(EN) Michel Foucault, Parrhesia and public life, in foucault.info (a cura di), Discourse and Truth: the Problematization of Parrhesia (6 lectures given by Michel Foucault at the University of California at Berkeley, Oct-Nov. 1983), dalle trascrizioni di Joseph Pearson, Parigi, foucault.info, 1999 [1983]. URL consultato il 22 febbraio 2019.
«A historical problem concerning the origin of Cynicism is this. Most of the Cynics from the First Century B. C. and thereafter refer to either Diogenes or Antisthenes as the founder of the Cynic philosophy, and though these founder of Cynicism they relate themselves back to the teachings of Socrates. According to Farrand Sayre, however, the Cynic Sect appeared only in the Second Century B. C. , or two centuries after Socrates’ death. We might be a bit skeptical about a traditional explanation given for the rise of the Cynic Sects — an explanation which has been given so often to account for so many other phenomena; but it is that Cynicism is a negative form of aggressive individualism which arose with the collapse of the political structures of the ancient world. A more interesting account is given by Sayre, who explains the appearance of the Cynics on the Greek philosophical scene as a consequence of expanding conquest of the Macedonian Empire. More specifically, he notes that with Alexander’s conquests various Indian philosophies -especially the monastic and ascetic teaching of Indian Sects like the Gymnosophists- became more familiar to the Greeks.»
(trad. ita. 