But what we do know is that Cynics like Diogenes prized one thing above all else: autarkeia, a Greek word that roughly translates into autonomy or freedom. Here are five of the most memorable moments from the life of Diogenes of Sinope:ĭid Diogenes dislike Alexander? We don't know. For our purposes, we're going to quote directly from "Lives of Eminent Philosophers" even if the quotes or anecdotes about Diogenes are written in the third person. If you search the internet for Diogenes quotes, by the way, you'll find a lot of lines that were lifted from Diogenes Laertius and reworded as first-person quotes from Diogenes. In " Lives of Eminent Philosophers," the Greek historian Diogenes Laertius recorded the greatest comedic hits of Diogenes, including some truly sick burns directed at figures like Alexander the Great and Plato. Everything else was nonsense.ĭiogenes left no writing of his own and just about everything we know about him was written centuries later by another guy named Diogenes. Human nature and reason, to Cynics, were the only requirements for a happy life. But the Cynics lived this way to make a point - that there is nothing shameful about being human. They dressed in rough blankets, slept under porticos, and did every "shameful" human act in public. It's Diogenes who took the radicalized version of that."ĭiogenes and his Cynic followers were beggars. "He just said not to care about money or status or power more than you care about the state of your soul. His life demonstrated that one could be happy by living simply and by following reason and not convention."But Socrates never said to give up all of your possessions," says Piering. Diogenes lived a long life and impressed his contemporaries with his strict adherence to his views about how life should be led. Diogenes once argued that he could see tables and cup, but could not see Plato’s Forms of tableness and cupness. Apparently, the definition later changed to a “featherless biped with broad fingernails.” Diogenes did not hold with Plato’s Forms either. After Plato defined man as a “featherless biped,” Diogenes plucked a chicken, took it to the Academy, and proclaimed he had found a man. Diogenes also disagreed with Plato’s philosophy. Alexander replied that were he not Alexander already, he would have wanted to be Diogenes instead. Tradition has it that Alexander once offered him anything he might desire and Diogenes replied asking Alexander to move out of the way, for he was blocking the sun. The Stoics adopted his views regarding the disconnection between happiness and wealth.ĭiogenes’ dogged adherence to his philosophical ideals was widely admired. Still, he argued that as a stateless exile living in a barrel, begging for his food, and without material possessions, he was happier than those who had everything. That too was shocking, because Greeks valued citizenship and its rights and privileges. When asked where he came from, he replied he was a citizen of the world, a cosmopolitan. He shocked Athenians by eating his food in the marketplace, a practice Athenians considered wrong. Diogenes believed that humans had lost sight of nature in their desire to live conventionally. Thus, he chose to live in a discarded barrel and carry all of his necessities with him, discarding even his bowl as unnecessary after he saw a boy cup his hands to drink. He also preferred to live a life of reason and virtue than to simply talk or write about those topics. Like Socrates, he preferred to lecture rather than to write. Diogenes lived up to and embraced the word “dog” which many used to describe him.Īfter his exile to Athens, Diogenes became a philosopher who walked the streets in broad daylight holding a lamp looking for an honest man. Later in his life he moved to Corinth and died there in his honor the Corinthians erected a marble pillar topped by a dog (Diogenes Laertius, 1925). He moved to Athens, where he eventually became the archetypical Cynic philosopher exposing the behavior and customs of Greek society as counterfeits. He was forced to leave Sinope because of a scandal involving the counterfeiting of currency, a relatively common practice in antiquity that has modern archeological support (Conn, 2007). Diogenes of Sinope Diogenes of Sinope (412-323 BCE)ĭiogenes was born in Sinope, a town on the Black Sea in what is now modern Turkey.
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