Ebook: A History of Cynicism: From Diogenes to the 6th Century AD

This is a general introduction to the Hellenistic philosophy of Cynicism. To the student of ancient philosophy Cynicism may seem little more than a debased version of the ethics of Socrates, which exaggerates his austerity to a fanatic asceticism, hardens his irony to sardonic laughter at the follies of mankind, and affords no parallel to his love of knowledge. Diogenes was ‘Socrates gone mad’. On the other hand, for the student of ancient social history and thought from the 4th century BC to the close of antiquity, and even beyond, the mind-set of cynicism is still a constant or ever-recurring theme.
Dudley’s monograph on ancient Cynicism, although published in 1937, remains a standard work, indeed the only book-length treatment of the subject in English. There has been a considerable amount of recent work on Hellenistic philosophy and on Cynicism in particular – articles and collected essays – but nothing that replaces the overview of Dudley, whose book is described by the editors of the most recent collection as ‘the best general introduction in English’.