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Xenophanes in Plato’s Sophist and the first philosophical genealogy

Abstract In this article I intend to show that Plato in the Sophist provides us with the earliest doxographic material on pre-Platonic thinkers. In his account on his predecessors, Xenophanes emerges as the founder of the Eleatic tribe as opposed to the pluralists, while Heraclitus and Empedocles are presented as the Ioanian and the Italian Muses respectively. This prima facie genealogical approach, where Plato’s predecessors become the representatives of schools of different origines paves the way for Plato’s project in the Sophist. In other words the monistic account Xenophanes introduces, prepares for the synthesis between the one and the many set forth by Heraclitus and Empedocles, which is thus presented as a further step towards the ‘interweaving of forms’ (συμπλοκήν εἰδῶν) Plato proposes in the Sophist.