Cynics & Sceptics

(Originally written July 15, 2006 in Book 4)

The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell

Chapter 26 - Cynics and Sceptics

Four famous schools of philosophy formed around the time of Alexander:
1) Stoics
2) Epicureans
3) Cynics
4) Sceptics

Antisthenes, a contemporary of Socrates and 20 years older than Plato founded the Cynics.

He denounced his longhand aristocratic status and withdrew from "refined philosophy". He preached the plain truth in plain language to plain men.

He taught gained slavery. He denounced the government, private property, marriage and established religion in an attempt to return to nature.

While he was not ascetic in a pure sense of the word, he did site that, 'I would rather be mad than delighted'.

Diogenes was Antisthenes' disciple and surpassed his master in fame.

Initially Antisthenes sent Diogenes away, but he would not leave in spite of the beatings he received. Diogenes was very ascetic, living like a dog. He denounced religions, mannerisms, dress codes, housing, food and decency norms. He begged for whatever he had.

He believed in the brotherhood of all men and all animals.

He was passionate about virtue, seeking it and believed moral freedom as a liberation from desire. He saw freedom of desire as a liberation from fear.

He believed the world to be evil. Physical goods were precarious.

The Cynics taught it was foolish to celebrate one's own country and ridiculous to mourn the loss of a child or a friend.

While Cynics did now abstain from physical goods, they were supposed to be indifferent to them. Basically they became ungrateful beggars.

The Stoics adopted the best parts of the Cynics' doctrines and then rounded the edges to form a more complete philosophical theory.

Skepticism was first claimed by Pyrrho. Pyrrho was in Alexander's army and traveled as far east as India. Pyrrho built on the common Greek skeptical outlook of perception and added skeptical theories of morality and logic.

Basically a skeptic lived a normal life (followed local customs) believing what he did to be neither right nor wrong.

Skeptics enjoyed popularity among non-philosophical minds because they didn't require critical analysis in anything. They simply lived in the moment because everything else was unsure and useless to worry about.

Skeptic philosophy is not merely doubting but a dogmatic doubt. A scientist might say, "I think X, but I am not sure. A curious intellectual might say, "I don't know why it is x, but I'm going to try and find out". A skeptic would say, "nobody knows and nobody can ever know, so I won't worry myself with it.

Skeptics deny that they believe knowledge is truly attainable, but their arguments are hardly convincing.

Timon, a disciple of Pyrrho put forth arguments that were hard to argue against with Greek Logic.

Greek logic was wholly deductive based on self-evident principles. Timon denied that self-evident principles existed. This made all arguments circular and thus, worthless.

Timon put forth views akin to Hume's - while things that are never observed and can never be inferred, when two things occur tighter often, one can be inferred from the other.

Skepticism from Pyrrho's school died when Timon passed away in Athens around 235 BC. Oddly it was incorporated into the Platonic school of thought in the Academy.

Platonic Skepticism was more or less founded by Arcesiliaus (died 240 BC). While he held the Platonic view of an immortal soul, a super-sensible world and superiority of the immortal soul to the mortal body, he interpreted other views of Plato through a lens of skepticism:
1) He took the quote of Socrates as knowing nothing seriously, not ironically.
2) Plato's dialogues did not end with positive conclusions, only doubt.
3) Used the dialectic as an end, not as a means.
4) Used the dialogues as a way for showing plausibility for both sides of an argument (pure skepticism)

Arcesilaus would have made advancements through his teachings if his pupils had learned from him and not been paralyzed by him.

Linehan: How can anyone learn from doubting everything? One can only be paralyzed by facing dead ends in every direction. How then could this ever be productive?

Arcesilaus never held a thesis, but refuted anyone suggested.

His teachings made the Academy skeptical for nearly 200 years.

Arcesilaus and his successor at the Academy, Clitomachus (Hasdrubal by birth) taught agains the widespread divination, magic and astrology. Instead of relying on this mystical mumbo-jumbo they relied on a doctrine of probability.

The Academy ceased to be skeptical after the death of Clitomachus, becoming indistinguishable from Stoicism in 69 BC.

"We sceptics follow in practice the way of the world, but without holding any opinion about it. We speak of the Gods as existing and offer worship to the Gods and say that they exercise providence, but in saying this we express no belief and avoid the rashness of the dogmatizers" (Russell, 238-239).

Linehan: What a waste of time!

Skepticism paved the way for the superstition of Christianity to reign supreme by decimating the state religion and the Olympian gods.