4. Political Ideas.
The Sophists, who almost without
exception were of non-Athenian
descent, wrote a
number of critical and comparative descriptions of
the
constitutions of various states. The points of view var-
ied considerably between conservative and radical
ideas, and various attempts were made at justifying
society's demands for
subordination. Protagoras put this
justification in a mythical form as
innate feelings of
right and wrong, thus giving society a foundation
in
irrational, religious conceptions. Law and nature are
not
contradictory notions; on the contrary, they are
complementary to each
other. The Sophist Antiphon,
on the other hand, equated nature and truth in
contrast
to law, which means a violation of nature. As an exam-
ple he cites the fictions difference between
social
classes and between Greeks and barbarians, differences
which
have no foundation in nature.
In this political literary activity Antisthenes took
part. According to Diogenes Laërtius he wrote a con-
siderable number of political pamphlets
under tradi-
tional titles. Our information
about this literary output
is scanty. Antisthenes criticized the tyrants
for their
excessive greed which led them to the greatest crimes.
He
also criticized Pericles and other politicians in
special pamphlets, and
appeared in public with his
political criticism. More important are the
conclusions
that can be drawn about Antisthenes' political writings
by
viewing the fragments in relation to the Sophistic
writings.
The Sophist Antiphon wrote a book about Concord.
The word has on one side a
political sense, concord
between warring groups of society, but on the
other
side it had undergone a development in an individ-
ualistic direction and acquired the sense of
harmony
with oneself. Plato defines the wicked man as one who
is not
in harmony with himself, and he says that what
is in opposition to itself,
can hardly be a friend of
anything else. The formula “to be in
harmony with
oneself” was familiar to Plato in his early
writings. In
the Stoa the concept of concord was defined as knowl-
edge about common advantages. Only the
wise pos-
sessed this knowledge. A number of
fragments from
Antisthenes' writings must be read in this connection:
criticism of the existing society with its demand for
political concord on
the basis of the law, in contrast
to this the concord that exists in
accordance with
nature above the law and in opposition to it, e.g.,
between brothers and above all between the wise. This
concord is based on
the philosopher's ability to hold
converse with himself, to be in harmony
with himself,
which is possible only for the wise.
Antisthenes, like Antiphon, took up the cudgels
against the traditional code
of morality and its laws,
and set up the antithesis: nomos versus physis (“cus-
tom” or
“convention” versus “nature”). In a
religious
fragment he makes use of this antithesis to show that
polytheism exists only according to law; according to
nature there is only
one god. In a political fragment
this antithesis recurs: the wise man must
not live in
accordance with the established laws but with the law
of
virtue. There are other utterances that seem to show
that Antisthenes used
this and similar expressions in
polemics against democracy.
The wise man's ethical superiority to other men leads
to another antithesis
with political consequences, the
contrast between the good and the bad. The
bad must
be separated from the state just as the weeds are sepa-
rated from the corn or the cowards from
the battle.
The good must unite, become friends and allies in the
ethical battle. Their weapon is virtue and this weapon
can never be lost.
This virtue, which is itself a law
in opposition to the laws of society, is
teachable. Still
it demands no great learning but practical training.
Family
ties and difference of sex do not count here.
Human fellowship can only be
based on equal spiritual
qualities, irrespective of all conventions. It can
as a
matter of fact exist only between the wise.
Politics and pedagogy were closely connected in the
Sophistic. The aim of
the Sophists was to create by
instruction conditions for success in
society. But the
content and value of this Sophistic instruction were
called in question. Antisthenes sought a solution of the
problem of
politics in opposition to Plato, whose theory
of ideas he polemized against
and rejected. We do not
know how far the state in Cynic writings
approximated
Plato's ideal of the state, but there were some striking
parallels: in both cases there was a question of an
ethical aristocracy
with justice and virtue as central
concepts, a philosopher state with no
possibility of
realization in practical life. As to the Cynics this
led
to the idea of a simple and remote life in harmony
with nature,
which education should aim at.
