Pamirštoji Kinikų Mokykla: Etinis Intelektualizmas
The Forgotten Cynical School: Ethical Intellectualism

Summary/Abstract: This article analyses the ethics of the ancient Greek cynics. The author concentrates on ethical intellectualism - one of the fundamental principles of above mentioned ethics. The article concludes that this principle followed the tradition of Socratic ethical intellectualism, identifying virtue with true knowledge. Nevertheless, Cynical and Socratic variants of ethical intellectualism differed in some important aspects. First, these variants presented different interpretations of acquirement of true knowledge. Namely, Socrates asserted this knowledge to be reached by induction, i. e., starting with examples of certain virtue and ending with general concept of that virtue. Meanwhile the cynics, affirming the impossibility of any definition, remained on the initial level of Socratic research, confining themselves to concrete examples of certain virtues or vices. Second, the above mentioned variants of ethical intellectualism emphasized different parts in equivalence between true knowledge and true action. That is, Socrates accentuated true knowledge as necessary and absolutely sufficient basis for true behavior, whereas cynics laid emphasis on true action as a necessary result and indicator of true knowledge.

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