Philosophy Atlas Locate in atlas →

School · 445 BCE–200 BCE

Cynicism

Cynic teachers used provocative speech and austere practices to challenge convention, status, property, and dependence, presenting freedom and virtue as a radically practical ethical project.

Shared questions

  • What would self-sufficiency and virtue require if social convention and luxury are unreliable guides?

Internal disagreements

  • Whether Cynicism is best understood as a Socratic school, a performative lifestyle, or both.

Key texts

  • Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book VI — Diogenes Laertius preserves the Cynic anecdotes; almost nothing written by the Cynics themselves survives.

Scholarly notes

The Cynic succession · resolved

The line from Socrates through Antisthenes to Diogenes, Crates and Zeno comes from later doxography, and its historical authenticity is doubted; the Socratic schools each traced themselves back to Socrates, and the Cynics were no exception.