Classical Cynicism: A Critical Study

241 Pages·1996·6.727 MB·English

by  Luis Navia

CLASSICAL
CYNICISM
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CLASSICAL
CYNICISM
A Critical Study
Luis E. Navia
Contributions in Philosophy, Number 58
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GREENWOOD PRESS
Westport, Connecticut • London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
NaviaL,u iEs.
Classiccayln ici:s mc ar itisctauldI y L uiEs. Navia.
p. cm.-(Contribuitnpi hoinlso soIpShSy,N0 084-926;Xn o.
58)
Includbeisb liograrpehfiecraeln( cpe.s) a ndi ndexes.
ISBN0 -313-3001(5a-l1pk a.p er)
1.C ynic(sG reepkh ilosopIh.yT )i tleI.I S.e ries.
B508N371 996
183'.4-dc20 96-22007
BritiLsihb raCrayt aloguiinPn ugb licaDtaitoain s a vailable.
Copyri©g h1t996b yL uiEs. Navia
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reproducbeyad n,y p roceosrst echniqwuiet,h otuhte
exprewsrsi ttceonn seonftt hep ublisher.
LibraorfyC ongreCsast alCoagr dN umber9:6 -22007
ISBN:0 -313-30015-1
ISSN:00 84-926X
Firpsutb lisihne1 d9 96
GreenwoPorde s8s8,P osRto adW estW,e stpoCrTt 0,6 881
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Contents
Preface vii
Chapter 1 - The Origins of Cynicism
Chapter 2 - Antisthenes. the Absolute Dog 37
Chapter 3 - Diogenes. a Socrates Gone Mad 81
Chapter 4 - Crates. the Door-opener 119
Chapter 5 - Hellenistic and Roman Cynicism 145
Bibliography 193
Index of Names 215
Index of Subjects 225

Preface
The Cynic movement constitutes one of the most challenging intellectual
phenomena in the history of the Western world. For eight hundred years the
Cynics roamed the streets and roads of classical Greece and Rome, preaching
what appears to have been a gospel of social and political protest, and acting in
ways which seem to have been specifically designed to unsettle the customs and
conventions of their contemporaries. From the first decade of the fourth century
B.C., soon after the execution of Socrates, until the last moments of the Roman
Empire, at a time when the last vestiges of the classical era were being erased
by the Barbarians and overwhelmed by Christianity, the Cynics were a familiar
presence in the classical world, and their message of revolt could be heard from
the courts of emperors and rulers to the market places and taverns crowded with
ordinary people.
The aim of this book is to present a historical review of the Cynic
movement in all its aspects, with critical documentation related to ancient sources
and modern scholarship. Emphasis is placed, of course, on the three major Cynic
philosophers, namely, Antisthenes, Diogenes of Sinope, and Crates of Thebes,
for it is in them that we find the basis of everything that can be viewed as
valuable in classical Cynicism. The many Cynics who emerged after these three
philosophers merely carried on certain traditions, exemplified certain modes of
living, and upheld certain convictions, all of which can be traced back in one
way or another to the early stages of the Cynic movement, and these stages are
well represented in Antisthenes, Diogenes, and Crates.
As will be made clear in this critical study, classical Cynicism was not
a monolithic ideological movement with set or well-defined philosophical tenets
and dogmas, and was never what we might call a 'school' of philosophy. It
constituted, more than anything else, an amorphous movement of intellectual and
social rebelliousness against a great number of beliefs and practices. In the
viii PREFACE
course of its development, it undenvent transfonnations in direction and in
content, as social circumstances changed throughout the centuries, for which
reason, the Cynicism of the early Greek Cynics was bound to differ from the
Cynicism of their Hellenistic and Roman descendants.
I have endeavored to shed light on the relationship between classical
Cynicism and what I call 'modern cynicism', and I hope to show that such a
relationship is weaker and more tenuous than what we could initially gather from
the common use of the terms 'cynic' and 'cynicism', which are often employed
to designate both the classical Cynics and the modern cynics. In fact, it is my
conviction that modern cynicism is in reality, all appearances notwithstanding,
the antithesis of classical Cynicism. The modern cynical person stands in most
respects in opposition to what the classical Cynics stood for. Modern cynicism,
as will be seen in chapter 1, is characterized by a pervasive sort of ethical
nihilism and by a permeating commitment to egoism, and is a social phenome­
non from which any and every kind of human aspiration is lacking. Classical
Cynicism, on the other hand, is based on a set of ethical and moral convictions,
that, although poorly defined and indistinctly stated, can be discerned through the
negativity apparent in its teachings and examples.
In chapter 1, I address a number of important issues, such as the origins
of the Cynic movement, dealing in particular with the question, interesting yet
not decisive in significance, of who among the Greeks was the real 'founder' or
originator of Cynicism. I also comment in this chapter on the problem of the
sources of our infonnation concerning the Cynic movement, a problem that, as
will be seen throughout this book, plagues us everywhere and all the time as we
endeavor to reconstruct the history of this movement. The nature of the sources
is such that we are justified in affirming that, on the one hand, we know a great
deal about Cynicism and about the major Cynics, and, on the other hand, we
know hardly anything about what Cynicism really was and about the ideas and
lives of specific Cynics. The anecdotes and statements attributed to the Cynics
are plentiful and colorful, the legends instructive and often amusing, and the
reports edifying and substantive, but the actual facts are few and the teachings
of the Cyrjcs only partly elucidated. What I have attempted to create in chapter
1 is a frame of reference for our understanding of classical Cynicism, and for
this purpose I have drawn what appears to me to be a generic portrait of a
typical Greek or Roman Cynic philosopher, a portrait that, not paradoxically, fits
well all the classical Cynics and yet not completely any of them.
Chapters 2, 3, and 4 are devoted respectively to Antisthenes, Diogenes,
and Crates. In them, I appeal to a variety of sources in order to reconstruct, in
so far as this is possible, an adequate portrayal of these Cynic philosophers. In
chapter 5, I offer a review of the history of Cynicism from the third century B.C.
to the end of this movement in the fifth century A.D. In this chapter, I have
approached the subject by selecting nine Cynic philosophers-Onesicritus of
Astypalaea, Monimus of Syracuse, Bion of Borysthenes, Menippus of Fontus,
Cercidas of Megalopolis, Meleager and Oenomaus of Gadara, Demetrius of
PREFACE ix
Rome, and Peregrinus Proteus-as examples of the changes undergone by
Cynicism in Hellenistic and Roman times. The constraints of time and space
have forced me to treat, only in passing and marginally, certain other important
figures in the history of Cynicism, for instance, Dio Chrysostom and Demonax
of Cyprus.
In all the chapters I have sought to clarify what I regard as the principal
concepts that underlie the development of classical Cynicism. These concepts
were emphatically and forcefully enunciated and defended by most of the Cynics,
although it cannot be denied that in most instances they remained plagued by a
certain kind of vagueness and by a frustrating lack of development. Concepts
such as 'a life lived according to nature', rationality, lucidity, self-sufficiency,
disciplined asceticism, freedom of speech, shamelessness, indifference, cosmo­
politanism, philanthropy, and others, permeate in varying degrees the Cynics'
Weltanschauung, and constitute, as it were, the foundations of their philosophy.
Their substance, however, is in most cases more negative than positive, and is
more an expression of protest than an affirmation of philosophical convictions,
for which reason we might not be altogether mistaken in recognizing in
Cynicism, regardless of its merit, a somewhat truncated or incomplete intellectual
edifice.
Despite its truncated and incomplete character, classical Cynicism has
much to teach us in the late twentieth century. Diogenes of Sinope is reported
to have once said that most people are nearly mad, and other Cynics would not
have hesitated to echo such a pessimistic assessment of the human condition.
One might venture to say that if Diogenes were to visit our own time, he would
not recant in his affirmation about his own contemporaries. Madness and sense­
lessness have remained salient characteristics of our history from his time to our
own time. What Cynicism teaches us is, above all, to be able to recognize in
ourselves and in the world around us those aspects that render human life
unhappy and disoriented. According to the Cynics, the greatest problem of
human beings is the fact that both through nature and through customs and
conventions they are deeply immersed in what the Cynics called -rutfx)(;, a term
of immense significance in Cynicism that can be rendered as 'illusion' or, more
precisely, as 'intellectual and spiritual obfuscation'. For the Cynics, then, the
purpose of philosophy is to help us come out of the cloud in which we generally
live and attain a condition which they called thv<f>fa, which means,.purely and
simply, 'clarity of mind'. Once this condition is attained, all the other virtues of
which the Cynics spoke flow naturally from it: we become indifferent to inconse­
quential things and circumstances: we develop in ourselves a great deal of self­
sufficiency and independence from others; we break asunder the fetters that tie
us to the atavistic modes of thought and behavior manifested in blind political
and nationalistic allegiances, in superstitious religious beliefs and practices, in the
pointless pursuit of pleasures and wealth, and in many other manifestations of
what the Cynics conceived of as human madness; we make a commitment to
speak always freely and to speak only the truth, without ever seeking to deceive