The Ancient Cynics

The Cynics were an ancient Greek philosophical school that rejected all conventions and proclaimed the pursuit of virtue in accordance with a simple and idealistic way of life. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will also discuss how and when the term "cynic" accrued the negative connotation that it carries today (i.e., disbelief in the sincerity of human motives and actions).

[yakamen]

Hey man, I see this lecture series has been going on since 2018. Random American ins 2021 speaking = This is a great body of work, I'm glad I stumbled in on it (even late). I praise your dedication, rigor, and research. I really missed this stuff from my undergrad days, when I couldn't get enough of it as I'd wished, due to my degree path. The humanities are so crucial. Thank you!

[USA_]

Thanks for all that you do!
Thank you for existing &
Thank you for being born ☺️👍🙏🇺🇲🇨🇦

[cmustard]

I see connections to Daoism, specifically renunciation of social convention to live a mendicant life in accordance with the way of nature. The traditions diverge dramatically on several critical points of course, but the persistence of this tendency across cultures is fascinating.

[georgepaul]

Good job. I enjoyed and learned much from your lecture of classical philosophers in Ancient Greece.

[Timaeus]

Thanks for the great lecture, John, as per usual. I love your lectures on Philosophy. It also made a huge difference, imo, that you saved the discussion for the end.

[Kurtlane]

On stoicism: It's not fatalistic. At least Epictetus's stoicism isn't. Epictetus very much insists that the most important thing is to separate those things that are "in one's hands, " i.e. things one can change, from things "in the hands of the gods, " i.e. things beyond one's control. The second are to be accepted, but the first can be changed -- so one is free to go ahead and change them if one wishes.

[TheNAWorks]

i am stoked for this one. diogenes is my boy

[dbarker]

Wonderful lecture. Thanks for sharing it. Going to look for the one the professor referred to about the Stoics.

[greesey]

1:06:50 The real answer to that question is, if everyone was a cynic then we wouldn’t have society and man could survive off the fruit of the tree that he tore down to build it

[kaloarepo]

Averroes was the odd man out as he was a medieval Arab or Persian Muslim philosopher -in the Raphael painting

[RunningCordoroy]

How is this channel not more popular? The youtube algorithym needs an update.

[JakobVirgil]

Allegedly Diogenes wrote a bunch of dialogs and even his own republic.
Also, He ran his own school in Corinth and it was there that he was most celebrated and where the Alexander story takes place.

[kroneexe]

What do you mean by "disdain for the elements"?

[pauliedibbs]

Great Presentation, However, I Would Hardly Call The Stoics "Like A Rock" ... If Anything Their Abilities To See Negative Emotions As Errors In Judgement, Thus Not Reacting Towards Them, Makes Them More Of An Enigma (or Seasoned Sages) Than Anything. Not Hating In Any Way, Just My Two💲!

[solaurelian]

does anyone know the name of this professor?

[Darisiabgal]

I get what people are trying to parallel Yeshua with cynics, but from the perspective of John the Baptist and repentence, Yeshua being in that prophetic philosophical lineage. They had to give something deeply of themselves and repent so that baptism would have meaning. The Yeshua followers, the Evyon, were not solitary poor, but poor in a community that traveled in pairs from place to place. It’s not simply that they were poor but they were expected to give of themselves. Diogenes broke is cup, the Evyon would have given it too the poor except it would have violated cleanliness laws. Just to be clear, the distinctions are subtle, but Diogenes is doing something to gain status amount philosophers. Yeshua is doing something he thinks will prepare Jews for the end of days, mistakenly, but that’s the JtB lineage of anticipating the day when prophecy is fulfilled.
I can make a few other distinctions with regard to Yeshua, in that some of his ascetic practices follow in the eastern traditions of asceticism as a means of enhancing spiritual experiences as part of mystical practices involving bathing (at least suggested in reference to a Peter) and meditation. The plethora of mystical religions that explode after Yeshua died (and the book of Acts) suggest they were engaging in occult like practices. Presumably they were trying to understand when and how the end would come. Yeshua did not specifically deny fasting, just public fasting so they may have even fasted, the Evyon appear not to eat meat so that definitely would have kept the calorie count down.
My impression is that the Evyon were searching for a way to know and be god while they were still alive. It’s kind of silly since deities come from the mind, and so the bottom up origin of god has the further twist is that you are grabbing deep in the inner light to find something someone else dragged out and has told or written about;, its their god from their mind; as if you search your inner mind you would find your brothers god and not your own. And apparently they didn’t. But anyway, Yeshua died, and suddenly many of them pulled Yeshua up as a special spirit, angel, or in the case of the Ephesians, god. Paul brought up his Master a sort of super messianic Iesus Christos. Marcion brought up a Yeshua whose sword was drawn against an demonic elemental creator god, Yahweh. The Johannian community brought Jesus up as a kind of tag team of God or split personality of God that then had to be explained using the trinity. Why I bring this up, we have to judge the motives of Yeshua by the products, a number of mystical religions and soon thereafter the disappearance of the core. Given that we have to treat the ascetic practices a being a mystical not philosophical technique.

[joecaner]

“I’d rather go mad than to feel pleasure.”
- Antisthenes

Too late dude. You are already crazy.

[xepulvedaaldo]

The lyceum was were you learned "The Naked Truth"?

[noharakun]

the dude saying that it wasnt active begging youre wrong about that and the guy giving the lecture missed the story about diogenes, where he was in the market and someone saw him asking alms of a statue, and when asked why he was doing that he said "to practice being refuse" this clearly shows that it was an active begging and not just "sitting around waiting for people to give you shit"

[moodister]

You can make videos showing how Abrahamic religions are plagiarized from older religions but you still believe in Jesus, and Socrates?