The focus of this essay is on Xenophanes’ criticism of anthropomorphic representation of the gods, famously sounding like a declaration of war against a constituent part of the Greek religion, and adopting terms and a tone that are unequalled amongst “pre-Socratic” authors for their directness and explicitness. While the main features of Xenophanes’ polemic are well known thanks to some of the most studied fragments of the pre-Socratic tradition, a different line of enquiry from the usual one is attempted by (...) considering the multi-layered background of the religious beliefs revolving around the idea that the gods have human form as outlined in the tradition of epic poetry or represented in cult statues: in the light of this consideration Xenophanes’ text can take on some new characteristics. In the second part of the article, emphasis is put on the importance of the correlation Xenophanes established between the issue of the appearance of the gods and that of the certainty of knowledge, in terms that have exerted tremendous influence on later thought, most notably on Plato in the Timaeus. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 63, Issue 1, pp 1 - 24 This article examines Diogenes of Apollonia’s doctrines of intellection and soul in relation to his material principle, air. It argues that for Diogenes both intellection and soul are not, as commonly thought, some sort of air, even though both intellection and soul are to be understood in terms of air and the system of τρόποι of air that he has set up. These new interpretations of intellection and soul yield insight (...) into Diogenes’ claims about the ordering activity of air as intellection and a renewed appreciation for his material monism. (shrink)

This page is dedicated to an analysis of the first section of Parmenides' Poem, the Way of Truth, with a selection of critical judgments by the most important commentators and critics. In the Annotated Bibliography I list the main critical editions (from the first printed edition of 1573 to present days) and the translations in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, with a selection of studies on Parmenides; in future, a section will be dedicated to an examination of some critical (...) variants of the Greek text, with particular attention to corrections to the Diels-Kranz (abbreviated DK) edition of the Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. The fragments of Parmenides' Poem are cited according to Diels-Kranz numbering system as adopted in the 6th edition, Berlin 1952; the Poem is divided into three parts: the Proem fr. I, 1-32; the Way of Truth (Alethéia) from fr. II to VIII, 49, and the Way of Mortal Opinion (Doxa) fr. VIII, 50 to XIX, 3. (shrink)