The school of Diogenes: virtue is the only good, convention is a fraud, and the philosopher proves it by living free in public.
Cynicism began with Antisthenes and found its immortal in Diogenes of Sinope, who lived in a great jar, carried a lamp in daylight looking for an honest man, and told Alexander to step out of his sunlight. The Cynics made philosophy a performance of self sufficiency: poverty as freedom, frankness as method, and nature against custom. Their name, from the Greek word for dog, was an insult they adopted as a banner.
Sources
Primary
- Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book VI.
Secondary
- R. Bracht Branham and Marie-Odile Goulet-Caze, editors, The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy (1996).
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