Editing Pre-Socratic philosophy (section)

=== Xenophanes ===
{{Main|Xenophanes}}
[[File:Elmo's fire-2.jpg|thumb|alt=See caption|St. Elmo's fire (luminous plasma created by a corona discharge from a rod-like object) in a ship. Xenophanes' contemporaries attributed this phenomenon to the deity [[Castor and Pollux|Dioscuri]]. Xenophanes argued that the observed illumination is due to small clouds influenced by special circumstances relating to stars—an example of [[Metaphysical naturalism|naturalism]] and [[reductionism]].{{sfn|Mourelatos|2008|pp=134-135}}]]

Xenophanes was born in [[Colophon (city)|Colophon]], an Ionian town near Miletus. He was a well-traveled poet whose primary interests were [[theology]] and [[epistemology]]. Concerning theology, he pointed out that we did not know whether there was one god or many gods, or in such case whether there was a hierarchy among them. To critique the anthropomorphic representation of the gods by his contemporary Greeks, he pointed out that different nations depicted their gods as looking like themselves. He famously said that if oxen, horses, or lions could draw, they would draw their gods as oxen, horses, or lions. This critique was not limited to the looks of gods but also their behaviour. Greek mythology, mostly shaped by the poets [[Homer]] and [[Hesiod]], attributed moral failures such as jealousy and adultery to the gods. Xenophanes opposed this. He thought gods must be morally superior to humans. Xenophanes, however, never claimed the gods were omnipotent, omnibenevolent, or omniscient.{{sfn|Warren|2014|pp=41-50}} Xenophanes also offered naturalistic explanations for phenomena such as the sun, the rainbow and [[St. Elmo's fire]]. Traditionally these were attributed to divine intervention but according to Xenophanes they were actually effects of clouds. These explanations of Xenophanes indicate empiricism in his thought and might constitute a kind of proto-scientism. Scholars have overlooked his cosmology and naturalism since Aristotle (maybe due to Xenophanes' lack of teleology) until recently but current literature suggests otherwise.{{sfn|Mourelatos|2008|pp=134-139}} Concerning epistemology,  Xenophanes questioned the validity of human knowledge. Humans usually tend to assert their beliefs are real and represent truth. While Xenophanes was a pessimist about the capability of humans to reach knowledge, he also believed in gradual progress through critical thinking. Xenophanes tried to find naturalistic explanations for meteorological and cosmological phenomena.{{sfn|Warren|2014|pp=50-56}}

Ancient philosophy historian Alexander Mourelatos notes Xenophanes used a pattern of thought that is still in use by modern metaphysics. Xenophanes, by reducing meteorological phenomena to clouds, created an argument that "X in reality is Y", for example B32, "What they call Iris [the rainbow] that too is in reality a cloud: one that
appears to the eye as purple, red, and green. This is still use[d] today 'lightning is massive electrical discharge' or 'items such as tables are a cloud of micro-particles'." Mourelatos comments that the type of analogy that the cloud analogy is remains present in scientific language and "...is the modern philosopher's favourite subject for illustrations of inter-theoretic identity".{{sfnm|1a1=Mourelatos|1y=2008|pp=136,158-159|2a1=Curd|2y=2020|2loc=Xenophanes of Colophon and Heraclitus of Ephesus}}

According to Aristotle and Diogenes Laertius, [[Xenophanes]] was Parmenides' teacher; but is a matter of debate in current literature whether Xenophanes should also be considered an Eleatic.{{sfn|Warren|2014|p=3}}