![]() ![]() Like the Greek Stoic philosophers, none of the complete works of the Cynics were copied by the medieval scribes or otherwise preserved, most of what we know about the Cynics are in their chapter in the “Lives of the Eminent Philosophers” by our friend Diogenes Laertius, which means we are only told what he thought was interesting. The Cynics were always questioning the norms of their day. Athens was the Berkeley of the ancient world, that the Cynics were contrarians, like our sixties flower children, minus the drugs, but with the same disregard for material success and authority figures. ![]() ![]() Scholar and Stoics alike wish that at least some of the intact works of the Greek Cynic and Greek Stoic philosophers, but the summaries of Diogenes Laertius, sometimes revealing, sometimes shallow, always cursory, is pretty much all that has survived, except when Seneca and the later Stoics repeat their ideas. Please view our YouTube video on this topic: We can say that Greek Stoic philosophy was heavily influenced by the Cynics, as Zeno first studied under the Cynic Crates. We should let the Cynic philosophers define their own terms and not be distracted by our own modern cynicism. We should avoid the temptation to rush to google what the word “cynicism” means, for there is no good parallel to anything in either our modern culture or to our historical medieval culture. Who were the Cynic Philosophers? What was the philosophy of the Cynics? ![]()
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