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Synonyms: abandonment, debauchery , dissoluteness, dissolution, drunkenness, evil, excess, extravagance, free-living, high-living, indulgence, intemperance, lavishness, life in the fast lane, prodigality, profligacy, self-gratification, squandering, to hell in handbasket, waste Antonyms: unselfishness, virtue Philosophy In Western philosophy, misanthropy has been connected to isolation from human society. In Plato's Phaedo, Socrates defines the misanthrope in relation to his fellow man: "Misanthropy develops when without art one puts complete trust in somebody thinking the man absolutely true and sound and reliable and then a little later discovers him to be bad and unreliable...and when it happens to someone often...he ends up...hating everyone."[2] Misanthropy, then, is presented as the result of thwarted expectations or even excess optimism, since Plato argues that "art" would have allowed the potential misanthrope to recognize that the majority of men are to be found in between