Zeno of Elea, who lived around 490 to 430 BC, was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in what is now Southern Italy, a student of Parmenides and one of the Eleatics. Zeno defended his instructor's belief in monism, the idea that only one single entity exists making up all of reality, and rejected the existence of space, time and motion, developing a series of paradoxes to demonstrate why they are impossible; though his original writings are lost, subsequent descriptions by Plato, Aristotle, Diogenes Laertius and Simplicius of Cilicia allow study of his ideas. His arguments divide into two types, those against plurality, holding that anything that exists must be infinitely divisible and so would need to have both infinite mass and no mass simultaneously, and those against motion, holding that any distance must be divisible infinitely so that infinite steps would be required to cross it. Zeno's paradoxes remain debated today and have influenced both philosophy and mathematics, ancient and modern, including atomic theory, mathematical limits and set theory.
Facts
Birth YearSourced to the subject's own accountCirca; Wikipedia lead gives c. 490 BC. Defining MomentSourced to the subject's own accountRejected the existence of space, time and motion, and devised a series of paradoxes to demonstrate why they are impossible 1 Death YearSourced to the subject's own accountCirca; Wikipedia lead gives c. 430 BC. BirthplaceSourced to the subject's own accountElea, Magna Graecia (Southern Italy) 1 TraditionSourced to the subject's own accountEleatic philosophy; student of Parmenides, defended his teacher's monism 1 Classification
NationalitySourced to the subject's own account Tradition
Tradition (category)Sourced to the subject's own accountPre-Socratic Philosophy 1 Connections
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Source Zeno's Paradoxes (Wikipedia)
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Source Zeno of Elea (Wikipedia)Lead sentence 1tier 3Quote, Lead sentence 1
Zeno of Elea (; Ancient Greek: Ζήνων ὁ Ἐλεάτης; c. 490 – c. 430 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea, in what is now Southern Italy (Magna Graecia).
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1. Zeno of Elea (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)Lead section, first sentence (death date)
Zeno of Elea (; Ancient Greek: Ζήνων ὁ Ἐλεάτης; c. 490, c. 430 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea, in what is now Southern Italy (Magna Graecia).
Lead section, first sentence (origin)
was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea, in what is now Southern Italy (Magna Graecia).
Lead section, second sentence
He was a student of Parmenides and one of the Eleatics. Zeno defended his instructor's belief in monism, the idea that only one single entity exists that makes up all of reality.
Lead section, third sentence
He rejected the existence of space, time, and motion. To disprove these concepts, he developed a series of paradoxes to demonstrate why they are impossible.
Lead section, first sentence (birth date)
Zeno of Elea (; Ancient Greek: Ζήνων ὁ Ἐλεάτης; c. 490, c. 430 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea, in what is now Southern Italy (Magna Graecia).
Influenced By: Parmenides, Lead section, second sentence (teacher)
He was a student of Parmenides and one of the Eleatics.
In Branch: Metaphysics, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, ontology
View the Source Wikidata: Zeno of Elea
Wikidata Q132157, class allow-list match, case-insensitive label variant (w-bbfill-smallsix2-0926/resolve_ci.ps1)View the Source Zeno's Paradoxes (Wikipedia)
WikipediaAssociated With: Zeno's Paradoxes, Lead section
Zeno devised these paradoxes to support his teacher Parmenides's philosophy of monism.
Associated With: Zeno's Paradoxes, Lead
are a series of philosophical arguments presented by the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea (c. 490-430 BC), primarily known through the works of Plato, Aristotle, and later commentators like
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