were four main schools of philosophy that flourished in times of Alexander the Great, of the Stoics , skeptical and Epicurean talked in the past, so now we focus on one of the most representative of school left (cynics) Diogenes of Sinope , its founder. Another opportunity is reserved for Antisthenes, that master and disciple of Socrates.
Diogenes lived along the fourth century BC, between 403 and 323, probably. This means that their existence covered about 80 years, quite an advanced age at the time. Died, apparently because it retained its breath (others suggest it was because of a dog bite, or tuck a piece of raw octopus ...), very same day that Alexander, and the city of Corinth, where he died, He paid tribute featured funeral, while a monument was erected Sinope, samples those of love, respect and admiration that, quite possibly, the same Diogenes had censored, according to his peculiar vision of the world and most sincere people.
Everything we know comes from Diogenes comments, anecdotes and statements attributed to him, but since they did not let any text (like Socrates, gave prominence to the verbal interaction, dialogue, that the written word) biographical details that remain to be considered credible only in part, is almost certain that there is enough (maybe even most) of legend in subsequent references about his life.
Sinope Diogenes had to leave a young man and that while working in the coin shop had forged his father ran a few pieces (presumably under auspices of a certain oracle, and also with parental consent), and fled to Athens, where he spent the rest of his life and met Antisthenes, wanting to be his student, but the trainees had never cynical, nor wanted, so he tried to drive away the young man with a stick, but Diogenes was persistent, and also flattering, proclaimed that any stick was big enough to take away from a man whose words were worth listening to, Antisthenes, pleased by the harangue, he accepted the boy. However, later the student criticize the teacher, not to live according to their own theory, eventually calling him a "trumpet heard nothing but himself." Diogenes, meanwhile, would act always based on their ideas and thoughts, even if it meant a radical break with all that surrounded him. Diogenes
soon adopted the customs and ideas cynical, as mentioned by Jean Brun: " no country, no city, homeless, poor, homeless, living a day, and saying" look for a man, throwing his cup and bowl to see a child drink from a cupped palm of your hand and eat on a piece of bread ...". Diogenes claimed an austere lifestyle, independently of individuals and institutions, in line with nature and away from material possessions. It is said that sleeping in a barrel, always naked, and that only carried a coat, bag and a staff. He lived "like a dog", from which derives its name just cynical. Riu Antoni Martinez mentioned that " who nicknamed him the name 'dog', probably wanted to signal their total lack of aidos (shame, modesty and respect) and his character Frank anaídeia or bestiality, to which Diogenes nodded, and have considered that the epithet "dog" it was adjusted, which boasted ".
rejected any agreement, be social, moral, aesthetic, food or education. He wanted to lock a universal brotherhood, not only men but also animals. His cosmopolitanism, regarded as a world citizen and not just the particular polis, raised blisters on Greek society, where identity was closely linked to citizenship, and, as is well known, when the Emperor Alexander I was sitting in the steps of the temple of Cybele, impressed by the humility of the man, asked if I needed anything, anything, that he would give him, Diogenes replied: " only ask that I not obstruct sunlight." As mentioned by the historian Diogenes Laertius, some attributed to Sinope cynical conviction that "men Remire watch and jewelry as they buy, and examine their lives so little."
But Diogenes never wanted nothing more to achieve under the Greek arete, and "moral freedom in the liberation of desire", the starting point of the Stoic school, as we saw and said Bertrand Russell. This way of living and was considered under Plato in Diogenes saw "a Socrates gone mad." We can better understand the disciple of this if we remember that Diogenes, for example, used to eat in the middle of the Athenian market (reprehensible attitude at the time), sleeping in any corner, once urinated on a man who had insulted him and thrown bones, and even defecated in the amphitheater. He even masturbate in the assembly ... His rudeness was intolerable, his outspokenness and spontaneity, puzzling. The waste of repairs as radical generated the current pejorative and "cynical" who does evil and flaunts it.
As Frederick Copleston says, "ensures that [Diogenes] advocated community of women and children and free love while in the political sphere declared citizen of the world ... He advised positive asceticism to attain freedom. In connection with this were their deliberate mockery of convention and he did in public what is generally considered that it should be private and still not even in private must be . "
For Diogenes and the Cynics, civilization and society generated a multitude of material needs for individuals, however, are completely dispensable. Evil is not in men, but in society in which they live human beings, he asserted, carry within us everything that is truly indispensable to our welfare; greater independence of our material needs more happiness. At least we attend to our reputation, our properties, including social and political organization, at least give importance to love (a form of bondage of desire, for the cynical), at least we feel the loss of a friend, a woman or a son, including his death, then we will be freer, more virtuous and more independently. The latter statement is when, surely, we feel sympathy for Diogenes ... Thus, the supreme, final and absolute virtue, is the return to natural state, which can only be achieved through the "autarky" deficiency that needs of the Cynics, the end of Socratic roots but suitably modified to give it a whirl consistent with what nature provides, and not responding to a property of perfection, as Plato thought.
Some of the anecdotes that illustrate the life of Diogenes are really funny: for an apprentice to follow him and learn his ideas, made him a rope attached to a herring, a symbol of austerity, and go round the villages with the hanging back (the young man fled when he saw what he was forced to make ...); once saw a woman sitting on a sumptuous litter, he said, "this is not the cage that deserves a beast" and when a child, the son of a whore, was throwing stones at a crowd, he snapped: "Be careful, that surely will strike your father" also asked him once what to do if you received a blow, we know now what I would say the Christian tradition, but Diogenes replied: "Put a helmet" and, seeing a clumsy goalkeeper was not even once to the target, sat next to it and proclaimed: "Here at last is where I will be truly safe. "
Except for their manners, their cosmopolitan ideas and teachings transgressive, the life of Diogenes contains precious little philosophy. But their existence is a good example of how one can go against, how the values \u200b\u200btaken at a time for correct and consistent with virtue are not of great importance, and not because relativism should flood the world, urging each to lead the life that please, but because when it comes to education, precepts and principles, attributes considered appropriate and values \u200b\u200bthat make us human beings as such, still discussed, and often without reaching any conclusion, which may be those and what is better without. We are not, therefore, much more advanced today than in times of Diogenes
Finally, just to make sure out around us, the proposal of austerity and simplicity that this material is promoted far, perhaps farther than ever, to be implemented. The virtue of Diogenes had no effective implementation at the time, today would be absolutely impossible to achieve, even in a more mild and tolerable. If we corrosive materialism and the needs it generates, is there a possibility of taking (some, only some of) the ideas of "dog" of Sinope? Could anyone (or rather anyone want) to live with: free, independent, sovereign itself above social needs, moral precepts laid down and manners to use? Would he or she is a brave man, an iconoclast, or just a fool, a crazy imbalanced and lunatic? What would happen to him in a modern world? How much does it take to pull the trigger or jumping off a bridge to the calm waters of social loneliness and darkness of life?
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