Título: Cynicism

Fuente: Ancient Greece. Ed. Thomas J. Sienkewicz. Vol. 1. Magill's Choice Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 2007. p284-288.
Tipo de Documento: Topic overview
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Cynicism
Diogenes' teachings and his unconventional lifestyle led to the establishment of the Cynic philosophical school.

Date: c. 350 B.C.E.

Category: Philosophy

Locale: Athens

SUMMARY
Diogenes (c. 412/403–c. 324/321 B.C.E.) is considered by a number of ancient traditions as the founder of the school of philosophy called
Cynicism (SIH-nuh-sih-zuhm). His thought represented a rejection of all existing philosophical systems as well as of conventional morality and
social custom. Diogenes' philosophical convictions translated into public behavior that scandalized his contemporaries. Although none of
Diogenes' works has survived into modern times, details of his life and aspects of his thought have been preserved by a number of classical
historians and authors. Of special note is the work of Diogenes Laertius, who, in his Peri biōn dogmatōn kai apophthegmatōn tōn en philosophia
eudokimīsantōn (third century C.E.; The Lives and Opinions of the Philosophers, 1853), provides information from a diverse body of sources,
including Diogenes' own writings.

Diogenes was born in the city of Sinope, a Greek colony on the southern coast of the Black Sea. According to one version, his father, Hicesias,
was a banker in charge of the public finances, but when it was discovered that he had debased the currency, he was forced into exile along with
Diogenes. According to other versions, including Diogenes' own work Pordalus (now lost), it was Diogenes himself who adulterated the currency
and was forced to leave his native city in disgrace.

Whatever the exact circumstances of his departure from Sinope, Diogenes was living in the city of Athens by the mid-fourth century B.C.E. On his
arrival in Athens, Diogenes reportedly became a student of Antisthenes, who, in turn, had been a student of Socrates. Some ancient writers claim
that Antisthenes was the first philosopher with whom the word “cynic” was Página 285  |  Inicio del Artículoassociated, probably because he met
with his followers at the gymnasium of Cynoserges (the white dog). Antisthenes reportedly was the first philosopher to wear a cloak and carry a
staff and a knapsack, clothing and accessories that, along with the Phrygian felt cap, later became the trademarks of Cynic philosophers. Although
the extent to which Antisthenes influenced Diogenes is not known, Diogenes' thought and behavior clearly represented a radical departure from all
previous philosophical propositions.

Obtaining a clear biographical portrait of Diogenes is difficult because there are no contemporary historical accounts of his life. Furthermore,
events in the life of the historical Diogenes are intertwined with anecdotes that are part of the literary persona that emerged in his own writings and
the works of writers from the Roman period such as Lucian and Dio Chrysostom. As the founder of the Cynic school, Diogenes became a
paradigmatic figure to whom many philosophical authors and biographers attributed countless acts and aphorisms. Laertius himself implicitly
acknowledged the difficulty in reconstructing an accurate biographical portrait of his subject when he included several versions of important
events in Diogenes' life.

Whether historical or fictional, all actions and words attributed to Diogenes conjure the image of an individual whose mission in life became to
ridicule all philosophical systems and to challenge all social and moral practices. Every source mentions that Diogenes rejected material
possessions. He wore a coarse cloak, went about barefoot, held his few possessions in a knapsack, carried a walking staff, and never groomed his
hair or beard. Diogenes rejected the idea of work and relied on the charity of friends and strangers for his basic needs. Because he did not own a
house, Diogenes slept at friends' houses, on the steps of public buildings, on the streets, and, most famously, in a bathtub.

Every story about Diogenes illustrates his disregard for rank, wealth, and power; his defiance of authority; and his desire to provoke outrage. After
Philip II of Macedonia defeated Athens and its allies at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 B.C.E., Diogenes was brought to the Macedonian king as a
captive. The king asked him who he was, to which Diogenes responded, “A spy upon your insatiable greed.” A few years later Philip's successor,
Alexander the Great, came to meet Diogenes. When he found the cynic taking a sunbath, the young king told Diogenes that he could request
anything from him, to which the philosopher replied, “Stand out of my light.” Alexander is quoted as having said that if he had not been
Alexander, he would have liked to have been Diogenes.

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Diogenes was equally defiant toward those who presumed of intellectual authority. When Diogenes heard Plato lecturing about his theory of Ideas
and using such terms as “tablehood” and “cuphood,” Diogenes commented that he could see a table and a cup, but he was unable to see
“tablehood” and “cuphood.” During another lecture, Plato pompously defined humans as bipedal animals with no feathers. Diogenes ran outside,
found a chicken, and plucked its feathers; he came back to the lecture hall and presented the bird to the crowd saying, “Here is Plato's man.” No
institution was immune to the cynic's attacks. Diogenes was critical of organized religion. When he saw temple officials arresting a man who

 
Diogenes, the founder of Cynicism.F. R. Niglutsch
 
Ver PDF

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had stolen a bowl, he said that the great thieves were taking away the little thief. He had no use for revered social institutions. When asked what
the appropriate time for marriage was, he responded that “for a young man not yet and for an old man never at all.” Diogenes held no national
allegiances. When asked where he was from, he responded that he was a citizen of the world. He is believed to have coined the word
“cosmopolitan.”

According to several sources, while traveling by sea, Diogenes was captured by pirates and subsequently sold as a slave. When asked at the
auction block what kind of tasks he could perform, Diogenes replied that he could rule men. On hearing this, a Corinthian by the name of
Xeniades bought Diogenes, brought him to Corinth, and entrusted him with the education of his sons. Diogenes spent the rest of his life in Corinth
growing old at Xeniades' household. He died at the age of about ninety. Although he had requested that his dead body be left unburied so that the
wild beasts could feed off him, Xeniades' sons buried him. One account claims that Diogenes' life ended on the same day that Alexander the Great
died in Babylon.
SIGNIFICANCE
The rise of Cynicism marks the end of the Classical period in Greek philosophy and the beginning of Hellenistic thought. After the formalism of
Plato and Aristotle, embodied in the rival institutions of the Academy and the Lyceum, Diogenes emerged as the philosopher of the
antiestablishment.

Plato once described Diogenes as “a Socrates gone mad.” The comparison to Socrates is apt because, like the martyred Athenian, Diogenes spent
his life exposing the hypocrisy of society, the presumptuousness of intellectuals, and the greed of the powerful. However, unlike Socrates, whose
life and thought reflect deep trust in humankind's inherent rationality and a desire to improve society through example, Diogenes, through his
behavior, projected a complete lack of confidence in humankind's rational abilities and hopelessness about the future of humanity.

FURTHER READING
Branham, R. “Diogenes and the Invention of Cynicism.” In The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy, edited by R. Branhman
and M. Goulet-Caze. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

Cutler, Ian. Cynicism from Diogenes to Dilbert. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2005.

Página 288  |  Inicio del Artículo

Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by R. D. Hicks. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000.

Long, A. “Diogenes, Crates and Hellenistic Ethics.” In The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy, edited by R. Branhman and
M. Goulet-Caze. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

Navia, Luis E. Diogenes the Cynic: The War Against the World. Amherst, N.Y.: Humanity Books, 2005.

Gilmar E. Visoni