# Antisthenes — The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers character guide

> Antisthenes in The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Book VI Antisthenes, Cynics

**First appearance:** 0054-antisthenes

## Snapshot

The Cynic founder who traded Socratic subtlety for a cloak and a staff, and told Euclid that logic would never teach a man to govern.

## Who they are

Antisthenes came to Socrates and took from him not dialectic but endurance, dressing in a threadbare cloak and praising leisure as the most valuable of possessions. He turned Euthyphron from prosecuting his own father, talked Glaucon out of politics, and talked Charmidas into it, proving himself a master of reading what each man actually needed. His insistence that virtue is knowledge and that the wise man wants nothing makes him the hinge between Socrates and the Cynic tradition that Diogenes of Sinope would later push to its limits.

## Relationships

### [Plato](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/characters/plato)

_rivalry_

Antisthenes and Plato were philosophical rivals, with Antisthenes criticizing Plato's theory of Forms.

### [Plato](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/characters/plato)

_rivalry_

Antisthenes and Plato were philosophical rivals, with Antisthenes criticizing Plato's theory of Forms.

### [Plato](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/characters/plato)

_rivalry_

Antisthenes and Plato were philosophical rivals, with Antisthenes criticizing Plato's theory of Forms.

## In the story

### [Socrates](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/chapters/socrates)

Listed among the chief successors of Socrates and founder of the Cynic school.

### [Book VI: The Cynics and the Rise of Stoicism](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/chapters/book-vi)

Founder of the Cynic school; Athenian with a Thracian mother; pupil of Gorgias and later Socrates; taught virtue as teachable and sufficient for happiness; advocated simple living and indifference to external circumstances.

### [Antisthenes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/chapters/antisthenes)

The subject of the chapter; an Athenian philosopher, pupil of Socrates, and founder of the Cynic school.

### [Menedemus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/chapters/menedemus)

Cynic philosopher whose works and doctrines are referenced, including the idea that wise men use learning to pervert others and that virtue is teachable.

### [Heraclitus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/chapters/heraclitus)

Mentioned as an author of a work on Successions and as an interpreter of Heraclitus's book.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/characters/antisthenes
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/characters