Abstract
Machado de Assis was a philosophical writer. Few of those who have studied his Works have investigated the philosophy present, especially, in his novels. In this paper I bring up, in the novel entitled Quincas Borba, some traces of a philosophical-literary school very few times remembered and very often forgotten by the philosophical tradition and by the machadian studies: the Cynicism. Firstly, I propose an interpretation of the homonym between the dog and the narrator in the last chapter. I present, secondly, textual evidences of the adherence of the narrator or of some character to Cynicism. Finally, I comment on the very figure of Quincas Borba, the philosopher.
Quincas Borba; literary cynicism; moral cynicism; reception; inversion