生平及學術想形成
色諾芬尼原是科洛封（Colophon）地方（屬於小亞細亞西岸的伊奧尼亞）的人。他在25歲左右，因為躲避波斯的統治 而漂流各地，晚年居留在埃利亞，在那裡形成他的中心思想。本地的巴門尼德就是此時期受他影響，成為他的學生，後來的芝諾也繼而宣揚色諾芬尼的學說，便成了歷史上的埃利亞學派。
據說他是巴門尼德的老師。他為巴門尼德哲學和埃利亞派的形成奠定了基礎。嘲笑人們把神描繪成人的樣子，並抨擊古希臘詩人荷馬和赫西俄德把人類的種種醜行和罪惡強加到神的身上。他說道，如果馬和獅子也能夠塑造神的話，那么它們就會造出馬形和獅形的神來。我們對他的觀點的了解來自其殘存的詩，所有片段都是被後世的希臘作家作為引文而流傳下來。他的詩批評和諷刺廣泛的思想，包括對萬神殿中擬人神的信仰和希臘人對運動的崇尚。
色諾芬尼拒絕相信許多標準的神像，而且不認為神的思想和外形像人一樣。他一段經典的嘲笑名句，如果牛能想像神，那它們的神一定像牛。因為他對一神論觀念的發展，認為它是抽象的、普遍的、不變的、固定且總是留在記憶里，色諾芬尼常被視為西方哲學的宗教信仰方面第一個一神教信徒。
色諾芬尼認為在內陸甚至高山上發現海貝殼是海陸變遷的證據。
哲學觀念
諸神起源的傳說
（1）通過批判和反對傳統觀念中關於諸神起源的傳說，以此揭示自己對世界本原的理解和看法。他說：“一切都從土中生，一切最後又都歸於土。”“一切生成和生長的東西都是土和水。”“我們都是從土和水中生出來的。”在荷馬史詩中，天上的一切都來自海洋，海神育養著天上諸神。色諾芬尼對海的理解則是：“海洋是水的源泉，風的源泉。因為如果沒有大海，在雲中就不會刮出來風暴，也不會有任何泛濫，也不會有天上的雨水；大海可以說是風、雲和江河之父。”按照赫西俄德的說法，混沌之神生出大地女神該亞，而色諾芬尼對大地的形成則訴諸於自然的觀察：“隨著時間的推移，大地不斷地受到沖刷，漸漸歸入大海。”“大地和海正在混合，……當大地沖刷入海，變成泥潭的時候，全人類就毀滅了。然後又開始新的大地的生成，所有的世界就是這樣形成的。”希臘神話中人是從土裡產生出來的：腓尼基王子卡德摩斯尋找被宙斯拐走的妹妹歐羅巴，到了希臘，殺死毒龍，它的牙齒從土中長出全身披掛的武士。最後卡德摩斯遵照阿波羅的命令，同從泥土中長出來的五人一起建立底比斯城。而色諾芬尼則將泰坦諸神、百手巨人和其他傳說都當作前人的虛構，提出了土是萬物本原的思想。
依靠心靈和思想左右世界的“神”
（2）塑造出了依靠心靈和思想左右世界的“神”——一個完全沒有形體的神。這是比較明顯的“一神論”傾向，代表著“希臘神話不僅在宇宙起源的幻想的涵義中而且在倫理解釋的涵義中所曾經經受的轉變無處不趨向於一神論的頂峰。” 色諾芬尼積極描述了神的特質：不生，不滅，永恆存在。“但當他進爾闡述神的積極屬性時，色諾芬尼就變得較為晦澀了。一方面神既是個體又是全體（一與全），從而與宇宙合而為一了。於是米利都學派的關於‘始基’的所有屬性都歸於這個‘宇宙上帝’（永恆、不生、不滅）；在另一方面，賦予神性的性質中，有些是屬於空間的，如球狀，而另外一些又是心理上的功能。在心理功能中，明確地提出了到處都有認識活動，到處都存在對事物的理性指導。在這方面，色諾芬尼的宇宙—上帝只不過是作為其餘的‘眾神眾人’之中的最高者出現而已。”（文德爾班《哲學史教程》第53頁。）
世界的本原是土，一切的生成都來自於土和水
（3）色諾芬尼對世界本原的理解雖然沒有米利都諸哲深刻，但我們在他身上似乎又看到了他神學立場到宇宙論立場的對世界的解釋當中。他說世界的本原是土，一切的生成都來自於土和水。這與泰勒斯等米利都諸哲的主張——通過自然的物理的世界現象的透視，通過較為理智的對世界和人生的省察和審視——從而將對世界的起源和生成納入到一個“科學”的理解的緯度，至少表明他在通過“人”的方式在對世界進行哲學觀念的思考進程當中沒有後退。只不過他解釋世界的方式沒有伸入到或進展到：“萬物的始基永遠處於自發的運動當中”。他砍掉了迄今為止，人們用以解釋“自然”的這一假設。所以文德爾班認為，他與米利都學派在觀念上的分歧也因此表現了出來，在色諾芬尼的觀念里“哲學突出的神學特色已經明顯地顯示了出來”，而“阿那克西曼德所採取的形上學和自然科學的觀點替代了色諾芬的宗教觀點，表現在兩種根本的分歧上”。
（A）“對色諾芬尼來說，宇宙—上帝的概念是宗教崇拜的對象，幾乎不是理解自然的手段”。文德爾班評價說：“這個科洛封人要想認識自然的意圖是很少的，他的觀念有些是非常幼稚的，比起米利都學派的觀念來，還是不成熟的。所以對他的觀點來說，米利都科學所認為在宇宙物質中不可缺少的那種無限性，也可以不要；相反，據他看來，將宇宙物質理解為自身有限的，理解為完全封閉或完整的，最終在空間方面理解為球形的，才更符合神聖的自然界的尊嚴。”
（B）“米利都學派認為萬物的始基永遠處於自發的運動中，它的特性是本身內部結構中的生動的多樣性，而色諾芬尼則砍掉了迄今為止一直用來解釋自然的這種假定，並宣稱宇宙—上帝是不動的，各個部分都是完美無缺、均勻和諧的。他究竟怎樣將他自己認為無可置疑的個別事物的多樣性與這種意見調和起來，當然始終是一個不明確的問題。”
巴門尼德哲學
(4)作為一個詩人，一個游吟者之所以能夠作為古代思想世界格外關注的角色，除過他本人留下了世人本來就難以在古代作品的留存中獲得古代思想真貌的文本，還在於他是一個時代精神的過渡，一個通過詩歌的語言談論“真理”與“意見”的開端者。後人幾乎無可非議地將他安排到了“愛利亞學派”——這個在古代西方世界裡本身具有啟蒙和過渡色彩的學派當中，以此觸探到持守於“真理之路”而試圖摒棄“意見之路”的巴門尼德哲學。
他說：
“既無人明白，也無人知道，
我所說的關於神和一切東西是什麼，
因為縱使有人碰巧說出最完備的真理，
他也不會知道。
對於一切，所創造出來的只是意見。”
這幾句詩語確實使我們確信到色諾芬尼身上所滲溢著的一種背叛者的氣質。我們說不出“真理”，即使與“真理”相遇，我們也不知道那就是“真理”。我們之所以與“真理”相遇而無知，那是因為我們根本就不知道“真理”是什麼，所以我們知道的僅僅是我們“創造出來的只是意見”。除過“真理”與“意見”在他的詩歌語言當中的明確分界，色諾芬尼傳達給我們的還不僅僅是開始用理性的寒光塑造“存在”之路的巴門尼德哲學，在他的身上我們似乎過早地看到了“蘇格拉底”的影子——既作為一個誦詩者對荷馬式立場的反對，也作為一個愛智者，在詩性直觀中承認到了人對“真理”的“無知”。而承認自己“無知”，不正是在思想史上最光彩奪目的蘇格拉底嗎？
遺產
色諾芬尼留給世界的遺產已夠豐富了。這種豐富性，還表現在他的懷疑論傾向，而這似乎是後來的赫拉克里特哲學中透射出來的一種力量。而這種力量同樣呈現在蘇格拉底對哲學本身的標界當中。無論他本人與這些哲學家有無關係，但作為詩人——一個真正意義上的思者，他能夠讓我們回顧和展望的東西實在太多了。因為詩人的作品是詩。而詩因為具有純粹的被言說性，它才從真正意義上呈現：所謂“思”，其實就是被“思”。
英文介紹
Xenophanes of Colophon
(570 BC-480 BC) was a Greek philosopher, poet, and social and religious critic. Our knowledge of his views comes from his surviving poetry, all of which are fragments passed down as quotations by later Greek writers. His poetry criticized and satirized a wide range of ideas, including the belief in the pantheon of anthropomorphic gods and the Greeks' veneration of athleticism.
Xenophanes rejected the then-standard belief in many gods, as well as the idea that the gods resembled humans in form. One famous passage ridiculed the idea by claiming that, if oxen were able to imagine gods, then those gods would be in the image of oxen. Because of his development of the concept of One God that is abstract, universal, unchanging, immobile and always present, Xenophanes is often seen as one of the first monotheists in the Western philosophy of religion.
He also wrote that poets should only tell stories about the gods which were socially uplifting, one of many views which foreshadowed the work of Plato. Xenophanes also concluded from his examination of fossils that water once must have covered all of the Earth's surface. His epistemology, which is still influential today, held that there actually exists a truth of reality, but that humans as mortals are unable to know it. Therefore, it is possible to act only on the basis of working hypotheses - we may act as if we knew the truth, as long as we know that this is extremely unlikely. This aspect of Xenophanes was brought out again by the late Sir Karl Popper and is a basis of Critical rationalism.
Until the 1950s, there was some controversy over many aspects of Xenophanes, including whether or not he could be properly characterized as a philosopher. In today's philosophical and classics discourse, Xenophanes is seen as one of the most important presocratic philosophers. It had also been common to see him as the teacher of Zeno of Elea, the colleague of Parmenides, and generally associated with the Eleatic school, but common opinion today is likewise that this is false.
Founder of the Eleatic School of Philosophy, Xenophanes was a native of Colophon, and born about 570 BCE. It is difficult to determine the dates of his life with any accuracy and the facts of his life are also obscure. Xenophanes early left his own country and took refuge in Sicily, where he supported himself by reciting, at the court of Hiero, elegiac and iambic verses, which he had written in criticism of the Theogony of Hesiod and Homer. From Sicily he passed over into Magna Graecia, where he took up the profession of philosophy, and became a celebrated teacher in the Pythagorean school. Give way to a greater freedom of thought than was usual among the disciples of Pythagoras, he introduced new opinions of his own opposing the doctrines of Epimenides, Thales, and Pythagoras. He held the Pythagorean chair of philosophy for about seventy years, and lived to the extreme age of 105.
Xenophanes
was an elegiac and satirical poet who approached the question of science from the standpoint of the reformer rather than of the scientific investigator. If we look at the very considerable remains of his poetry that have come down to us, we see that they are all in the satirist's and social reformer's vein. There is one dealing with the management of a feast, another which denounces the exaggerated importance attached to athletic victories, and several which attack the humanized gods of Homer. The problem is, therefore, to find, if we can, a single point of view from which all these fragments can be interpreted, although it may be that no such point of view exists.
Like the religious reformers of the day, Xenophanes turned his back on the anthropomorphic polytheism of Homer and Hesiod. This revolt is based on a conviction that the tales of the poets are directly responsible for the moral corruption of the time. 'Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all things that are a shame and a disgrace among mortals, stealing and adulteries and deceiving of another. And this he held was due to the representation of the gods in human form. Men make gods in their own image; those of the Ethiopians are black and snub-nosed, those of the Thracians have blue eyes and red hair. If horses or oxen or lions had hands and could produce works of art, they too would represent the gods after their own fashion (fr. 15). All that must be swept away along with the tales of Titans and Giants, those 'figments of an earlier day' (fr. 1) if social life is to be reformed.
Xenophanes found the weapons he required for his attack on polytheism in the science of the time. Here are traces of Anaximander's cosmology in the fragments, and Xenophanes may easily have been his disciple before he left Ionia. He seems to have taken the gods of mythology one by one and reduced them to meteorological phenomena, and especially to clouds. And he maintained there was only one god -- namely, the world. God is one incorporeal eternal being, and, like the universe, spherical in form; that he is of the same nature with the universe, comprehending all things within himself; is intelligent, and pervades all things, but bears no resemblance to human nature either in body or mind.
He taught that if there had ever been a time when nothing existed, nothing could ever have existed. Whatever is, always has been from eternity, without deriving its existence from any prior principles. Nature, he believed, is one and without limit; that what is one is similar in all its parts, else it would be many; that the one infinite, eternal, and homogeneous universe is immutable and incapable of change. His position is often classified as pantheistic, although his use of the term 'god' simply follows the use characteristic of the early cosmologists generally.
There is no evidence that Xenophanes regarded this 'god' with any religious feeling, and all we are told about him (or rather about it) is purely negative. He is quite unlike a man, and has no special organs of sense, but 'sees all over, thinks all over, hears all over'. Further, he does not go about from place to place, but does everything 'without toil. It is not safe to go beyond this; for Xenophanes himself tells us no more. It is pretty certain that if he had said anything more positive or more definitely religious in its bearing it would have been quoted by later writers.
