Xenocrates
396 BCE – 314 BCE · aged 82
4th-century BC Greek philosopher, mathematician and scholarch
- Born
- 396 BCE · Chalcedon
- Died
- 314 BCE · Classical Athens
Life timeline
Their life from birth to death. On the timeline, world events of the time are shown faintly.
- 396 BCEBornBorn in Chalcedon
- 339 BCE – 314 BCERoleScholarch of the Platonic Academy
- 314 BCEDiedDied in Classical Athens
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Meanwhile in the world
Major world events during their lifetime (396 BCE – 314 BCE).
- 323 BCE – 30 BCEHellenistic period
Biography
Xenocrates (Greek: Ξενοκράτης; c. 396/5 – 314/3 BC) of Chalcedon was a Greek philosopher, mathematician, and leader (scholarch) of the Platonic Academy from 339/8 to 314/3 BC. His teachings followed those of Plato, which he attempted to define more closely, often with mathematical elements. He distinguished three forms of being: the sensible, the intelligible, and a third compounded of the two, to which correspond respectively, sense, intellect and opinion. He considered unity and duality to be gods which rule the universe, and the soul a self-moving number. God pervades all things, and there are daemonical powers, intermediate between the divine and the mortal, which consist in conditions of the soul. He held that mathematical objects and the Platonic Ideas are identical, unlike Plato who distinguished them. In ethics, he taught that virtue produces happiness, but external goods can minister to it and enable it to effect its purpose.
Text from the Wikipedia article Xenocrates, CC BY-SA 4.0
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