternity, creation, providence, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence.

Clement of Alexandria preserved four important fragments of Xenophanes, three of them in a section of the Stromata devoted to Greek borrowing of Jewish ideas that also included a passage from Parmenides. Against the backdrop of intellectual structures that tend to make this pedigree unthinkable—one that configures Xenophanes as a pantheist, the other that separates him from Parmenides—this paper reconsiders the merits of Clement’s position.

This paper seeks to investigate the strategies employed by Hesiod and by the Presocratics to claim personal authority. Despite the fact that the works of the latter mostly survive in the form of fragments as quoted and preserved in the texts of later writers, I will show how a ‘sealing’ device was directly inherited from Hesiod and how self-oriented statements actually help shape the individual authority of such thinkers.This paper will ultimately show how the Presocratics’ debt towards Hesiod is twofold: on the one hand, as modern critics have noticed, the poet is the first real authority when it comes to natural philosophy and cosmogony and this feature clearly distinguished him from Homer. But, on the other, Hesiod made that crucial step away from the bardic-rhapsodic anonymity towards a well-distinctive authorial awareness, which is also a distinctive feature of the Presocratics’ production.