Xenophanes was a foundational figure. He was the first philosopher to use ridicule as a formal device for critiquing other thinkers’ positions. He was also the first ancient Greek author who clearly espoused a relativist position. That is, he denied that any proposition could be absolutely true, since whether it was regarded as true or false depended on the subjective outlook of the individual assessing it—an important principle that holders of dogmatic opinions today still
