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Western Philosophy Ancient philosophy
Portrait bust of Antisthenes
Name	Antisthenes
Birth	c. 445 BC, Athens
Death	c. 365 BC, Athens
School/tradition	Inspired the Cynic school
Main interests	Asceticism, Ethics, Language, Literature, Logic
Notable ideas	Laid the foundations of Cynic philosophy
Influences	Socrates, Gorgias
Influenced	Diogenes of Sinope, Crates of Thebes, and many other Cynics

Antisthenes (Greek: Ἀντισθένης), lived c. 445-365 BC, was a philosopher and a pupil of Socrates, and became an important inspiration for later Cynic philosophy.

Antisthenes was born c. 445 BC and was the son of Antisthenes, an Athenian. His mother was a Thracian.^[1] In his youth he fought at Tanagra (426 BC), and was a disciple first of Gorgias, and then of Socrates, whom he never quitted, and at whose death he was present.^[2] He never forgave his master's persecutors, and is even said to have been instrumental in procuring their punishment.^[3] He survived the Battle of Leuctra (371 BC), as he is reported to have compared the victory of the Thebans to a set of schoolboys beating their master.^[4] He was apparently still alive in 366 BC,^[5] and died at Athens c. 365 BC, at the age of 70.^[6] He is said to have lectured in the Cynosarges, a gymnasium for the use of Athenians born of foreign mothers, near the temple of Hercules. Diogenes Laërtius says that his works filled ten volumes, but of these, only fragments remain. His favourite style seems to have been dialogues, some of them being vehement attacks on his contemporaries, as on Alcibiades in the second of his two works entitled Cyrus, on Gorgias in his Archelaus and on Plato in his Satho.^[7] His style was pure and elegant, and Theopompus even said that Plato stole from him many of his thoughts.^[8] Cicero, however, calls him "a man more intelligent than learned" (Latin: homo acutus magis quam eruditus).^[9] He possessed considerable powers of wit and sarcasm, and was fond of playing upon words; saying, for instance, that he would rather fall among crows (korakes) than flatterers (kolakes), for the one devour the dead, but the other the living. Two declamations of his are preserved, named Ajax and Ulysses, which are purely rhetorical.

Antisthenes was a pupil of Socrates, from whom he imbibed the fundamental ethical precept that virtue, not pleasure, is the end of existence. In all that the wise man does, Antisthenes said, he conforms to perfect virtue, and pleasure is not only unnecessary to man, but a positive evil. He is reported to have held pain and even ill-repute (Greek: ἀδοξία) to be blessings, and that madness is preferable to pleasure. It is, however, probable that he did not consider all pleasure worthless, but only that which results from the gratification of sensual or artificial desires, for we find him praising the pleasures which spring "from out of one's soul",^[10] and the enjoyments of a wisely chosen friendship.^[3] The supreme good he placed in a life lived according to virtue, - virtue consisting in action, which when obtained is never lost, and exempts the wise man from error. It is closely connected with reason, but to enable it to develop itself in action, and to be sufficient for happiness, it requires the aid of Socratic strength (Greek: Σωκρατικὴ ἱσχύς).^[3]

His work on Natural Philosophy (the Physicus) contained a theory of the nature of the gods, in which he argued that there were many gods believed in by the people, but only one natural God.^[11] He also said that the Deity resembles nothing on earth, and therefore could not be understood from any representation.^[12]

In logic, Antisthenes was troubled by the problem of the One and the Many. As a proper nominalist, he held that definition and predication are either false or tautological, since we can only say that every individual is what it is, and can give no more than a description of its qualities, e. g. that silver is like tin in colour.^[13] Thus he disbelieved the Platonic system of Ideas which do not exist save for the consciousness which thinks them. "A horse", said Antisthenes, "I can see, but horsehood I cannot see." Definition is merely a circuitous method of stating an identity: "a tree is a vegetable growth" is logically no more than "a tree is a tree."

In later times, Antisthenes became to be seen as the founder of the Cynics, but it is by no means certain that he would have recognized the term. Aristotle, writing a generation later refers several times to Antisthenes (and his followers "the Antistheneans") but never associates him with Cynics, nor with Aristotle's contemporary Diogenes of Sinope. There are many later tales about Diogenes dogging Antisthenes footsteps and becoming his faithful hound, but it is not certain whether the two men ever actually met. Even the story about Antisthenes lecturing in the Cynosarges gymnasium may be a later desire to link him with a place associated with Cynic philosophy, although as the son of a foreign-born mother, Antisthenes would probably have frequented the place. It is true, however, that Antisthenes adopted a rigorous ascetic lifestyle,^[14] and he certainly developed many of the principles of Cynic philosophy which became an inspiration for Diogenes and many later Cynics.

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Antisthenes

• Antisthenes, at The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.