The Cynic Philosophers: From Diogenes to Julian by Diogenes Of Sinope & Julian & Lucian

The Cynic Philosophers: From Diogenes to Julian by Diogenes Of Sinope & Julian & Lucian

By Diogenes Of Sinope & Julian & Lucian

"Poverty doesn't consist within the wish of cash, neither is begging to be deplored. Poverty is composed within the wish to have every thing, and during violent ability if helpful" —Diogenes of Sinope

From their founding within the 5th century BC and for over 800 years, the Cynic philosophers sought to treatment humanity of greed and vice with their suggestion of residing easily. They assured happiness to their adherents via freedom of speech, poverty, self-sufficiency and actual hardiness. during this interesting and fully new choice of Cynic writing throughout the centuries, from Diogenes and Hipparchia, to Lucian and the Roman emperor Julian, the heritage and stories of the Cynic philosophers are explored to the full.

Robert Dobbin's advent examines the general public picture of the Cynics during the a while, in addition to the philosophy's contradictions and the way their perspectives on girls have been centuries prior to their time. This variation additionally comprises notes at the textual content, chronology, thesaurus and steered additional reading.

Translated, edited and with an creation by means of Robert Dobbin

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283 BC). He began life as a wealthy landowner; his conversion to Cynicism, with the repudiation of wealth this entailed, is that much more remarkable. He was a hunchback, which makes the most significant aspect of his life – his love match with the fair and well-born Hipparchia – compelling testimony to his moral influence. Her parents denied her insistent requests that she be allowed to marry him; in desperation, she threatened suicide if this happiness were denied her. Hipparchia’s parents managed to enlist Crates to their side in the dispute.

He identified most with Neoplatonism, whose doctrines supply much of the substance of the first oration we have translated, usually in digressions when the focus on Cynicism is temporarily lost sight of. But in the process he followed Epictetus’ lead in presenting an idealized Cynicism as a timeless moral paradigm. In the first extract, he is seen defending the rigours of Diogenes’ regime against a contemporary critic. In the second he reflects on what place, if any, myth has a right to in philosophical discourse.

They promoted ideals other than the traditional virtues, qualities that hardly qualify as virtues at all: self-sufficiency, freedom, detachment, training aimed at instilling physical and moral toughness or endurance (karteria). Since no ethical treatise by Diogenes or any of the other early Cynics survives (perhaps because they wrote so few of them), we must try to present a coherent account of their ethical system on our own. The question, then, is what relation obtains between their declared telos, happiness (eudaimonia), the means – virtue – leading to it, ‘life in agreement with nature’ as a moral principle, and the qualities they prized and promoted such as self-sufficiency (autarkeia), freedom of speech, poverty and the rest.

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