Xenocrates

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "Xenocrates" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. You can help. The talk page may contain suggestions. (January 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Xenocrates
Xenocrates
Born	396/5 BC Chalcedon (now Kadıköy, Istanbul, Turkey)
Died	314/3 BC Athens
Era	Ancient philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Platonism
Main interests	Logic, Physics, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Mathematics, Ethics
Notable ideas	Developed the philosophy of Plato

Xenocrates (/zəˈnɒkrəˌtiːz/; Greek: Ξενοκράτης; c. 396/5 – 314/3 BC^[1]) 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.