Profile
Channel Views:
18,851
Style:
---
Joined:
Jan 6, 2009
Latest Activity:
12 hours ago
About Me:
The first philosopher to outline these themes was Antisthenes, who had been a pupil of Socrates in the late 5th century BCE. He was followed by Diogenes of Sinope, who lived in a tub on the streets of Athens. He took Cynicism to its logical extremes, and came to be seen as the archetypal Cynic philosopher. He was followed by Crates of Thebes who gave away a large fortune so he could live a life of Cynic poverty in Athens. Cynicism spread with the rise of Imperial Rome in the 1st century, and Cynics could be found begging and preaching throughout the cities of the Empire. It finally disappeared in the late 5th century, although many of its ascetic and rhetorical ideas were adopted by early Christians.
Cynicism is one of the most striking of all the Hellenistic philosophies. It offered people the possibility of happiness and freedom from suffering in an age of uncertainty. Although there was never an official Cynic doctrine, the fundamental principles of Cynicism can be summarised as follows 1. The goal of life is happiness which is to live in agreement with Nature.
2. Happiness depends on being self-sufficient, and a master of mental attitude.
3. Self-sufficiency is achieved by living a life of Virtue.
4. The road to virtue is to free oneself from any influence such as wealth, fame, or power, which have no value in Nature.
5. Suffering is caused by false judgments of value, which cause negative emotions and a vicious character.
A Cynic, then, has no property and rejects all conventional values of money, fame, power or reputation. A life lived according to nature requires only the bare necessities required for existence, and one can become free by unshackling oneself from any needs which are the result of convention. The Cynics adopted Hercules as their hero, as epitomizing the ideal Cynic. Hercules "was he who brought Cerberus, the hound of Hades, from the underworld, a point of special appeal to the dog-man, Diogenes." According to Lucian, "Cerberus and Cynic are surely related through the dog."
The Cynic way of life required continuous training, not just in exercising one's judgments and mental impressions, but a physical training as well: [Diogenes] used to say, that there were two kinds of exercise: that, namely, of the mind and that of the body; and that the latter of these created in the mind such quick and agile impressions at the time of its performance, as very much facilitated the practice of virtue; but that one was imperfect without the other, since the health and vigour necessary for the practice of what is good, depend equally on both mind and body.
Various philosophers, such as the Pythagoreans, had advocated simple living in the centuries preceding the Cynics. In the early 6th century BCE, Anacharsis, a Scythian sage had combined plain living together with criticisms of Greek customs in a manner which would become standard among the Cynics Perhaps of importance were tales of Indian philosophers, known to later Greeks as the Gymnosophists, who had adopted a strict asceticism together with a disrespect for established laws and customs. By the 5th century BCE, the Sophists had begun a process of questioning many aspects of Greek society such as religion, law and ethics. However, the most immediate influence for the Cynic school was Socrates. Although he was not an ascetic, he did profess a love of Virtue and an indifference to wealth, together with a disdain for general opinion. These aspects of Socrates' thought, which formed only a minor part of Plato's philosophy, became the central inspiration for another of Socrates' pupils, Antisthenes.
Subscribers
(22)
Recent Activity
|
6510686 commented on "Sevasth h apopsh sou"
"xaxa parta ta narkotika sou tora! THEOS"
|
|
|
|
6510686 commented on Theofania Papathoma vyzares
"@apisteftable21
parathalasio oikopedo i gkomena adelfaki" |
|
|
|
6510686 commented on Maria Tzanh VS Xristina Iakwvidou
"@themisterand
PIOUS XRISTIANOUS RE?AN EIXAME XRISTIANOUS STIN ELLADA DEN THA EIXAME 100.000 PREZAKIA " |
|
|
|
6510686 commented on Stratos Dionisiou-Pios to ipe gia tous magkes
"auta ta tragoudia na ta kouvalate stauro mesa stin psuxi sas kai na ta dinete leventiko xamogelo piso ston kosmo"
|
|
|
|
6510686 favorited a video
|
|
Channel Comments
i would like to go visit greece one day,cheers :)