Diogenes the Cynic : the war against the world / Luis E. Navia.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Navia, Luis E.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Diogenes, -approximately 323 B.C.

Physical Description:

260 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Amherst, N.Y. : Humanity Books, 2005.

Summary:

Diogenes the Cynic: the strangest philosopher in the history of ideas, the man who turned himself into a dog and who chose to live in a tub, the intolerable clown who shocked his contemporaries with every imaginable act of unrestrained shamelessness and who became known as a "Socrates gone mad." Who was this peculiar character from distant Sinope who lived among the Athenians and Corinthians with perfect impunity twenty-three centuries ago? What ideas and actions of his are responsible for the fame and notoriety that have surrounded his memory and that created the long-lived Cynic movement of Greek and Roman times? How could such a man deserve to have been called a scandal and embarrassment for philosophy and culture, yet be one of the most spiritual and perceptive men who has ever lived?

Diogenes the Cynic reviews the sources of our information about Diogenes, his transformation into a merciless critic of his culture and indeed of the culture of our own time, the method he chose to deface and invalidate the values and ideas that go by the names of civilization and progress, his relationship with Socrates, the philosophical principles that animated his restless mind, and his possible resurrection in the twenty-first century, when our values and modes of life seem to be in a more dismal state than could have been the case in ancient Greece.

In this age of cynicism and nihilism, Diogenes' Cynicism promises to be an effective antidote to the cultural malady that engulfs our world.

Contents:

Chapter 1 A Biographical Portrait 13

Chapter 2 The Rhetoric of Cynicism 61

Chapter 3 Diogenes' Metamorphosis 93

Chapter 4 The Philosophy of Cynicism 129

Chapter 5 The Presence of Diogenes 165

Appendix Diogenes Laertius: The Life of Diogenes of Sinope 203.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-251) and index.

ISBN:

1591023203

OCLC:

57579311