![]() Finally, moral excellence is to be obtained by methodical training, or asceticism.Marcus Aurelius is one of the most famous stoic philosophers, and one of the most powerful people in the world while he was alive. To these Diogenes added “outspokenness,” an uncompromising zeal for exposing vice and conceit and stirring men to reform. A second principle, “shamelessness,” signified the necessary disregard for those conventions holding that actions harmless in themselves may not be performed in every situation. The program for life advocated by Diogenes began with self-sufficiency, or the ability to possess within oneself all that one needs for happiness. Though Diogenes himself lived in poverty, slept in public buildings, and begged his food, he did not insist that all men should live in the same way but merely intended to show that happiness and independence were possible even under reduced circumstances. The family was viewed as an unnatural institution to be replaced by a natural state in which men and women would be promiscuous and children would be the common concern of all. He made it his mission to “deface the currency,” perhaps meaning “to put false coin out of circulation.” That is, he sought to expose the falsity of most conventional standards and beliefs and to call men back to a simple, natural life.įor Diogenes the simple life meant not only disregard of luxury but also disregard of laws and customs of organized, and therefore “conventional,” communities. Referred to by Aristotle as a familiar figure there, Diogenes began practicing extreme anti-conventionalism. Almost certainly forced into exile from Sinope with his father, he had probably already adopted his life of asceticism (Greek askesis, “training”) when he reached Athens. ![]() Tradition ascribes to him the famous search for an honest man conducted in broad daylight with a lighted lantern. He declared that his trade was that of governing men and was appointed tutor to his master’s sons. His followers positioned themselves as watchdogs of morality.ĭiogenes is the subject of numerous apocryphal stories, one of which depicts his behaviour upon being sold into slavery. It was by personal example rather than any coherent system of thought that Diogenes conveyed the Cynic philosophy. ![]() He is credited by some with originating the Cynic way of life, but he himself acknowledges an indebtedness to Antisthenes, by whose numerous writings he was probably influenced. 320 bce, probably at Corinth, Greece), archetype of the Cynics, a Greek philosophical sect that stressed stoic self-sufficiency and the rejection of luxury.
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