Abstrakt: | Criticism is nowadays broadly defined firstly, as a cognitive attitude consisting in
investigation of rightness of one’s beliefs and considering true only those statements
which are substantiated. Secondly, it is a cognitive attitude opposed to dogmatism
(e.g. skepticism understood not as negative dogmatism but as zeteticism and
ephecticism), which allows the possibility of changing one’s opinion as a result
of occurrence of new facts or theories. Cosmological-ontological interpretation
of early Greek philosophy, which is currently dominant, may be complemented
(or even overcome) by a critical one. The article presents elements of Xenophanes’
philosophy (especially Xenophanes’ theological fragments) in the light of the
problem concerning the historical origins of philosophical criticism. In this paper
I try to recognize Xenophanes’ theological fragments not as a positive theology, but
rather as an attempt to construct a dialectical metaphor (like in case of Gadamer’s
interpretations of Plato’s polis), which has emphasized the epistemological assumptions
of his philosophy. |