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Xenophanes of Colophon Itinerant Greek poet-philosopher. Traveled throughout the Greek world for decades singing his philosophical verses. Considered a precursor to the Eleatic School (influenced Parmenides). Notable for his critique of anthropomorphic religion and proto-epistemological observations. Key Concepts Critique of religious anthropomorphism: Homer and Hesiod attributed human crimes to the gods (theft, adultery, betrayal); the Ethiopians make their gods black and flat-nosed, the Thracians make theirs blonde and blue-eyed — if oxen and horses could paint gods, they would make them bovine and equine Philosophical monotheism: there is a single God, the greatest among gods and men, who resembles mortals in nothing — neither in body nor in thought; immobile, he governs all things by his thought Epistemology of moderate skepticism: the gods did not reveal everything to men from the beginning; mortals discover the best progressively — but no man attains total truth about the gods and the cosmos; even if one spoke the truth, one could not be certain Geology and fossils: found marine fossils on mountains and concluded that earth and sea alternate; used empirical observations to speculate about cosmic changes Influenced by Milesian School — naturalism and critique of myth Greek poetic tradition — uses philosophical hexameters and elegies Influenced Parmenides — monism and concept of the One Ancient Skepticism (through epistemological humility) Plato — critique of the representation of gods in Homer (Republic) Works Fragments in verse (elegies, silloi, didactic poem On Nature) preserved through citations by other authors. ...

Xunzi Xunzi (荀子 Xún Zǐ, “Master Xun”; personal name Kuàng 況), who lived around c. 310–c. 235 BCE, is, alongside Confucius and Mencius, one of the three great thinkers of classical Confucianism. He was active during the Warring States period and was a figure of prestige at the Jixia Academy in the state of Qi. His philosophy stands out for its argumentative rigour and its naturalism: whereas other Confucians grounded morality in a morally engaged celestial order, Xunzi grounds it in human culture, ritual, and deliberate education. ...

Zeno of Citium Founder of Stoicism. He taught at the Stoa Poikilê (Painted Porch) in Athens — hence the name of the school. After hearing the story of Socrates through the cynicism of Crates, he abandoned commerce to dedicate himself to philosophy. He taught that virtue is the only real good; everything else (wealth, health, fame) is indifferent (adiaphora). The universe is permeated by the divine Logos (rational fire) and each event occurs by rational necessity. ...

Zeno of Elea Born in Elea, in southern Italy, and active in the mid-fifth century BCE, Zeno was the most celebrated disciple of Parmenides — according to Plato, he accompanied his master to Athens, where the two are said to have conversed with the young Socrates. Tradition also attributes to him a heroic end: tortured by a tyrant whose overthrow he was plotting, he is said to have preferred death to betrayal. He is remembered above all as a master of argument. ...

Zhu Xi Note on romanisation: Chinese names are given in pinyin, with the original characters in parentheses on first occurrence. Tones are not graphically marked, in line with current editorial usage. Zhu Xi (朱熹), a Southern Song philosopher, is the great systematiser of what is conventionally called Neo-Confucianism — also known as Lixue (理學, “Learning of Principle”) or the Cheng-Zhu school, after the Cheng brothers (Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi), whose writings Zhu Xi organised into a synthesis. A government official and teacher, he spent most of his life lecturing at private academies and revising the classical texts. His historical importance is hard to overstate: the educational curriculum grounded on his commentaries to the Sishu (四書, “Four Books”) was the basis of the Chinese imperial examinations from 1313 to 1905, and through that channel it also shaped the thought of Korea, Vietnam and Japan. ...

Note on sources and authorship: The dates of Zhuangzi (莊子, “Master Zhuang”; personal name Zhōu 周) are uncertain — c. 369–286 BCE is the conventional scholarly estimate, derived from mentions in period texts. The eponymous text Zhuangzi (莊子), as transmitted to us, is a compilation in three sections: the 7 inner chapters (nèipiān 內篇), generally attributed to Zhuangzi himself by modern scholarship; the 15 outer chapters (wàipiān 外篇) and the 11 miscellaneous chapters (zápiān 雜篇), regarded as works by later disciples and commentators. The edition that reached modernity is due to the scholar Guo Xiang (c. 252–312 CE). ...