The great Athenian philosophers – Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle left a legacy that proved to be hard to follow. After their demise, Greek philosophy was divided into four distinct schools of thought: cynics, skeptics, Epicureans, and stoics.
The cynics rose as a sect in the 4th century BCE to well into the Common Era, distinguished as much for their unconventional way of life as for its rejection of traditional social and political arrangements, professing instead a communal anarchism. Antisthenes, a disciple of Socrates, is considered to be the founder of the movement, but Diogenes of Sinope embodied for most observers the Cynics’ worldview. He strove to destroy social conventions as a way of returning to a “natural life”. Toward this end, he lived as a vagabond pauper, slept in public buildings, and begged for his food. He also advocated a lack of etiquette, outspokenness, and training in austerity. In the history of political thought, Cynics are often regarded as the first anarchists, because they regarded the destruction of the state which, owing to its hierarchical nature – the cause of a plethora of misfortunes – as the only salvation for the human species. However, Cynics were equally skeptical of democracy and freedom, which entail duties that compromise self-sufficiency and provide rights that are unnecessary. Diogenes became known as ‘the dog’ for his peculiar way of living and the word kynikos – meaning dog-like – became the trademark of the school of thought he established.
