9 ideas
| 411 | If we succeed in speaking the truth, we cannot know we have done it [Xenophanes] |
| Full Idea: No man has seen certain truth, and no man will ever know about the gods and other things I mentioned; for if he succeeds in saying what is fully true, he himself is unaware of it; opinion is fixed by fate on all things. | |
| From: Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE], B34), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Professors (six books) 7.49.4 |
| 412 | If God had not created honey, men would say figs are sweeter [Xenophanes] |
| Full Idea: If God had not created yellow honey, men would say that figs were sweeter. | |
| From: Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE], B38), quoted by Herodian - On Peculiar Speech 41.5 |
| 20921 | How can we state relativism of sweet and sour, if they have no determinate nature? [Theophrastus] |
| Full Idea: How could what is bitter for us be sweet and sour for others, if there is not some determinate nature for them? | |
| From: Theophrastus (On the Senses [c.321 BCE], 70) | |
| A reaction: The remark is aimed at Democritus. This is part of the general question of how you can even talk about relativism, without attaching stable meanings to the concepts employed. |
| 7810 | The 'Eumenides' of Aeschylus shows blood feuds replaced by law [Aeschylus, by Grayling] |
| Full Idea: The 'Eumenides' of Aeschylus tells how the old rule of revenge and blood feud was replaced by a due process of law before a civil jury. | |
| From: report of Aeschylus (The Eumenides [c.458 BCE]) by A.C. Grayling - What is Good? Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 1659, where this revolution is attributed to Protagoras (a little later than Aeschylus). I take the rule of law and of society to be above all the rule of reason, because the aim is calm objectivity instead of emotion. |
| 5990 | Theophrastus doubted whether nature could be explained teleologically [Theophrastus, by Gottschalk] |
| Full Idea: Theophrastus questioned Aristotle's teaching on the extent to which teleological explanations could be applied to the natural world. | |
| From: report of Theophrastus (On Metaphysics (frags) [c.320 BCE]) by H.B. Gottschalk - Aristotelianism | |
| A reaction: It is interesting to see that Aristotle's own immediate successor had doubts about teleology. We usually assume that the ancients were teleological, and this was rejected in the seventeenth century (e.g. Idea 4826). |
| 1640 | The basic Eleatic belief was that all things are one [Xenophanes, by Plato] |
| Full Idea: The Eleatic tribe, which had its beginnings from Xenophanes and still earlier, proceed on the grounds that all things so-called are one. | |
| From: report of Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE]) by Plato - The Sophist 242d |
| 3055 | Xenophanes said the essence of God was spherical and utterly inhuman [Xenophanes, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Xenophanes taught that the essence of God was of a spherical form, in no respect resembling man. | |
| From: report of Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.2.3 |
| 408 | Ethiopian gods have black hair, and Thracian gods have red hair [Xenophanes] |
| Full Idea: Ethiopians have gods with snub noses and black hair, Thracians have gods with grey eyes and red hair. | |
| From: Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE], B16), quoted by Clement - Miscellanies 7.22.1 |
| 407 | Mortals believe gods are born, and have voices and clothes just like mortals [Xenophanes] |
| Full Idea: Mortals believe the gods to be created by birth, and to have raiment, voice and body like mortals'. | |
| From: Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE], B14), quoted by Clement - Miscellanies 5.109.2 |