Physical Ideas
Xenophanes wrote about two extremes predominating the world: wet and dry (water and earth). These two extreme states would alternate between one another and with the alteration human life would become extinct then regenerate (or vice versa depending on the dominant form). The idea of alternating states and human life perishing and coming back suggests he believed in the principle of causation; another distinguishing step that Xenophanes takes from Ancient philosophical traditions to ones based more on scientific observation. The argument can be considered a rebuke to Anaximenes' air theory. A detailed account of the wet and dry form theory is found in Hippolytus' Refutation.
Xenophanes concluded from his examination of fossils that water once must have covered all of the Earth's surface. The use of evidence is an important step in advancing from simply stating an idea to backing it up by evidence and observation.
Read more about this topic: Xenophanes
Famous quotes containing the words physical and/or ideas:
“A more problematic example is the parallel between the increasingly abstract and insubstantial picture of the physical universe which modern physics has given us and the popularity of abstract and non-representational forms of art and poetry. In each case the representation of reality is increasingly removed from the picture which is immediately presented to us by our senses.”
—Harvey Brooks (b. 1915)
“She [Evelina] is a little angel!... Her face and person answer my most refined ideas of complete beauty.... She has the same gentleness in her manners, the same natural graces in her motions, that I formerly so much admired in her mother. Her character seems truly ingenuous and simple; and at the same time that nature has blessed her with an excellent understanding and great quickness of parts, she has a certain air of inexperience and innocency that is extremely interesting.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)