现代大学英语 B3 Unit4_background information.ppt

* B T L E W Unit 4 – Diogenes and Alexander Part Two ENTER Unit 4 – Diogenes and Alexander Author Diogenes Cynicism Alexander the Great Aristotle Plato Hercules Background Information Gilbert Highet (1906—1978) was US “educator, author, and critic”. “He is noted for popularizing intellectual topics; wrote ‘Anatomy of Satire,’ 1962.” Unit 4 – Diogenes and Alexander Author The end of Author. Diogenes: (412 B.C. — 324 B.C.), Greek philosopher who founded the Cynic school of philosophy, stressing self-control and the pursuit of virtue. He was the son of Hicesias, who was exiled from his home town of Sinope, allegedly for defacing its debased currency. Thereafter, he lived in streets of Corinth and Athens where he is said to have lived in a barrel. He became the prototype of Cynicism. Unit 4 – Diogenes and Alexander Diogenes To be continued on the next page. Diogenes has been described as a Socrates gone mad. Like Socrates, he saw himself encouraging men to examine their own behaviour, and to live a virtuous life. By this, he meant a life of total self sufficiency free from social restraint, and distracting desires. Living life according to nature was interpreted by Diogenes to mean a back to the basic existence. Virtue lay in requiring the bare minimum for existence. He lived the life of a true ascetic. Unit 4 – Diogenes and Alexander Diogenes To be continued on the next page. Diogenes deemed man the most intelligent and the most foolish of the animals. For the proper conduct of human life, he claimed, we need right reason or a halter. Most needed the halter. He is said to have wandered through the market place bearing a lamp in broad daylight proclaiming: I am looking for a man. It was a matter of self mastery. Slavery was a matter of attitude. Diogenes himself had once been captured and sold as a slave. When asked by the slave master what he could do, he replied: Govern men, and asked for a buyer who wanted a master. The purchaser made him