What are the things that come up in your head when you think of a philosopher? you may think of a person like Socrates who was alway
Before Diogenes the philosopher
Diogenes was born in 404 B.C in Sinope (on the Black Sea coast of modern-day Turkey), the son of Theseus, a rich money-changer. Although no one truly knows, the most accurate reason is that Diogenes was banished from Sinope for adulterating the coins his father minded with base metals. Because of being banished, he made his way with his good slave name manes to Athens. When reaching Athens Diogenes let manes finally become a free man.
Diogenes's idea reasoning was to the wanting of being independent from his slave. stating.
“If manes can live without Diogenes why not Diogenes without manes”
Diogenes would live as a poor man when living in Athens. Diogenes threw his cloak into a large, empty, wine cask outside the temple of Cybele near the Agora and called it home. he would live in the cask for his whole life in Athens. during his time Diogenes would start growing a huge liking to the philosopher Antisthenes. diogenes wanted to be admitted to Antisthenes school but Antisthenes rejected him. However, Diogenes would not just let one rejection stop him from asking, so he would ask multiple times until he got a yes. Diogenes would be so annoying, that Antisthenes would at times hit him with staff to drive him away, but Diogenes wouldn’t care and just keep asking. At some point, Antisthenes just got tired of Diogenes asking so he appointed Diogenes in his school. Where he would learn the philosophy of what he would call cynicism
Simplicity is a true virtue
Diogenes agrees with a lot of his Antisthenes philosophy on living. Like Antisthenes, Diogenes believed in self-control, the importance of personal excellence in one’s behavior (in Greek, arete, usually translated as “virtue”), and the rejection of all of the unnecessary things like personal possession and your social status. he was very strict on this philosophy that he would live very publicly in the markets of Athen, which was the place that had everything he needed to live which was food, water, and barrel to sleep in. basically Diogenes thought that being homeless was really awesome for its simplicity. However, like what most homeless people go through, Diogenes was given his fair share of insults and criticism. Often being called a dog for the way he acted and lived. One time a random old stranger called him a dog. Diogenes started to pee on him when asking why he stated: “I pissed on a man that called me a dog, I do not understand why is he surprised.” Diogenes did not care what anybody thought of him and continue to seek to make his life as simple as possible. For instance, when he was getting water out of a river with a bowl (the only form of luxury he had), until he saw that a little boy was simply using his hands to drink the water from the river. He immediately got rid of his bowl and attempted the same thing. Diogenes was a man that was searching to get rid of useless things. which is what cynicism philosophy is all about.
Diogenes vs Plato
Plato is written on describing Diogenes as, “ A Socrates, gone mad”. these two have a huge beef with each other and had a lot of debates. The Athens palace philosopher was known for there constant debates. It was Diogenes and Plato that was always be on each other trouts when it came to discussing ideas. when reading there debate you will get the vibe that Diogenes was a person that valued realism and was very surface minded at least when you put him next to an out of world person like Plato that would often be a focus on finding the objective to things we view as subjective talkings. An example was when Plato was talking about his theory of ideals forms. now to sum it up Plato believes that there was a world where an object had an ideal form. but it wasn’t in reality, it was in our minds. The example he uses was seven different cups saying these cups were imperfect to the true superior cup that can only be seen with the mind. Diogenes disagree with this theory withe said, “I can’t imagine this true form”. Diogenes pick up a cup notice that the cup was empty and ask Plato where the empty comes from. Plato paused, unsure of the answers, he did not know how to answer that question as emptiness does not have a form you can see in the mind. Diogenes walked up to him, tap him on the four head and savagely said ¨I believe you can find the emptiness up here Plato.¨ this story though was just the beginning on Diogenes roasting Plato anyway he can.
like that one time when Plato was given a question to solve. The question was how do you define a human in the simplest way possible? Plato was quoted by saying “featherless bipeds” was the simplest way. That anything that was featherless and could walk on two legs was indeed a human. Diogenes, on the other hand, found it very differently and prove by taking the feather off a chicken. Diogenes went to Plato academy lecture and boldly said: “ Behold, Plato's man!” Diogenes hated what he saw as stupidity and utter nonsense. this especially made Plato a big target. After this embarrassment, Plato would have to change his answer. instead of “featherless bipeds”, he would have to include “fatherless bipeds with fingernails.”
Change for no one! No matter how royal they are!
From peeing on people, to criticize Plato, to masturbating in public. its is fair to say that Diogenes did not care about anyone’s opinion and did not care how popular or influential you were, to Diogenes you were like everybody else this is definitely true when you discuss his relation to one of the greatest generals of all time, alexander the great. Alexander the great liked Diogenes and found very intriguing as a person. Alexander asked one time if there was anything he could do for Diogenes. even though Diogenes couldn’t ask for anything like gold, a house, or maybe some prober cloths, Diogenes asked for one simple thing which was for Alexzander to stand in front of him to block the sun. saying this.
“I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give” — diogenes
Diogenes would not care what he said to alexander the great in anyone shape or form. like the time Alexander the Great found the philosopher looking attentively at a pile of human bones. Diogenes would tell alexander
“I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave.”
despite basically being insulted by a homeless man, alexander still likes Diogenes. in fact he quite admires him, as alexander would say to Diogenes stating this the homeless philosopher.
“if I were not alexzander I would wish to be Diogenes”- Alexander
But, however, Diogenes is Diogenes.
“if I weren’t Diogenes, i’d too also wish to be Diogenes” — Diogenes
Diogenes death
One of the hardest things about history can be accurately, especially figuring out if the historic stories are exaggerated or not ( basically the bible). diogenes death is no exception to this rule. no one knows exactly how Diogenes died. there are more theories than actual facts. The theories manage from dying of an infected dog bite to eating poisonous octopus for dinner. the funniest one was that Diogenes simply was tired of living and hold he breathe for so long that he just simply died. The only thing we really know is that Diogenes died at the old age of 89. Pretty impressive the lifestyle of a homeless man.
What we learn from Diogenes.
As much as I find a man like Diogenes one of the weirdest philosophers id ever had the privilege of researching, I can’t help but feel he teaches us a lot of things through his way of living ( whether he cared or not). What Diogenes taught us was to not care for things that you did not need in any way shape or form as he is quoted by saying
“Poverty is a virtue which one can teach oneself”
Diogenes outrages practices like peeing and masturbating in public. can be seen as nothing but pure craziness. Diogenes was not afraid to be crazy, no matter how anybody felt. if people thought he was crazy he did not become ashamed of himself or trying to be someone he knew wasn’t him. He simply accepted what people thought and continue to be himself. As he stated by saying this
“It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours”
look, Diogenes was a weird guy that just so happen to have done out of the norm and sometimes just rude things. but his philosophy of treating is one that everybody can learn as this final quote I will give is my favorite from him and is a great teaching to learn from.
