Eleatic School.

Eleatic School. The group of ancient Greek philosophers so called begins with Xenophanes of Colophon, who settled in Elea, a Greek city of Lower Italy (whence the name), and includes Parmenides and Zeno, who both belonged to Elea, and also Melissus of Samos. In opposition to the physical philosophy of the Ionic school, and to the doctrine of Heraclitus (q.v.), who denied all being or existence, the Eleatic philosophers made the conception of pure being, unmixed with all marks or properties derived through the senses, the foundation of all their speculations. They argued the unity and immutability of all things, and, attacking the prevalent anthropomorphic mythology, they taught that God is the One, self-existent, unchangeable, and incomparable in any respect to man. Moreover, distrusting all knowledge acquired through the senses, they held that it is by thought only that we arrive at the truth; and Zeno's most subtle paradoxes were directed to prove this opposition between thought and sense. See separate articles on the principal philosophers mentioned.