[From Greek kunikos: dog-like, churlish.]
(ethics) The ancient Greek school of Cynic philosophers, founded by Antisthenes (a student of Socrates), held that pure virtue is the only good and cultivated an asceticism more rigorous than that of Epicureanism or Stoicism. Because of their disdain for worldly concerns, they were critical of conventional morality and the rest of society, almost to the point of misanthropy. The most famous Cynic was Diogenes (412-323 BCE), who so faithfully put his ideas into practice that, according to legend, he took to living in a bathtub (it is said that when Alexander the Great came to visit him in search of wisdom and inquired if there was anything the great leader could do for him, Diogenes replied that, yes, there was: Alexander could move aside and stop blocking his sunshine!). In popular usage, cynicism refers a combination of skepticism and pessimism.