Antisthenes

« Antisthenes ( c.445- c.365 BC) Antisthenes was one of the most devoted followers of Socrates.

As a young man he was heavily influenced by the display speeches of Gorgias the rhetorician and the interpretation of Homerpractised by the Sophists.

He himself wrote much in the same vein, although almost all has been lost.

Antisthenes'influence can be recognized most in the writer Xenophon.

Although it is likely that he succeeded in annoying Platoand Isocrates, his influence on Cynicism has been greatly exaggerated.

Little survives of his moral philosophy, butwhat there is is Socratic in conception, and indeed Socrates' own courage and tenacity are its avowed inspiration.Antisthenes focuses on virtue, conceived as inner strength, a fortress founded on wisdom and its unassailablereasonings.

Virtue is acquired and maintained by 'exertions', a term deliberately recalling the labours of Heracles:these consist of the struggle to overcome the difficulties of, for example, poverty or unpopularity, byunderstanding how they can be viewed as good things - provided the riches of the soul are intact.

Pleasure andsex are accordingly seen as threats to virtue's integrity.

Antisthenes enjoins us to redraw our moral categories:the good and just are our true friends and kin.

In theory of language Antisthenes defended the paradox thatcontradiction is impossible, deriving his argument from the idea that there can be no successful reference toanything except by its own 'account', revealing what it is.

1 Life and work Of all Socrates' followers none was perceived as closer to him than the Athenian Antisthenes ( Xenophon, Memorabilia III 11.17 ).

His origins were apparently humble, and his circumstances not affluent.

Calculation of his dates depends on scanty and doubtfulevidence.

What is clear is that Antisthenes successively inhabited the world of the fifth-century Sophists familiar from Plato's early dialogues and the no-less-competitive intellectual scene of the early fourth century, whereSocrates' philosophical heirs jostled among themselves as well as with Sophists and rhetoricians.

Xenophon'sSocrates suggests that it was in fact Antisthenes who introduced Prodicus and Hippias to their patron Callias(Symposium 4.62 ).

A report by Diogenes Laertius makes him a pupil initially of Gorgias the rhetorician.

Much of Antisthenes' literary output reflects his immersion in this milieu : 'He brings the rhetorical style into his dialogues,especially Truth and Exhortations ' (Diogenes Laertius, VI 1 ).

Like the Sophists he wrote numerous works on Homeric interpretation.

How early in life he became attracted to Socrates is not clear: Diogenes Laertius suggests middleage; Xenophon's Symposium (dramatic date 421 BC) may imply sooner.

It is uncertain therefore whether Antisthenes' Sophistic writings belong to a period of his life separate from those recommending Socratic ethics.

TheSocratic dialogues he is credited with must be assumed to post-date Socrates' death; and his thesis that a personwho has attained discretion would do better not to study literature is hard to square with an approach to truththrough study of the poets.

The only items surviving intact from a huge body of work are a complementary pair ofspeeches, quite possibly authentic, entitled Ajax and Odysseus , in which the two heroes contend for the arms of Achilles.

Also preserved is a fragment of a dialogue debating the meaning of Homer's description of Odysseus as aman of ‘many ways' ( fr.

51 ), in a manner reminiscent of Plato's Hippias Minor .

A certain amount can be gleaned from Xenophon's Symposium and from the list of book titles found in Diogenes Laertius, (VI 15-18) .

For further information about Antisthenes' thought we are dependent on doxographical summaries (notably Diogenes Laertius, VI 10-11 ), occasional quotations or mentions of his views, and - for what they are worth - anecdotes: for example, his notorious anti-Platonic remark 'I see a horse, but I do not see horseness' ( fr.

50 ).

These ancient reports are dominated by preoccupation with his Socratic conception of ethics, but Aristotle in particular has some tantalizingreferences to logical doctrines (see §4).

Xenophon sketches a playful portrait of Antisthenes in his Symposium .

In contrast with the urbane Socrates he is presented as an abrupt, sarcastic and pedantic interlocutor.

But as thework unfolds his fierce attachment to Socrates becomes ever more apparent.

This is not simply a matter of hispractising a form of Socratic elenchos (cross-examination).

Antisthenes develops in Socratic style the doctrine that true riches are found in the storehouse of the soul.

And before the end he shows and avows his love for Socrates.2 Antisthenes and the Cynics An ancient tradition makes Antisthenes the originator of the Cynic philosophy and teacher of Diogenes of Sinope .

It shapes not only the account of Antisthenes but the whole presentation of Cynicism and Stoicism in Diogenes Laertius (see especially VI 2, 15, 21, 103-5 ), and it is assumed in writers of the imperial period like Epictetus and Dio Chrysostom.

Many modern discussions of Antisthenes accept the tradition, orsuppose him a principal influence on Diogenes.

However, the verdict of the best critical scholarship (for example,Dudley ) is that the story is a fabrication.

Although Diogenes' chronology is a good deal more obscure than that of Antisthenes', it is at least doubtful whether the two could have met.

None of the fragments of early Cynic writers mentions Antisthenes.

The distinctive Cynic garb of cloak doubled up, staff and wallet is ascribed to him only in latesources.

If Diogenes had a precedent for adopting it, contemporary Pythagoreans like Diodorus of Aspendos seemlikelier models.

Although Diogenes earned himself the nickname ‘dog' - and ‘Cynic' means 'Dog-philosopher' - theattempt to derive the expression from the Cynosarges gymnasium where Antisthenes is alleged to have taughtseems a desperate measure.

The idea that Diogenes was in some sense Antisthenes' 'successor' could build onAntisthenes' ethics of frugality and inner resilience.

What explains the promotion of that idea in the ancient sourcesis the need of later philosophy, and more particularly Stoicism, to rewrite its own history.

The Stoics could noteasily deny the impact of Cynicism on their founder Zeno.

Opponents represented this as disreputable.

Constructionof a pedigree for Stoicism through Cynicism via Antisthenes and back to Socrates was to prove an effective way ofrecovering the moral high ground for Stoics.

3 Ethics The principal account of Antisthenes' ethical teaching in Diogenes Laertius reflects the preoccupations of Stoicism outlined in §2, certainly in its emphases ( VI 10-13, 104- 5).

Fortunately enough specific items of information are recorded in his pages and elsewhere for a reader to get asense of Antisthenes' key ideas.

The figures of Heracles and Cyrus of Persia, each the subject of more than one ofAntisthenes' writings, were evidently presented as exemplars of the proper acquisition of virtue.

To achieve it‘nothing was needed but the strength of a Socrates' ( VI 11 ).

And Antisthenes famously taught that exertion or ponos (as in the 'labours' of Heracles) is a good ( VI 2 ).

Deeds, not words, are what matter ( VI 11; fr.

86 ).

This was not conceived as an anti-intellectualist position: 'Get understanding - or a noose', said Antisthenes ( fr.

67 ).

The exertions of the good are pictured as a campaign waged from a stronghold of wisdom ( phronēsis ), which has to be constructed by unassailable reasonings.

The weapon no one can rob the good of is virtue, and their allies are those. »