Антология кинизма. Философия неприятия и протеста

The proposed anthology contains almost everything that remains from the activities of the Cynics or is related to it. This school of ancient Greek philosophy is represented by the names of Diogenes Laertius, Antisthenes of Athens, Plato, Epictetus, etc.

Cynics (lat. Cynici), cynicism is one of the most significant Socratic philosophical schools. Its founder is considered to be Antisthenes, a student of Socrates, and its prominent representative is Diogenes of Sinope. The founder of the school, Antisthenes, opposed the division of the world, traditional since the time of the Eleatic school, into intelligible (“in truth”) and sensible (“in opinion”) existence, and thus against Plato’s teaching about incorporeal “species” or “ideas” comprehended by the mind. The reality of the general does not exist, but only individual things exist; a concept is only a word that explains what a thing is or what it is. Therefore, the application of general concepts to individual objects is impossible, neither the combination of different concepts (in the unity of a judgment), nor the definition of concepts, nor even a contradiction is possible - since only a judgment of identity can be expressed about a thing (a horse is a horse, a table is a table). Plato’s doctrine of intelligible “species” is untenable, since a single, sensory instance of a species is accessible to perception, but not the “species” or “idea” itself. This position contains the principle of wisdom as practical knowledge of the good. Wisdom does not consist in theoretical knowledge inaccessible to humans. Only practical reason, integrated with worldly wisdom, is recognized; “correct” science is considered one of the most harmful phenomena.

True good can only be the property of each individual, but not common to many, and the goal of a virtuous life can accordingly be not wealth, which can be disunited, but health (peace, tranquility, and the like). The absence of general “types” posits good as detachment from everything that makes a person dependent on the (illusory) common: property, pleasures, artificial and conventional concepts. The main task of philosophy, Antisthenes argued, is to study the inner world of man, to understand what is true good for man. Therefore, cynicism does not create abstract theories, in abstraction from the abstract it strives for the limit and, as a system, represents a complex of practical ideals.