Antisthenes

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For other people named Antisthenes, see Antisthenes (disambiguation).

Antisthenes

PortraitbustofAntisthenes,foundattheVillaofCassiusatTivoli,
1774(MuseoPioClementino).

Born

c.445BC
Athens

Died

c.365BC(ageapprox.80)
Athens

Era

Ancientphilosophy

Region

Westernphilosophy

School

FounderoftheCynicschool

Main
interests
Notable
ideas

Asceticism,Ethics,Language,Literature,Logic

LayingthefoundationsofCynicphilosophy
Distinctionbetweensenseandreference

Influences[show]

Influenced[show]

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Antisthenes (/ntsniz/;[1] Greek: ; c. 445 c. 365 BC) was a Greek philosopher and a
pupil of Socrates. Antisthenes first 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.

Contents
[hide]

1Life

2Philosophy
o

2.1According to Diogenes Laertius

2.2Ethics

2.3Physics

2.4Logic

2.5Philosophy of language

3Antisthenes and the Cynics

4Notes

5References

6Further reading

7External links

Life[edit]

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 first of Gorgias, and then
of Socrates, at whose death he was present.[3] He never forgave his master's 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 Eudokia Makrembolitissa supposedly 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 filled 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 flatterers (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) Dog (, Diog. Laert.6.13)[13][14][15]

Philosophy[edit]

Marble bust of Antisthenes based on the same original (British Museum)

According to Diogenes Laertius[edit]

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 sufficient in itself to ensure happiness, since it needed nothing else

except the strength of a Socrates. And he maintained that virtue is an affair of deeds and does not need
a store of words or learning; that the wise man is self-sufficing, 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 disdain to love, for only the wise man
knows who are worthy to be loved".[16]

Ethics[edit]
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 ill-repute (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 gratification of sensual or artificial desires, for we find him praising the pleasures which
spring "from out of one's 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 sufficient for happiness, it requires the aid of Socratic
strength (Greek:
).[17]

Physics[edit]
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]

Logic[edit]
In logic, Antisthenes was troubled by the problem of universals. As a proper nominalist, he held that
definition 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] Definition is merely a circuitous method of stating an identity: "a tree is a
vegetable growth" is logically no more than "a tree is a tree".

Philosophy of language[edit]
Antisthenes apparently distinguished "a general object that can be aligned with the meaning of the
utterance" from "a particular object of extensional reference". This "suggests that he makes a distinction
between sense and reference".[28] The principal basis of this claim is a quotation in Alexander of
Aphrodisiass "Comments on Aristotles Topics" with a three-way distinction:
1. the semantic medium,
2. an object external to the semantic medium,
[29]
3. the direct indication of a thing,

Antisthenes and the Cynics[edit]

Antisthenes, part of a fresco in the National University of Athens.

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[30] and his followers "the Antistheneans,"[26] but makes no reference to Cynicism.[31] There are
many later tales about the infamous Cynic Diogenes of Sinope dogging Antisthenes' footsteps and
becoming his faithful hound,[32] but it is by 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,[33] 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.[34] These tales were
important to the Stoics for establishing a chain of teaching that ran from Socrates to Zeno.[35] Others
argue that the evidence from the coins is weak, and thus Diogenes could have moved to Athens well
before 340 BC.[36] It is also possible that Diogenes visited Athens and Antisthenes before his exile, and
returned to Sinope.[33]
Antisthenes certainly adopted a rigorous ascetic lifestyle,[37] and he developed many of the principles 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.[38]

Notes[edit]
1.

Jump up^ Jones, Daniel; Roach, Peter James; Hartman, James; Setter, Jane,
eds. (2006). Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (17th ed.). Cambridge UP.[page needed]

2.

Jump up^ Suda, Antisthenes.; Lartius 1925, 1.

3.

Jump up^ Plato, Phaedo, 59b.

4.

Jump up^ Lartius 1925, 9.

5.

Jump up^ Plutarch, Lycurgus, 30.

6.

Jump up^ Eudocia, Violarium, 96

7.

Jump up^ Diodorus Siculus, xv. 76.4

8.

Jump up^ Lartius 1925, 13.

9.

Jump up^ Athenaeus, v. 220c-e

10.

Jump up^ Athenaeus, xi. 508c-d

11.

12.

Jump up^ " , 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 five () of Cyrus I found as pleasing as the
others composed by Antisthenes, he is a man who is sharp rather than learned".
Jump up^ Lartius 1925, 4.

13.

Jump up^ Prince, Susan (Dept. of Classics, University of Colorado,

Boulder). Review of LE. Navia - Antisthenes of Athens: Setting the World Aright.
Retrieved June 2015. Check date values in: |accessdate= (help) Navia, Luis
E. Antisthenes of Athens: Setting the World Aright. Westport: Greenwood Press. pp. xii,
176. ISBN 0-313-31672-4.

14.

Jump up^ Magill, Frank N. (2003). The Ancient World: Dictionary of World
Biography. Routledge. p. 89. ISBN 978-1-135-45740-2.

15.

Jump up^ Judge, Harry George; Blake, Robert (1988). World history. Oxford
University Press. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-19-869135-8.

16.

Jump up^ Lartius 1925, 10.

17.

^ Jump up to:a b Lartius 1925, 11.

18.

Jump up^ Julian, Oration, 6.181b

19.

Jump up^ Lartius 1925, 3, 7.

20.

Jump up^ Lartius 1925, 3.

21.

Jump up^ Xenophon, Symposium, iv. 41.

22.

Jump up^ Lartius 1925, 12.

23.

Jump up^ Lartius 1925, 1112, 104105.

24.

Jump up^ Cicero, De Natura Deorum, i. 13.

25.

Jump up^ Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, v.

26.

^ Jump up to:a b Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1043b24

27.

Jump up^ Simplicius, in Arist. Cat. 208, 28

28.

Jump up^ Prince 2015, p. 20.

29.

Jump up^ op. cit. t153b1, pp. 518522

30.

31.
32.

Jump up^ Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1024b26; Rhetoric, 1407a9; Topics,

104b21; Politics, 1284a15
Jump up^ Long 1996, page 32
Jump up^ Lartius 1925, 6, 18, 21; Dio Chrysostom, Orations, viii. 14; Aelian,
x. 16; Stobaeus, Florilegium, 13.19

33.

^ Jump up to:a b Long 1996, page 45

34.

Jump up^ Dudley 1937, pages 2-4

35.

Jump up^ Navia, Diogenes the Cynic, page 100

36.

Jump up^ Navia, Diogenes the Cynic, pages 34, 112-3

37.

Jump up^ Xenophon, Symposium, iv. 3444.

38.

Jump up^ Lartius 1925, 15.

References[edit]

Brancacci, Aldo. Oikeios logos. La filosofia del linguaggio di Antistene, Napoli: Bibliopolis, 1990
(fr. tr. Antisthne, Le discours propre, Paris, Vrin, 2005)

Dudley, Donald R. (1937), A History of Cynicism from Diogenes to the 6th Century A.D..
Cambridge

Lartius, Diogenes (1925). "The Cynics: Antisthenes". Lives of the Eminent

Philosophers. 2:6. Translated by Hicks, Robert Drew (Two volume ed.). Loeb Classical Library. 1
19.

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 0-520-21645-8

Luis E. Navia, (2005), Diogenes The Cynic: The War Against The World. Humanity
Books. ISBN 1-59102-320-3

Prince, Susan (2015). Antisthenes of Athens: Texts, Translations, and Commentary. University
of Michigan Press. p. 20.

Further reading[edit]

Branham, R. Bracht; Caz, Marie-Odile Goulet, eds. (1996). The Cynics: The Cynic Movement
in Antiquity and Its Legacy. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Fuentes Gonzlez, Pedro Pablo (2013). En defensa del encuentro entre dos Perros, Antstenes
y Digenes: historia de una tensa amistad. Cuadernos de Filologa Clsica: Estudios Griegos e
Indoeuropeos. 23. pp. 225-267 (reprint in: V. Suvk [ed.], Antisthenica Cynica Socratica, Praha:
Oikoumene, 2014, p. 11-71).

Guthrie, William Keith Chambers (1969). The Fifth-Century Enlightenment. A History of Greek
Philosophy. 3. London: Cambridge University Press.

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.

Prince, Susan (2015). Antisthenes of Athens: Texts, Translations, and Commentary. University
of Michigan Press.
Rankin, H. D. (1986). Anthisthenes Sokratikos. Amsterdam: A.M. Hakkert. ISBN 90-256-0896-

5.

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

Sayre, Farrand (1948). "Antisthenes the Socratic". The Classical Journal. 43: 237244.

External links[edit]
WikimediaCommonshas
mediarelated
toAntisthenes.
Wikiquotehasquotations
relatedto:Antisthenes

"Antisthenes". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Lives & Writings on the Cynics, directory of literary references to Ancient Cynics

Xenophon, Symposium, Book IV