Abstract

This dissertation is an investigation of the ethical teachings of Socrates' followers Antisthenes, Aristippus, and Euclides, and the developments of their teachings within the "Minor Socratic" philosophical schools which they are said to have founded. The period I focus on begins within Socrates' lifetime in the late fifth century B.C. and ends with Arcesilaus' tenure at Plato's Academy in the middle of the third century B.C. I make the case that the diverse teachings of the Cyrenaic, Cynic, and Megarian followings must be interpreted as responses to ethical problems confronted by Socrates, such as the relationship between moral excellence and knowledge, the ends and criteria of moral judgement and activity, and the strategies recommended for the attainment of ethical ends. I argue that the strategies prescribed by minor Socratic philosophers, including the hedonism of the Cyrenaics and the asceticism of the Cynics, owe their distinctive characteristics to the skeptical attitudes of the major figures of each school toward the possibility of moral science of the sort usually ascribed to Socrates. I also discuss the place of the minor Socratic schools in the history of Athenian philosophy between the death of Socrates and the formation of the major Hellenistic schools. ;The thesis addresses two separate but complementary problems. The first is the fourth-century and Hellenistic reception of the "Socratic Paradoxes" , which are Socrates' distinguishing features in Plato's early dialogues, by thinkers outside the early Platonic and Aristotelian schools. The second question concerns the Hellenistic claims to the Socratic legacy. Specifically, the tradition on Arcesilaus, who ushered in the Academy's skeptical period, says that he adopted his practice of suspension of judgement from other sources, including the Megarians. I argue for the historical probability that he was influenced by the other Socratics, who preceded his school both in its stance against the possibility of certain knowledge and in its practice of critical dialectic