Search

1. The ancient Cynics were shadowy figures. The word “cynic” has never been explained etymologically, though it was usually thought to be the teaching place of the founder of the school, Antisthenes (b. ca. 445 b.c., a student of Socrates, who taught in the gymnasium Kynosarges), or to be grounded on a nickname: with Diogenes of Sinope (d. ca. 320 b.c.), a shameless and sarcastic pupil of Antisthenes, philosophy seemed to have gone “to the dogs” (Gk. kyōn, adj. kynikos). As “Socrates gone mad,” according to Plato, Diogenes attacked with a “quixotically evil tongue” …