Skeptics and Cynics

Skeptics and Cynics The relationship that distinguished thinkers have had with modern society has varied greatly throughout time. During some fortunate periods, they have generally been in tune with their environment, suggesting reforms when they saw fit, confident that their ideas would be accepted, and not being against the world they lived in even if it remained unaltered. At other times, they have been revolutionary, acknowledging that drastic changes were necessary but anticipating that these changes would be implemented soon due in part to their campaigning. Other times, people have lost hope in the world and believed that even if they understood what needed to be done, there was no chance it would be accomplished. This attitude readily gives way to a more profound melancholy that sees life as fundamentally terrible and holds out hope for improvement only in a transcendent experience or in a future incarnation. Various guys living at the same time have embraced all these mindsets at different times throughout history. Take the early eighteenth century, for instance. Leopardi is a pessimist, Shelley is a revolutionary, Bentham is a reformer, and Goethe is at ease. However, great authors have often adopted a similar tone across most times. Under Elizabeth I, they were at ease in England during the eighteenth century; in France, they started to rebel about 1750; and in Germany, they have been patriotic since 1813. There was a tension between what was felt and what was thought intellectually from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries, when the church held sway over society. The earth was, in theory, a vale of tears, a trial-ridden preparation for the world to come. However, in reality, the book authors—nearly all of them clerics—could not help but be thrilled by the Church's authority; they discovered plenty of opportunities for action of a kind they thought would be beneficial. Consequently, they possessed the mindset of an elite, rather than individuals who saw themselves as outsiders in a foreign land. Because the Church was the most significant organization in the secular world yet being founded on otherworldly ideas, this contributes to the odd dualism that pervaded the Middle Ages. The Hellenistic era marks the beginning of the psychological groundwork for Christianity's otherworldliness, which is linked to the City State's eclipse. Even if they may have grumbled about many issues, Greek philosophers up until Aristotle were generally neither cosmically pessimistic nor politically powerless. They may occasionally be members of a defeated party, but if that is the case, their downfall was brought on by the likelihood of confrontation rather than any inescapable wisdom's helplessness. Even Pythagoras and Plato, in different contexts, who decried the material world and turned to mysticism as a means of escape, had realistic ideas about transforming the ruling classes into saints and wise men. It was only natural for Greek philosophers to shift their focus from politics to the issue of personal virtue or salvation once the Macedonians came to hold political power. They ceased to inquire, "How can men establish a good State?" Rather, they questioned how people could be joyful in a world of misery or moral in a world of wickedness. It is true that there has only been a little shift; similar queries had previously been raised, and the later Stoics briefly returned to their focus on politics—this time, Rome's politics, not Greece's. Still, the shift was noticeable. With the possible exception of a brief period during the Roman era in Stoicism, the perspective of individuals who took their thoughts and feelings seriously grew more subjective and individualistic until, at last, Christianity developed a gospel of personal salvation that sparked a fervor for missionary work and gave rise to the Church. Up until that point, the philosopher had no organization to which he could devote himself fully, and as a result, he had nowhere to channel his rightful love of authority. Because of this, the thinkers of the Hellenistic era were less complete human beings than the individuals who lived during the time when the City State was still able to engender loyalty. They are unable to stop thinking, therefore they continue to think, but they hardly ever have optimism that their thoughts will have an impact on current events. Around the reign of Alexander, four philosophical schools were established. The most well-known groups, the Epicureans and the Stoics, will be covered in later chapters; in this one, we'll focus on the Cynics and Sceptics. The earliest of these schools derives from Antisthenes, a Socratic follower who was around twenty years older than Plato, through its founder, Diogenes. Like Tolstoy in certain aspects, Antisthenes was a wonderful man. He remained in the aristocratic group of his fellow pupils until after Socrates' death and never shown any signs of deviance from the norm. But something made him, when he was older, hate the things he had once valued—whether it was the fall of Athens, the passing of Socrates, or a dislike of philosophical squabbles. All he would have is just kindness. He dressed like a working man and hung around with them. He became adept at preaching outside in a way that even the most ignorant people could follow. He believed that all sophisticated thinking was useless and that the average person could know what was known. He was a strong proponent of the "return to nature" and held this concept. There was to be no marriage, no government, no private property, and no official religion. Slavery was denounced by his disciples if not by him personally. Although he wasn't strictly austere, he detested luxury and any attempt to indulge in manufactured pleasures for the senses. "I would rather be angry than happy," he remarked. * Diogenes, Antisthenes' student, was more well-known than Antisthenes. He was a young man from Sinope on the Euxine who Antisthenes did not immediately warm to; he was the son of a dishonest money-changer who had been imprisoned for tampering with coins. The boy ignored Antisthenes's orders to go and continued to beat him with his stick despite being told to do so. He perceived that Antisthenes possessed "wisdom," which he desired. His life's goal was to "deface the coinage," much like his father had done, but on a far grander scale. He would sully every currency in circulation worldwide. Each traditional stamp was a fake. He rejected all conventions, including those related to religion, manners, dress, housing, food, and decency, and chose to live like a dog, earning the nickname "cynic," which means "canine." The men, who were stamped as generals and kings, and the things, which were stamped as honor, wisdom, happiness, and riches, were all base metal with lying superscription. Although it is said that he lived in a tub, Gilbert Murray tells us that this is untrue and that he actually resided in a huge pitcher—the kind that was used for burial in prehistoric times. Like an Indian fakir, he made his living by begging. He declared that he was a brother to both animals and the entire human species. Even during his lifetime, tales were spoken about him. Everyone is aware of how Alexander asked him when he visited if he needed anything, to which he answered, "just to stand out of my light." By no means was Diogenes' teaching "cynical" in the modern sense; just the opposite. He deemed material possessions insignificant in compared to his intense enthusiasm for "virtue." In his quest for freedom from want, he looked for virtue and moral freedom. He believed that if you are unaffected by the blessings that life brings, you will be released from fear. As we shall see, the Stoics adopted his theory in this regard, albeit they did not agree with him to forsake the comforts of civilization. In his opinion, Prometheus received deserved punishment for endowing humanity with the arts, which led to the complexity and artificiality of contemporary life. In this he was more constant than Rousseau, Tolstoy, and the Taoists combined. Despite being an Aristotelian contemporary, his philosophy is more in line with the Hellenistic era. The last Greek philosopher to approach the world with joy is Aristotle; all others have, in one way or another, adopted a retreatist philosophy. Let's learn to be self-sufficient because the world isn't good. External things are illusory; they are not the fruits of our labors, but rather a gift from fortune. The sensible man will value only subjective goods, such as virtue or satisfaction through resignation, because they are the only things that are secure. Diogenes was a vigorous guy in person, but his philosophy—like all the ideas of the Hellenistic era—was meant to cheer up tired men whose enthusiasm had been sapped by defeat. Furthermore, this ideology was undoubtedly not designed to further statesmanship, the arts, science, or any other constructive endeavor other than protesting against strong evil. It's fascinating to see what the popularization of the Cynic teaching produced. The Cynics were popular in the early third century B.C., particularly at Alexandria. They released little sermons about how easy it is to live without material things, how content one can be with simple food, how warm one can stay in the winter without wearing expensive clothes (which may be true in Egypt!), how ridiculous it is to be attached to one's home country or to grieve for one's friends or children who pass away. One of these popularizing Cynics, Teles, asks, "Is that any justification for me to disregard myself, who am still living, and cease to look after my possessions, because my kid or my wife is dead?* The simple existence has gotten far too easy at this time, making it impossible to sympathize with it. Who found these sermons enjoyable, one wonders. Was it the wealthy who wanted to believe that the plight of the underprivileged was unreal? Or was it the new impoverished who were attempting to hate the prosperous businessman? Or were they just acolytes who convinced themselves the donations they took in didn't matter? * A very handy theory, Teles says to a wealthy man, "You give liberally and I take valiantly from you, neither grovelling nor demeaning myself basely nor grumbling." Popular cynicism simply taught a certain apathy toward the pleasant things of our world, not abstention from them. For the borrower, this might mean lowering the amount of debt owed to the lender. It's easy to understand how the word "cynic" came to have its common meaning. The finest aspects of Cynic teaching were carried over into the philosophy of Stoicism, which was far more comprehensive and well-rounded. Pyrrho, an army captain in Alexander's army, introduced scepticism as a school concept and took it all the way to India. This appears to have given him a sufficient taste for travel, since he lived out the remainder of his days at Elis, his hometown, where he passed away in 275 B.C. His concept was essentially a systematization and formalization of previous doubts; it included little new. Greek philosophers had been skeptical of the senses from the beginning; the only exceptions were those, such as Parmenides and Plato, who rejected the cognitive importance of perception and used this rejection as a justification for their own intellectual dogmatism. The ambiguities and seeming inconsistencies of senseperception had driven the Sophists—Protagoras and Gorgias in particular—to a subjectivism akin to Hume's. Pyrrho seems to have joined moral and intellectual skepticism to skepticism regarding the senses (because he prudently published no books). According to rumors, he believed that there could never be a valid reason to choose one course of action over another. In actuality, this meant that one followed the traditions of the nation they were living in. On Sundays, a contemporary disciple might attend church and engage in the proper genuflexions, but he or she would not hold any of the religious convictions that are meant to motivate these behaviors. The ancient skeptics participated in all aspects of the pagan ritual and were occasionally even priests. Their skepticism guaranteed them that there was no way to refute their behavior, and their common sense—which persisted long after their philosophy— assured them that it was practical. Naturally, skepticism appealed to many unphilosophical minds. People concluded that everyone was feigning to knowledge that was actually unachievable after noticing the disparity throughout schools and the intensity of their disagreements. A skeptic's solace came from the realization that the uninformed may be just as intelligent as those who were considered to be learned. It would seem unsatisfactory to those who were temperamentally in need of a gospel, but like all the theories of the Hellenistic age, it suggested itself as a remedy for anxiety. Why worry about what is ahead? It is completely unknown. "What's to come is still unsure," so you may as well enjoy the present. For these reasons, Scepticism had significant appeal among the general public. It should be noted that skepticism as a philosophy is more than just doubt—rather, it is what is known as dogmatic doubt. This aspect of dogmatism is what makes the system weak. The man of science says, "I think it is so-and-so, but I am not sure." The guy of intellectual curiosity says, "I don't know how it is, but I hope to find out." The philosophical skeptic adds, "nobody knows, and nobody ever can know." Of course, skeptics refute the dogmatic assertion that knowledge is impossible, but their arguments are not particularly strong. However, Timon, Pyrrho's student, put up several clever arguments that were extremely difficult to refute using Greek logic. The Greeks acknowledged only deductive reasoning, and all deductions, like Euclid's, had to begin with universal truths that were thought to be obvious. Timon rejected the idea that such ideals might exist. As a result, everything will need to be supported by evidence from another source, making any argument circular or meaningless. Nothing can be proven in any scenario. As we can see, this argument went right to the core of the Aristotelian philosophy that ruled the Middle Ages. The Sceptics of antiquity had not encountered those varieties of skepticism that are now promoted by persons who are not really sceptical. They did not dispute concepts that, in their view, just conveyed what we know directly about facts, nor did they cast doubt on phenomena. Although Timon's work has mostly been lost, two remaining portions will help to highlight this point. * A modern skeptic would point out that the phenomenon merely occurs and is not either valid or invalid; what is valid or invalid must be a statement, and no statement can be so closely linked to the phenomenon as to be incapable of falsehood. One says, "The phenomenon is always valid." The other responds, "That honey is sweet, I refuse to assert; that it appears sweet, I fully grant." He would also argue that the claim that "honey appears sweet" is merely extremely likely rather than 100% certain for the same reason. The theories of Timon and Hume were comparable in several aspects. He argued that while it was permissible to draw conclusions about something that had never been witnessed—atoms, for example—it was not valid to draw conclusions about two phenomena that had been observed often together. Timon spent the latter years of his lengthy life residing in Athens, where he passed away in 235 B.C. As a school, Pyrrho's school came to an end with his death, but oddly enough, the Academy, which stood for the Platonic heritage, adopted his somewhat modified ideas. Arcesilaus, Timon's contemporary, carried out this unexpected philosophical revolution before passing away as an elderly man in 240 B.C. The belief in an incomprehensible intellectual universe and the idea that the immortal soul is superior to the mortal body are what most men have taken away from Plato. However, Plato was biased and may be seen as encouraging skepticism in certain ways. The claim of ignorance made by the Platonic Socrates is usually seen as sarcasm, although it might also be regarded literally. A lot of the conversations end in a state of uncertainty for the reader rather than with a satisfying resolution. Some seem to serve no purpose at all, such as the final part of the Parmenides, which demonstrates that both sides of any topic may be maintained with equal justification. If the Platonic dialectic was viewed as an aim rather than a tool, it would be a great tool for promoting skepticism. This appears to have been Arcesilaus's interpretation of the individual he continued to claim to be his disciple. Plato had been beheaded by him, but the real part was still his torso. If the young men who learned from Arcesilaus had been able to avoid becoming paralyzed by his teachings, then there would have been considerable praise for the way he taught. He didn't have a thesis, but he would challenge any one that a student put out. He would occasionally make two opposing claims in quick succession, demonstrating how to make a strong case for either. A student with the strength to rebel may have learned dexterity and to avoid fallacies; none, however, appear to have learned anything other than cunning and apathy toward the truth. Arcesilaus had such a profound effect that the Academy was skeptical of him for over two centuries. Amidst this skeptical phase, a humorous occurrence took place. A diplomatic delegation to Rome was despatched by Athens in 156 B.C. with three philosophers, including Carneades, a deserving successor to Arcesilaus as president of the Academy. He launched a sequence of lectures in Rome because he did not see why the major opportunity should be impeded by his ambassadorial dignity. The young men came to hear him because they were eager to learn Greek culture and adopt Greek mannerisms at the time. His first lecture, which covered Aristotle and Plato's perspectives on justice, was incredibly instructive. But the goal of his second was to disprove what he had claimed in the first, not to prove the opposite but rather to demonstrate that all of the conclusions were unjustified. Socrates, a character in Plato's works, had maintained that causing injustice to others was a worse sin than being the victim of it. In his second speech, Carneades dismissed this argument with contempt. He emphasized that unjust aggressions by powerful states against their smaller neighbors had made them strong, and in Rome, this could not be refuted. You are a fool if you do not help someone less fortunate in a shipwreck. You could save your own life at their price. He appears to believe that the dictum "women and children first" does not result in one's own survival. If you were fleeing from an enemy that had won, and you had lost your horse, what would you do if you came across a wounded buddy riding a horse? Whatever justice would decree, if you were sane, you would drag him off and take his horse. Even for a nominal Plato supporter, all of this uninspiring reasoning is startling, yet it appears to have satisfied the contemporary Roman adolescents. The older Cato, who stood for the strict, rigid, naive, and violent moral code that allowed Rome to defeat Carthage, was the one individual who this did not satisfy. Throughout his whole life, he had a modest lifestyle, got up early, engaged in hard physical labor, consumed only rough cuisine, and never wore an expensive gown. He was completely honest with the State, abstaining from all forms of bribery and pillage. He said that the finest thing an honest man could do was to accuse and pursue the evil, and he exacted from other Romans all the virtues that he personally practiced. The old Roman strictures about manners were enforced, to the best of his ability: * He outlawed luxury and feasting while in power. "Cato put out of the Senate also, one Manilius, who was in great towardness to have been made Consul the next year following, only because he kissed his wife too lovingly in the day time, and before his daughter: and reproving him for it, he told him, his wife never kissed him, but when it thundered." In order for his slaves to adore his offspring after receiving the same nourishment from him, he forced his wife to nurse both her own and his slaves' children. He sold his slaves without regret when they were too old to labor. He ordered that his slaves either be asleep or working at all times. When a slave had committed a serious offense, he would call in his other slaves and persuade them to condemn the offender to death; he would then carry out the sentence with his own hands in front of the survivors. He encouraged his slaves to fight with each other because "he could not abide that they should be friends." Between Cato and Carneades, there was a stark contrast: while the former was ignoble due to his too loose morals and excessive infiltration of the Hellenistic world's social disintegration, the latter was harsh due to his overly rigorous and conventional morality. Marcus Cato disliked the Greek language from the start, even as it gained popularity in Rome. He was afraid that the city's youth, who were eager to learn and become articulate, would completely abandon the honor and glory of fighting. One day in the Senate, he publicly criticized the Ambassadors for their prolonged presence and lack of urgency, citing their cleverness as more grounds for their ability to convince. And if they had no other regard, this may only convince them to find a solution for them, send them back to their schools, instruct their Greek-speaking children, and leave the Roman-speaking children alone so that they might learn to obey the Senate and the rules as they had in the past. Now he spoke thus to the Senate, not because he harbored personal animosity or malice toward Carneades, as some believed, but rather because he generally detested philosophy. Cato believed that the Athenians were a lower species in the absence of the law; it made no difference if the shallow sophistics of intellectuals degraded them; instead, the Roman youth needed to be kept puritanical, imperialistic, ruthless, and stupid. He was unsuccessful, though, and the Romans embraced Carneades' vices as well while keeping many of his own. Following Carneades (c. 180–c. n. B.C.), the subsequent president of the Academy was a Carthaginian named Hasdrubal, who preferred to go by Clitomachus while interacting with Greeks. In contrast to Carneades, who limited his writing to lectures, Clitomachus authored more than four hundred volumes, some of which were written in the Phoenician language. His beliefs seem to have been in line with Carneades'. They served a purpose in certain aspects. The belief in astrology, magic, and divination, which was gaining traction, was opposed by these two skeptics. They also created a useful theory about probability levels, which holds that while we can never be justified in feeling confident about anything, there are certain things that are more likely to be true than others. In practical terms, probability should be our guidance as it makes sense to act on the most likely of the available possibilities. The majority of contemporary philosophers would concur with this viewpoint. Sadly, the writings that laid it out have been lost, and what little remains of the ideology makes it challenging to piece together. Following Clitomachus, the Academy lost its skepticism, and starting with Antiochus (d. 69 B.C.), its beliefs were virtually identical to those of the Stoics for generations to come. Nonetheless, skepticism did not go away. The Cretan Aenesidemus, who originated from Knossos, was the one who brought it back to life. It is possible that Sceptics resided there two millennia ago, entertaining disgruntled courtiers who questioned the divinity of the mistress of animals. Aenesidemus's exact date is unknown. He rejected Carneades' theories of probability and went back to the original forms of skepticism. His effect was great; in the second century A.D., the poet Lucian followed him, and a little later, Sextus Empiricus, the sole extant Sceptic philosopher, did as well. For instance, Edwyn Bevan translated a brief dissertation titled "Arguments Against Belief in a God" that Clitomachus reports was likely borrowed from Carneades by Sextus Empiricus (see pp. 52–56 in his Later Greek Religion). The introduction of this work explains that the Sceptics behave in an orthodox manner, saying, "We sceptics follow the way of the world in practice, but without holding any opinion about it." He continues, saying that different people have different ideas about what God is like. For example, some believe God to be incorporeal, while others think He is corporeal. Nevertheless, we speak of the Gods as existing, worship them, and assert that they exercise providence. In saying this, we express no belief and avoid the rashness of the dogmatisers. We cannot know the qualities of Him since we have never experienced Him. Since God's existence is not obvious, evidence is required. An argument demonstrating that no such evidence is feasible is a little hazy. He continues by discussing the issue of evil before saying, "Those who affirm positively that God exists cannot avoid falling into an impiety." Scepticism was counter to the prevailing sentiment of the time, which was gravitating more and more toward dogmatic religion and doctrines of salvation. For example, if people claim that God controls everything, they make God the author of evil things; if, on the other hand, they claim that He controls some things only, or that He controls nothing, they are forced to make God either grudging or impotent, and to do that is quite obviously an impiety. Though skepticism had the power to dissatisfy educated persons with the State religions, it offered nothing constructive to replace them, even in the strictly intellectual domain. In most of its proponents, religious skepticism has been bolstered since the Renaissance by a fervent faith in science; but, in antiquity, such a supplement was nonexistent. The ancient world turned away from the Sceptics without responding to their arguments. Due to the discrediting of the Olympians, the door was opened for the invasion of eastern faiths, who fought for the favor of the superstitious until Christianity emerged victorious.