Antisthenes (Ac.446—366 )
Known in antiquity as an
accomplished orator, a companion of Socrates, and a philosopher, Antisthenes
presently gains renown from his status as either a founder or a forerunner of Cynicism. He was the teacher to Diogenes of Sinope, and he is regarded byDiogenes Laertius as the first Cynic philosopher. He is credited
with the authorship of over sixty titles, appears as one of the primary
interlocutors in Xenophon’s Memorabilia andSymposium, and
is mentioned as one of those present at Socrates’ death by Plato, with whom it
seems he had a falling out. Antisthenes’ philosophical interests engage ethics
rather than metaphysics or epistemology, and he advocates the practice of
virtue through an ascetic life and the cultivation of wisdom. Like Socrates
before him, Antisthenes adheres to ethical intellectualism, and like the Stoics who follow the Cynics, he claims that virtue is
sufficient for happiness.
Table of Contents
2.
Basic
Tenets
It is primarily through Xenophon’s dialogues and
Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers that certain
aspects of Antisthenes’ life and thought are known. These sources are not,
however, without problems: Xenophon is portraying Antisthenes as an
interlocutor, which leads some scholars to question whether this character is
in fact representative of the historical Antisthenes; Diogenes Laertius is
thought of as a dubious source due to his penchant for recounting contradictory
stories from multiple sources. Though each source is questionable
independently, when they are treated in conjunction they provide a sketch of
Antisthenes as both a Socratic and a Cynic thinker.
Born probably in either 446 or 445 BCE of an Athenian
father, also named Antisthenes, and a Thracian mother, Antisthenes was a nothos,
which means literally someone born of an illegitimate union (due to being born
from a slave, foreigner, or prostitute, or because one’s parents were citizens
but not legally married) and therefore was not an Athenian citizen. Initially
he was a pupil of Gorgias the rhetorician, and the rhetorical sounding
titles that are ascribed to him by Diogenes Laertius almost certainly derive
from this first phase of his career. In fact, of his prolific literary corpus,
only his Ajax and Odysseus are extant, and
both offer a demonstration of his rhetorical training under Gorgias.
After meeting Socrates and deriving great benefit from
him, Antisthenes abandoned his study of rhetoric for philosophy and even
encouraged his own pupils to join him under Socrates’ tutelage. His close
friendship with Socrates is well documented in Xenophon’s dialogues, and his
importance would have been aided by his position as an older and esteemed
member of Socrates’ circle. In the years immediately following Socrates’ death,
then, it is likely that Antisthenes was regarded as Socrates’ most important
follower (see Kahn 4-5).
What little is known about Antisthenes’ life is marked
by both his asceticism and humor. It is claimed that he was the first to double
his cloak in order to sleep in it, and recommended this to Diogenes of Sinope
(though Diogenes of Sinope is also claimed to be the first to do so) and that,
in addition, he was equipped with those elements that would later be
distinctive of the Cynics: the wallet and the staff. He chose to live in
poverty, and more than one of the surviving anecdotes surrounds the ragged
state of his cloak, usually involving those areas where the cloak is torn. In
addition to eschewing luxuries so many of his fellow Athenians sought, he
demonstrated an ad hoc and improvisational sense of humor which allowed him to
ridicule commonly held beliefs and the mores of Athenian culture, a practice
which would be perfected by Diogenes of Sinope.
Xenophon’s treatment of Antisthenes combines well with
the details Diogenes Laertius provides of his philosophical position at
6.10-12. Though the list of his “favorite themes” is lengthy, it represents the
central aspects of his ethical thought. In sum, the basic tenets are:
1.
Virtue can be taught.
2.
Only the virtuous
are noble.
3.
Virtue is itself
sufficient for happiness, since it requires “nothing else except the strength
of a Socrates” (D.L. 6.11).
4.
Virtue is tied
to deeds and actions, and does not require a great deal of words or learning.
5.
The wise person
is self-sufficient.
6.
Having a poor
reputation is something good, and is like physical hardship.
7.
The law of
virtue rather than the laws established by the polis will determine the public
acts of one who is wise.
8.
The wise person
will marry in order to have children with the best women.
9.
The wise person
knows who are worthy of love, and so does not disdain to love.
These themes, revolving as they do around virtue and
the activity of the wise man, bear an unmistakable resemblance to Socrates’
convictions. The teachability of virtue, the emphasis on deeds over words, and
the prominence of erōs are all explicitly found in Socratic
literature. Furthermore, according to Diocles, Antisthenes held virtue to be
the same for men as for women, a position that is echoed, if in a more inchoate
form, in Socratic thought.
Antisthenes’ ethical views also, however, represent an
innovation, and do not merely repeat those held by Socrates. First, the
unambiguous statement of virtue as sufficient for happiness is a shift from
Socrates’ hedging on this matter. Virtue and happiness are completely
coincident and open to all. Second, he begins to separate morality and legality
in a way that Socrates apparently did not. In Plato’s Crito, Socrates
is clear that one is morally obliged to abide by the laws of one’s state,
unless one can convince the state to change the laws. The Cynics show no such
regard for nomos, a term which means both law and convention,
whether it is in relation to cultural codes or legal regulations. By loosening
law and virtue Antisthenes sets the stage for the more radical
positions of Diogenes of Sinope and Crates.
Antisthenes takes a stronger position than did
Socrates on the abstention from physical pleasures, claiming, he says, to
prefer madness to pleasure (D.L. 6.3). The pursuit of pleasure is dangerous
insofar as it can recommend precarious activities (as is recounted in the story
of an adulterer fleeing for his life who Antisthenes claims could have escaped
peril “at the price of an obol,” but more importantly, its effect on
self-sufficiency is ruinous. One can become enslaved to pleasure and so lose
all hope of being truly free. For this reason “When someone extolled luxury his
reply was, ‘May the sons of your enemies live in luxury’” (D.L. 6.8).
Finally, he is much more obviously anti-theoretical
than Socrates. Whereas Socrates claims to know nothing of theoretical
philosophy, Antisthenes suggests that it is useless. Though the terms are not
yet coined, the distinction is between metaphysics and ethics, and Antisthenes
focuses upon the latter only. His privileging of practice over learning, or
deeds over words, is clearly anti-theoretical, but it should not be viewed as
opposed to reason. Reason, for Antisthenes, is the foundation of virtue.
“Wisdom is a most sure stronghold which never crumbles away nor is betrayed.
Walls of defense must be constructed in our own impregnable reasonings” (D.L.
6.13). Antisthenes’ caution against pleasure, his praise of poverty, and his
privileging of reason will be palpable in the Cynics who follow him and Stoic
cultivation of indifference.
Antisthenes’ influence is primarily upon the “school”
of Cynicism, both as a precursor and originator. Antisthenes’ life and thought
provide a connection between Socrates and the Cynics. Diogenes Laertius makes
just this point: “From Socrates he learned his hardihood, emulating his
disregard of feeling, and thus he inaugurated the Cynic way of life”(D.L. 6.2).
Some scholars are more dubious. Dudley, for example, claims that Antisthenes
was a follower of Socrates, and nothing more. The attribution of “first Cynic”
to Antisthenes is, on Dudley’s account, merely an invention of the Alexandrian
writers ofSuccessions meant to give the Stoic school the proper
Socratic pedigree.
Branham and Goulet-Cazé propose that Antisthenes be
considered a “forerunner” (The Cynics 7), and Navia claims that “in both Antisthenes and Diogenes
we come upon one reaction to the problem of human existence,
and one radical solution… for Cynicism emerged among the
Greeks from both, as if from twin sources” (Classical Cynicism 67).
The subtler approaches of Branham, Goulet-Cazé, and Navia grasp the
impossibility of resolving the debate. The sources of antiquity have combined
the tradition of Diogenes with that of Antisthenes. Thus, the Cynic movement is
viewed as having begun with the Socratic ethical practices of Antisthenes,
practices which receive their more robust instantiations through the life of
Diogenes of Sinope.
The claim that Antisthenes had no connection to the
Cynics is, given Antisthenes’ unique ethical position, tenuous. Antisthenes
endorses the Socratic position, but contributes his own understanding of virtue
and his insistence upon the importance of askēsis. His asceticism
is comparable to that of Socrates, but his animosity toward pleasure and his
pride in his poverty resembles better the position of later Cynics. Finally,
the privileging of virtue and the claim that virtue is itself sufficient for
happiness will be central toStoic ethics. “Antisthenes gave the impulse to the indifference of
Diogenes, the continence of Crates, and the hardihood of Zeno, himself laying
the foundations of their state” (D.L. 6.15).
§ Billerbeck, Margarethe. Die Kyniker in der
modernen Forschung. Amsterdam: B.R. Grüner, 1991.
§ Branham, Bracht and Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé, eds. The
Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1996.
§
Dudley, D. R. A
History of Cynicism from Diogenes to the 6th Century A.D. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1937.
§ Goulet-Cazé, Marie-Odile and Richard Goulet, eds. Le
Cynisme ancien et ses prolongements. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
1993.
§ Kahn, Charles H. Plato and the Socratic
Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996.
§ Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent
Philosophers Vol. I-II. Trans. R.D. Hicks. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1979.
§ Long, A.A. and David N. Sedley, eds. The
Hellenistic Philosophers, Volume 1and Volume 2. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987.
§
Malherbe, Abraham
J., ed. and trans. The Cynic Epistles. Missoula, Montana: Scholars
Press, 1977.
§ Navia, Luis E. Classical Cynicism: A Critical
Study. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996.
§ Navia, Luis E. Antisthenes of Athens. Westport,
Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001.
§ Paquet, Léonce. Les Cyniques grecs: fragments
et témoignages. Ottawa: Presses de l’Universitaire
d’Ottawa, 1988.
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Last updated: January 4, 2006 | Originally published:
January/4/2006
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