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Xenocrates of Chalcedon (396 - 314 BC) was a Greek philosopher and scholarch or pastor of the Academy from 339 to 314 BC.

Removing to Athens in early youth, he became the pupil of the Socratic Aeschines, but presently joined himself to Plato, whom he attended to Sicily in 361. Upon his master's demise, within company by using Aristotle he paid a visit to Hermias at Atarneus. Inside 339, Aristotle existence so within Macedonia, Xenocrates succeeded Speusippus in the presidency of the school, defeating his competitors Menedemus and Heraclides Ponticus by a few votes. In trinity occasions he was member of an Athenian legation, when to Philip, twice to Antipater.

Before long fallowing a demise of Demosthenes (fl 322), resenting a Macedonian influence so dominant at Athens, Xenocrates declined a citizenship offered to him at the time of Phocion, and, existence unable to pay a taxation levied upon resident aliens, was, these are said, sold, or even on the point of existence sold, into slavery. He died around 314, and wwhen succeeded as scholarch by Polemon, whom he had reclaimed from either the life of profligacy. Besides Polemon, a solon Phocion, Chaeron (tyrant of Pellene), the Academic Crantor, the Stoic Zeno and Epicurus are said to have frequented his lectures.

Xenocrates's earnestness & nature & severity of character won for him universal respect, & stories were remembered inside proof of his purity, integrity and benevolence. Wanting around quickness of apprehension & within native grace, he processed higher for these deficiencies by the painstaking love of truth & an industrious industry. Less original than Speusippus, he adhered extra closely to perfection of Platonic philosophy, & is accounted a average representative of the Old Academy. Around his writings, which were many, he seems to develop covered about a whole of a Academic programme; however metaphysics & ethics were the cases which in the main engaged his thoughts. He is said to st& made-up, or even at least to keep around emphasised, a tripartition of philosophy under a heads of cathartic, dialectic and ethic.

Inside his ontology Xenocrates built upon Plato's foundations: that is to say, sustaining Plato he postulated ideas or even totals to exist as a drives of nature and severity's organic products, & derived these ideas or even statistics from either unity (which move) & plurality (which is peaceful). However he put upon this fundamental dogmthe a fresh interpretation. Based on data from Plato, being is mind pluralized: mind as a unity, i personally.e. universal mind, apprehends its have plurality when eternal, changeless, graspable ideas; & mind as a plurality, i personally.e. particular mind, perceives its have plurality when fugacious, changeable, sensible items. A idea, inasmuch when these are a law of universal mind, which particularly minds garden truck aggregates of sensations known as items, occurs as "determinant", & in and of itself is styled "quantity" & mayhap "number"; however a idealistic counts come distinct from either arithmetic statistics.

Xenocrates, notwithstanding, failing, when it would seem, to grasp a idealism which was a metaphysical foundation of Plato's theory of natural form, view as his information arithmetic unity & plurality, & accordingly identified idealistic figures by having arithmetic prices. Inside so reverting to the crudities of certain Pythagoreans, he laid himself open to the criticisms of Aristotle, world health organization, within his Metaphysics, recognizing amongst coeval Platonists tierce primary groups

  • those world health organization, rather Plato, distinguished mathematical & idealistic statistics;
  • those world health organization, rather Xenocrates, identified the babies; and
  • those world health organization, such as Speusippus, postulated mathematical prices only

    Aristotle has lot to say against a Xenocratean interpretation of a theory, & particularly points out that, whenever the ideas come cost processed higher of arithmetic units, it non exclusively prevent to be information, however as well become subject to arithmetic operations. Xenocrates's theory of inorganic nature and severity was substantially monovular by having a theory of the elements which is propounded in the Timaeus, 53 C seq. All a same, holding that each dimension has the principle of its have, he rejected the derivation of the primary solids--pyramid, octahedron, icosahedron and cube--from triangular shells, & to that extent estimated to atomism. Furthermore, to the quatern of the classical elements (fire, air, water, & globe) he added a ether.

    His cosmology, which is drawn almost totally from either a Timaeus, &, when he intimated, is does'nt to exist as think of a cosmogony, should be exposed inside connection by using his psychology. Soul is a self-moving total, from either them basics, unity & plurality, whence it obtains its powers of rest & motion. These are immaterial, & will survive apart from either person. A irrational soul, likewise when a rational soul, is immortal. a universe, a heavenly bodies, human, animate being, & presumptively plants, come every of the children endowed by using a soul, which is roughly hone based on data from the position which it occupies in the descending shell of creation. By having this Platonic philosopheme Xenocrates combines the todays theology, identifying a universe & a heavenly bodies sustaining a greater gods, & reserving a place between the two & individual for the lesser divinities.

    Whenever the extant authorities come to exist as trusted, Xenocrates recognized troika grades of noesis, to each one seized to a region of its have: knowledge, opinion, & sensation. Their objects, severally, come supra-celestials or even even even ideas, celestials or stars, & infra-celestials or items. Of Xenocrates's logic i personally understand simply that he sided sustaining Plato, rejecting a Aristotelian names of decade categories as a embarrassment.

    Valuing philosophy primarily for its influence upon conduct, Xenocrates bestowed special attention upon ethics. A catalogue of his works shows that he got written largely upon this subject; however a indications of ism which own survived come spare, & can be summed higher inside two or three sentences. Items come goods, ailment or even neutrals. Goods come of troika sorts--mental, bodily, external; however of everthing goods virtue is uncomparably a greatest. Happiness consists in the possession of virtue, & consequently is independent of personalized & extraneous benefits. A virginside human is pure, non inside work single, however as well in heart. To a attainment of virtue a better aid is philosophy; for the philosopher does of his have accord what others launder under the compulsion of law. Speculative wisdom & practical wisdom come to exist as distinguished. Scrimpy when these statements come, it suffice to show that around ethics, when elsewhere, Xenocrates worked upon Platonic lines.

    Xenocrates was non in any feel a great thinker. His metaphysic was the travesty like than the reproduction of that of his master. His ethic experienced little which was distinctive. However his austere life & overlooking personality mass produced him an efficacious teacher, & his influence, saved alive by his pupils Polemon & Crates, ceased only if Arcesilaus, the founder of the and so-alleged Second Academy, gave a freshly counsel to the studies of the school.

  • MacTutor History of Mathematics: Xenocrates of Chalcedon
    Biography, bibliography and list of related topics.

    Columbia Encyclopedia: Xenocrates
    Concise paragraph on this early scholarch.

    Biography.com: Xenocrates
    Concise paragraph on his teachings.

    FOLDOC: Xenocrates
    Entry from the philosophical database, with links to related entries.

    Xenocrates
    A detailed article by Russell Dancy on this thinker's life and teachings. From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

    Ancient Greek Scientists: Xenocrates of Chalcedon
    Notes on his life and mathematical achievements.

    Wikipedia: Xenocrates
    Entry drawn from the 1911 Britannica.

    Life of Xenocrates
    Section from the Lives of the Philosophers, as compiled by Diogenes Laertius and translated by C.D. Yonge.


    Society: Philosophy: History of Philosophy: Ancient: The Academy
    Society: Philosophy: Philosophers: A: Aristotle
    Society: Philosophy: Philosophers: P: Plato




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