Antisthenes

2 Philosophy

For other people named Antisthenes, see Antisthenes

(disambiguation).
Antisthenes (/ntsniz/;[1] Greek: ; c.
445 c. 365 BC) was a Greek philosopher and a pupil
of Socrates. Antisthenes rst learned rhetoric under
Gorgias before becoming an ardent disciple of Socrates.
He adopted and developed the ethical side of Socrates
teachings, advocating an ascetic life lived in accordance
with virtue. Later writers regarded him as the founder of
Cynic philosophy.

Life

Antisthenes was born c. 445 BC and was the son of Antisthenes, an Athenian. His mother was a Thracian.[2] In
his youth he fought at Tanagra (426 BC), and was a disciple rst of Gorgias, and then of Socrates, at whose death
he was present.[3] He never forgave his masters persecutors, and is said to have been instrumental in procuring their punishment.[4] He survived the Battle of Leuctra (371 BC), as he is reported to have compared the victory of the Thebans to a set of schoolboys beating their
master.[5] Although one source tells us that he died at the
age of 70,[6] he was apparently still alive in 366 BC,[7]
and he must have been nearer to 80 years old when he
died at Athens, c. 365 BC. He is said to have lectured
at the Cynosarges,[8] a gymnasium for the use of Athenians born of foreign mothers, near the temple of Heracles.
Diogenes Lartius says that his works lled ten volumes,
but of these, only fragments remain. His favourite style
seems to have been dialogues, some of them being vehement attacks on his contemporaries, as on Alcibiades in
the second of his two works entitled Cyrus, on Gorgias
in his Archelaus and on Plato in his Satho.[9] His style
was pure and elegant, and Theopompus even said that
Plato stole from him many of his thoughts.[10] Cicero, after reading some works by Antisthenes, found his works
pleasing and called him a man more intelligent than
learned.[11] He possessed considerable powers of wit and
sarcasm, and was fond of playing upon words; saying, for
instance, that he would rather fall among crows (korakes)
than atterers (kolakes), for the one devour the dead, but
the other the living.[12] Two declamations have survived,
named Ajax and Odysseus, which are purely rhetorical.
Antisthenes nickname was the (Absolute)
(, Diog.Laert.6.13) [13][14][15]

Marble bust of Antisthenes based on the same original (British

Museum)

2.1 According to Diogenes Laertius

In his Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes
Laertius lists the following as the favorite themes of Antisthenes: He would prove that virtue can be taught; and
that nobility belongs to none other than the virtuous. And
he held virtue to be sucient in itself to ensure happiness, since it needed nothing else except the strength of
a Socrates. And he maintained that virtue is an aair of
deeds and does not need a store of words or learning; that
the wise man is self-sucing, for all the goods of others
are his; that ill repute is a good thing and much the same
as pain; that the wise man will be guided in his public acts
not by the established laws but by the law of virtue; that he
will also marry in order to have children from union with
the handsomest women; furthermore that he will not dis-

Dog

4 NOTES

dain to love, for only the wise man knows who are worthy
to be loved.[16]

2.2

Ethics

Antisthenes was a pupil of Socrates, from whom he imbibed the fundamental ethical precept that virtue, not
pleasure, is the end of existence. Everything that the
wise person does, Antisthenes said, conforms to perfect
virtue,[17] and pleasure is not only unnecessary, but a positive evil. He is reported to have held pain[18] and even illrepute (Greek: )[19] to be blessings, and said that
I'd rather be mad than feel pleasure.[20] It is, however,
probable that he did not consider all pleasure worthless,
but only that which results from the gratication of sensual or articial desires, for we nd him praising the pleasures which spring from out of ones soul,[21] and the enjoyments of a wisely chosen friendship.[22] The supreme
good he placed in a life lived according to virtue, virtue
consisting in action, which when obtained is never lost,
and exempts the wise person from error.[23] It is closely
connected with reason, but to enable it to develop itself in
action, and to be sucient for happiness, it requires the
aid of Socratic strength (Greek: ).[17]
Antisthenes, part of a fresco in the National University of Athens.

2.3

Physics

His work on Natural Philosophy (the Physicus) contained

a theory of the nature of the gods, in which he argued
that there were many gods believed in by the people, but
only one natural God.[24] He also said that God resembles
nothing on earth, and therefore could not be understood
from any representation.[25]

2.4

Logic

followers the Antistheneans,[26] but makes no reference to Cynicism.[29] There are many later tales about
the infamous Cynic Diogenes of Sinope dogging Antisthenes footsteps and becoming his faithful hound,[30]
but it is no means certain that the two men ever met.
Some scholars, drawing on the discovery of defaced coins
from Sinope dating from the period 350-340 BC, believe
that Diogenes only moved to Athens after the death of
Antisthenes,[31] and it has been argued that the stories
linking Antisthenes to Diogenes were invented by the
Stoics in a later period in order to provide a succession
linking Socrates to Zeno, via Antisthenes, Diogenes, and
Crates.[32] These tales were important to the Stoics for
establishing a chain of teaching that ran from Socrates to
Zeno.[33] Others argue that the evidence from the coins
is weak, and thus Diogenes could have moved to Athens
well before 340 BC.[34] It is also possible that Diogenes
visited Athens and Antisthenes before his exile, and returned to Sinope.[31]

In logic, Antisthenes was troubled by the problem of universals. As a proper nominalist, he held that denition
and predication are either false or tautological, since we
can only say that every individual is what it is, and can
give no more than a description of its qualities, e. g. that
silver is like tin in colour.[26] Thus he disbelieved the Platonic system of Ideas. A horse, said Antisthenes, I can
see, but horsehood I cannot see.[27] Denition is merely Antisthenes certainly adopted a rigorous ascetic
[35]
and he developed many of the principles
a circuitous method of stating an identity: a tree is a veg- lifestyle,
etable growth is logically no more than a tree is a tree. of Cynic philosophy which became an inspiration for
Diogenes and later Cynics. It was said that he had laid the
foundations of the city which they afterwards built.[36]

Antisthenes and the Cynics

4 Notes

In later times, Antisthenes came to be seen as the founder

of the Cynics, but it is by no means certain that he would
have recognized the term. Aristotle, writing a generation later refers several times to Antisthenes[28] and his

[1] Jones, Daniel; Roach, Peter, James Hartman and Jane Setter, eds. Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary. 17th
edition. Cambridge UP, 2006.

[2] Suda, Antisthenes.; Diogenes Lartius, vi. 1

[31] Long 1996, page 45

[3] Plato, Phaedo, 59b.

[32] Dudley 1937, pages 2-4

[4] Diogenes Lartius, vi. 9

[33] Navia, Diogenes the Cynic, page 100

[5] Plutarch, Lycurgus, 30.

[34] Navia, Diogenes the Cynic, pages 34, 112-3

[6] Eudocia, Violarium, 96

[35] Xenophon, Symposium, iv. 3444.

[7] Diodorus Siculus, xv. 76.4

[36] Diogenes Lartius, vi. 15

[8] Diogenes Lartius, vi. 13

[9] Athenaeus, v. 220c-e

5 References

[10] Athenaeus, xi. 508c-d

[11] " , mihi sic placuit ut cetera Antisthenis, hominis
acuti magis quam eruditi." Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum,
Book XII, Letter 38, section 2. In English translation:
Books four () and ve () of Cyrus I found as pleasing as the others composed by Antisthenes, he is a man
who is sharp rather than learned.
[12] Diogenes Lartius, vi. 4
[13] Susan Prince, Dept. of Classics, University of Colorado,
Boulder review of LE. Navia - Antisthenes of Athens: Setting the World Aright. Westport: Greenwood Press, Pp.
xii, 176. ISBN 0-313-31672-4 Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2001.06.23 [Retrieved 2015-04-20]
[14] The Ancient World: Dictionary of World Biography, Volume 1 Routledge, 16 Dec 2003 (edited by FN. Magill)
ISBN 1135457409 [Retrieved 2015-04-20]
[15] H George Judge, R Blake - World history, Volume 1 Oxford University Press, 1988 [Retrieved 2015-04-20]
[16] Diogenes Lartius, Book VI. Chapter 1, 10
[17] Diogenes Lartius, vi. 11
[18] Julian, Oration, 6.181b
[19] Diogenes Lartius, vi. 3, 7
[20] Diogenes Lartius, vi. 3
[21] Xenophon, Symposium, iv. 41.
[22] Diogenes Lartius, vi. 12
[23] Diogenes Lartius, vi. 1112, 104105
[24] Cicero, De Natura Deorum, i. 13.
[25] Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, v.
[26] Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1043b24
[27] Simplicius, in Arist. Cat. 208, 28
[28] Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1024b26; Rhetoric, 1407a9; Topics, 104b21; Politics, 1284a15

Dudley, Donald R. (1937), A History of Cynicism

from Diogenes to the 6th Century A.D.. Cambridge
Long, A. A. (1996), The Socratic Tradition: Diogenes, Crates, and Hellenistic Ethics, in Bracht
Branham, R.; Goulet-Caze Marie-Odile, The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy.
University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-216458
Luis E. Navia, (2005), Diogenes The Cynic: The
War Against The World. Humanity Books. ISBN
1-59102-320-3

6 Further reading
Branham, R. Bracht; Caz, Marie-Odile Goulet,
eds. (1996). The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in
Antiquity and Its Legacy. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Guthrie, William Keith Chambers (1969). The
Fifth-Century Enlightenment. A History of Greek
Philosophy 3. London: Cambridge University
Press.
Navia, Luis E. (2001). Antisthenes of Athens: Setting the World Aright. Contributions in philosophy
80. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-31331672-4.
Navia, Luis E. (1996). Classical Cynicism: A Critical
Study. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Navia, Luis E. (1995). The Philosophy of Cynicism
An Annotated Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Rankin, H.D. (1986). Anthisthenes Sokratikos. Amsterdam: A.M. Hakkert. ISBN 90-256-0896-5.

[29] Long 1996, page 32

Rankin, H.D. (1983). Sophists, Socratics, and Cynics. London: Croom Helm.

[30] Diogenes Lartius, vi. 6, 18, 21; Dio Chrysostom, Orations, viii. 14; Aelian, x. 16; Stobaeus, Florilegium,
13.19

Sayre, Farrand (1948). Antisthenes the Socratic.

The Classical Journal 43: 237244.

External links
Antisthenes entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy
Lives & Writings on the Cynics, directory of literary
references to Ancient Cynics
Diogenes Lartius, Life of Antisthenes, translated by
Robert Drew Hicks (1925).
Xenophon, Symposium, Book IV

EXTERNAL LINKS

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

8.1

Text

Antisthenes Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisthenes?oldid=658211636 Contributors: Arvindn, Delirium, Wetman, Owen, Robbot, ChrisO~enwiki, Fabiform, Berasategui, Alensha, Jastrow, Pgan002, Antandrus, Tothebarricades.tk, Bodnotbod, Karl-Henner, ElAhrairah, Lucidish, Bender235, El C, Brisis~enwiki, Art LaPella, Robotje, Pwqn, Nuno Tavares, Silverwood, Rachel1, Yurik, AllanBz,
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8.2

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8.3

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