William Desmond, taking issue with common popular and scholarly
views of the ancient Greek Cynics, contends that early Cynics like
Antisthenes and Diogenes were not cultural outcasts or marginal
voices in classical culture; rather, the Cynic movement through the
fourth century B.C. had deep and significant roots in what Desmond
calls "the Greek praise of poverty." Desmond demonstrates that
classical views of wealth were complex and allowed for the
admiration of poverty and the virtues it could inspire. He explains
Cynicism's rise in popularity in the ancient world by exploring the
set of attitudes that collectively formed the Greek praise of
poverty. Desmond argues that in the fifth and fourth centuries
B.C., economic, political, military, and philosophical thought
contained explicit criticisms of wealth and praise of poverty. From
an economic and political point of view, the poor majority at
Athens and elsewhere were natural democrats who distrusted great
concentrations of wealth as potentially oligarchical or tyrannical.
In contemporary literature, the poor are those who do most of the
necessary work and are honest, self-sufficient, and temperate. The
rich, on the other hand, are idle, arrogant, and unjust. These
perspectives were reinforced by the Greek experience of war and the
belief that poverty fostered the virtues of courage, strength, and
endurance. Finally, from an early date, Greek philosophers
associated wisdom with the transcendence of sense experience and of
conventional values such as wealth and honor. The Cynics, Desmond
asserts, assimilated all of these ideas in creating their
distinctive and radical brand of asceticism. Desmond's work is a
compelling reevaluation of ancient Cynicism and its classical
environment, one that makes an important contribution to
scholarship of the classical and early Hellenistic periods.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
