Your browser does not fully support modern features. Please upgrade for a smoother experience.
Submitted Successfully!
Thank you for your contribution! You can also upload a video entry or images related to this topic. For video creation, please contact our Academic Video Service.
Version Summary Created by Modification Content Size Created at Operation
1 handwiki Camila Xu -- 3227 2022-10-24 01:46:48

Video Upload Options

We provide professional Academic Video Service to translate complex research into visually appealing presentations. Would you like to try it?
No, upload directly Yes
Cite
If you have any further questions, please contact Encyclopedia Editorial Office.
HandWiki. Cynicism. Encyclopedia. Available online: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/30778 (accessed on 25 September 2026).
HandWiki. Cynicism. Encyclopedia. Available at: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/30778. Accessed September 25, 2026.
HandWiki. "Cynicism" Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/30778 (accessed September 25, 2026).
HandWiki. (2022, October 24). Cynicism. In Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/30778
HandWiki. "Cynicism." Encyclopedia. Web. 24 October, 2022.
Cynicism
Edit
The content is sourced from: https://handwiki.org/wiki/Philosophy:Cynicism

Cynicism (Ancient Greek:) is a school of thought of ancient Greek philosophy as practiced by the Cynics (Ancient Greek:; Latin: Cynici). For the Cynics, the purpose of life is to live in virtue, in agreement with nature. As reasoning creatures, people can gain happiness by rigorous training and by living in a way which is natural for themselves, rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, and fame, and even flouting conventions openly and derisively in public. Instead, they were to lead a simple life free from all possessions. The first philosopher to outline these themes was Antisthenes, who had been a pupil of Socrates in the late 400 BC. He was followed by Diogenes, who lived in a ceramic jar on the streets of Athens. Diogenes 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 gradually declined in importance after the 3rd century BC, but it experienced a revival with the rise of the Roman Empire in the 1st century. Cynics could be found begging and preaching throughout the cities of the empire, and similar ascetic and rhetorical ideas appeared in early Christianity. By the 19th century, emphasis on the negative aspects of Cynic philosophy led to the modern understanding of cynicism to mean a disposition of disbelief in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions.

rhetorical christianity cynicism

References

  1. Kynikos, "A Greek-English Lexicon", Liddell and Scott, at Perseus https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2360864
  2. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 13. Cf. The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, 2nd edition, p. 165.
  3. An obscure reference to "the Dog" in Aristotle's Rhetoric (3.10.1411a25) is generally agreed to be the first reference to Diogenes.
  4. Diogenes of Sinope, quoted by Stobaeus, Florilegium, iii. 13. 44.
  5. Christian August Brandis, Scholium on Aristotle's Rhetoric, quoted in Dudley 1937, p. 5
  6. Long 1996, p. 28
  7. Kidd 2005
  8. Long 1996, p. 29
  9. Navia, Luis E. Classical Cynicism: A Critical Study. p. 140.
  10. Adamson, Peter (2015) (in en). Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds. Oxford University Press. pp. 14. ISBN 978-0-19-872802-3. https://books.google.com/books?id=J5_oCQAAQBAJ. 
  11. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 2, 71; Dio Chrysostom, Orations, viii. 26–32; Pseudo-Lucian, Cynicus, 13; Lucian, De Morte Peregrini, 4, 33, 36. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dio_Chrysostom/Discourses/8*.html#26
  12. Orlando Patterson: Freedom. p. 186 https://books.google.com/books?id=E0w9bA4PeOQC&pg=RA1-PA186&lpg=RA1-PA186&dq=Cerberus+Cynics+Heracles&source=bl&ots=x1qmPJVy56&sig=mMiI_KA938eJmULvCwbDWtBwXdA&hl=en&ei=TiKwSeyDKJaitge5nNngBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result
  13. Long 1996, p. 34
  14. Lucian, Dialogues of the Dead, 21 http://www.theoi.com/Text/LucianDialoguesDead1.html#4
  15. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 70
  16. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 63
  17. Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 121
  18. Cynics – The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/c/cynics.htm
  19. David Mazella, (2007), The Making of Modern Cynicism, University of Virginia Press. ISBN:0-8139-2615-7
  20. Cynicism, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Fourth Edition. 2006. Houghton Mifflin Company. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Cynicism
  21. Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, p. 231. Simon and Schuster.
  22. R. Martin, The Scythian Accent: Anacharsis and the Cynics, Bracht Branham & Goulet-Cazé 1996
  23. Plato, Apology, 41e. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1656
  24. Xenophon, Apology, 1. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1171
  25. Epictetus, 3.22
  26. Aristotle, Politics (Aristotle): bk 2, 1268b
  27. Veblen, 1994 [1899]: 162
  28. Jon Ploug Jørgensen, The taming of the aristoi - an ancient Greek civilizing process? History of the Human Sciences: July 2014 vol. 27 no. 3, pp. 42–43
  29. Dudley 1937, p. 1
  30. Bracht Branham & Goulet-Cazé 1996, p. 6
  31. Xenophon, Symposium, 4.57–64. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1181
  32. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 2
  33. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 15–18
  34. Prince 2005, p. 79
  35. Navia 1996, p. 40
  36. Xenophon, Symposium, 4.34. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1181
  37. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 20–21
  38. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 20, 71
  39. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 6, 18, 21; Aelian, x. 16; Epictetus, Discourses, iii. 22. 63
  40. Long 1996, p. 45
  41. Dudley 1937, p. 2
  42. Prince 2005, p. 77
  43. Sarton, G., Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece, Dover Publications. (1980).
  44. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 23; Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum, 2.14
  45. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 34
  46. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 66
  47. Long 1996, p. 33
  48. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 87–88
  49. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 85, 87; Epictetus, Discourses, iii. 22. 63
  50. Long 1996, p. 46
  51. Although there is no mention in ancient sources of them actually begging. Cf. Doyne Dawson, (1992), Cities of the gods: communist utopias in Greek thought, p. 135. Oxford University Press
  52. Plutarch, Symposiacs, 2.1; Apuleius, Florida, 22; Julian, Orations, 6.201b
  53. Diogenes Laërtius, i. 15, vi. 105, vii. 2, etc
  54. Schofield 1991
  55. Dudley 1937, p. 117
  56. Bracht Branham & Goulet-Cazé 1996, p. 13
  57. Cicero, De Officiis, i. 41.
  58. Dudley 1937, p. 124
  59. Lucian, De Morte Peregrini, 3 http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl4/wl420.htm
  60. Lucian, Fugitivi, 16. http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl4/wl421.htm
  61. Aelius Aristides, iii. 654–694
  62. Seneca, De Beneficiis, vii. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3794
  63. Lucian, De Morte Peregrini. http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl4/wl420.htm
  64. Lucian, Demonax. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6829
  65. Epictetus, Discourses, 3. 22. http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.html
  66. Epictetus, Discourses, 3. 22. 23 http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.html
  67. Epictetus, Discourses, 3. 22. 80 http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.html
  68. Dudley 1937, p. 202
  69. Julian, Oration 6: To the Uneducated Cynics; Oration 7: To the Cynic Heracleios.
  70. Damascius, Life of Isidorus: fragments preserved in the Commentary on Plato's Parmenides by Proclus, in the Bibliotheca of Photius, and in the Suda.
  71. Dudley 1937, pp. 209–211
  72. Leif Vaage, (1994), Galilean Upstarts: Jesus' First Followers According to Q. TPI
  73. F. Gerald Downing, (1992), Cynics and Christian Origins. T. & T. Clark.
  74. In particular, Menippus (3rd century BC), Meleager (1st century BC), and Oenomaus (2nd century CE), all came from Gadara.
  75. Quoted in R. Ostling, "Who was Jesus?", Time, August 15, 1988, pp. 37–42. https://web.archive.org/web/20080401050600/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,968139,00.html
  76. John Dominic Crossan, (1991), The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant, ISBN:0-06-061629-6
  77. Craig A. Evans, Life of Jesus Research: An Annotated Bibliography, p. 151. Brill
  78. F. Gasco Lacalle, (1986) Cristianos y cinicos. Una tificacion del fenomeno cristiano durante el siglo II, pp. 111–119. Memorias de Historia Antigua 7.
  79. Dio Cassius, Epitome of book 65, 15.5; Herodian, Roman History, 1.9.2–5 https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/65*.html#p291
  80. Lucian, De Morte Peregrini, 10–15 http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl4/wl420.htm
  81. Origen, adv. Cels. 2.41, 6.28, 7.7; Basil of Caesarea, Leg. Lib. Gent. 9.3, 4, 20; Theodoret, Provid. 6; John Chrysostom, Ad. Op. Vit. Monast. 2.4, 5
  82. Augustine, De Civitate Dei 14.20.
  83. Leif E. Vaage, (1990), Cynic Epistles (Selections), in Vincent L. Wimbush, Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook, pp. 117–118. Continuum International
  84. Zuckerman, Phil (2007). Martin, Michael T. ed. The Cambridge companion to atheism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 56. ISBN 978-0-521-84270-9. https://books.google.com/books?id=tAeFipOVx4MC&pg=PA56. Retrieved 2011-04-09. 
More
©Text is available under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons-Attribution ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.
Upload a video for this entry
Information
Subjects: Others
Contributor MDPI registered users' name will be linked to their SciProfiles pages. To register with us, please refer to https://encyclopedia.pub/register :
HandWiki
View Times: 3.4K
Entry Collection: HandWiki
Revision: 1 time (View History)
Update Date: 24 Oct 2022
Table of Contents
    Notice
    You are not a member of the advisory board for this topic. If you want to update advisory board member profile, please contact office@encyclopedia.pub.
    OK
    Confirm
    Only members of the Encyclopedia advisory board for this topic are allowed to note entries. Would you like to become an advisory board member of the Encyclopedia?
    Yes
    No
    ${ textCharacter }/${ maxCharacter }
    Submit
    Cancel
    There is no comment~
    ${ textCharacter }/${ maxCharacter }
    Submit
    Cancel
    ${ selectedItem.replyTextCharacter }/${ selectedItem.replyMaxCharacter }
    Submit
    Cancel
    Confirm
    Are you sure to Delete?
    Yes No
    Academic Video Service
    Feedback