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Xenophanes

Xenophanes

c. 570 BCEc. 478 BCE · Colophon

Itinerant Ionian poet-philosopher who criticized anthropomorphic conceptions of the gods and spoke of 'one greatest god' — a critique of popular polytheism (often read as henotheism rather than full monotheism); by ancient tradition linked to the Eleatics as a forerunner of Parmenides.

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ColophonIonia (Asia Minor)

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About Colophon

Colophon was one of the Ionian Greek cities, inland from the coast of Lydia in western Asia Minor (modern Turkey). It was the birthplace of the pre-Socratic philosopher and poet Xenophanes, known for his critique of anthropomorphic depictions of the gods, and of the Hellenistic poet and physician Nicander.

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The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Xenophanes’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

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XenophanesShapedParmenides