From the Beginning to Plato

observing for example the fossil record we can find out what it is reasonable to
regard as the truth of the matter. 60 The first words of an injunction of
Xenophanes (unfortunately truncated) ran:
Let these be accepted, certainly, as like the realities…
(Plutarch Symposium 746B: fr. 35 [KRS 187])
This might be interpreted as saying: you are justified in your belief that this is
what reality is like (…even if you cannot know it).
For Heraclitus Xenophanes was one of those thinkers whose farflung learning
had not brought them understanding. Yet Heraclitus’ own ideas about god and
knowledge and the heavenly bodies seem to owe much to Xenophanes’. Nor
were Plato and Aristotle wrong to perceive his influence on Parmenides, even if
he was no Eleatic monist. Without our evidence relating to Xenophanes it would
in fact be difficult to understand how philosophy made the transition from
Milesian cosmology to the metaphysical and epistemological orientation shared
by Heraclitus and Parmenides. Some of his speculations look naïve beyond
belief. But he had witty and subtle things to say on all manner of topics. He
cherished a healthy regard for evidence: the naïveté is in good part the
consequence of his rigour in refusing to go much beyond it. And so far as
western thought is concerned, he invented both monotheism and critical theology.
NOTES
THE IONIANS 71
1 A good general account of Thales: KRS ch. 2. For a more ambitious view of what
we may reasonably conjecture about his cosmology see West [2.59].
2 Cf. Herodotus I.74–5, 170 [KRS 74, 66, 65]. Solar eclipse: best discussion still Heath
[2.33], ch. 3; also e.g. Panchenko [2.53]. That any eclipse Thales predicted was
visible in Asia Minor must have been due to luck. Probably it is largely on account
of this feat that he came to be credited with views on the causes of eclipses, the
nature of the heavenly bodies, and the zones of the heavens [DK 11 A 13c, 17, 17a
and b].
3 Texts and discussion: KRS, pp. 81–6, 100–5. On the map see Kahn [2.49], 82–4;
on early Greek astronomical knowledge Dicks [2.47]; Kahn [2.50]; Burkert [2.25],
ch. 4, sect. 1.
4 See Aristotle On the Soul 405a19–21, 411a7–8, Diogenes Laertius I.24, with
discussion in KRS pp. 95–8.
5 See Aristotle Metaphysics 983b6–984a3. Discussion in KRS, pp. 89–95 On
Hippias: Snell [2.57]; Mansfeld [2.40], chs 3, 5.
6 On the physics of flat-earthism see Furley [2.32], chs 1, 2, 18.
7 The doxographical evidence is confused. One source ([Plutarch] Miscellanies 3
[KRS 148]) states explicitly that the sun is earth; and Hippolytus’ evidence that it is
flat and rides on air makes sense only on that assumption (KRS 150, quoted
above). However the doxography seems generally to have understood ‘fiery’ as
‘composed of fire’ (cf. Runia [2.67]); and one suspect passage (Hippolytus