![]() When being asked his trade, he replied that he knew no trade but that of governing men and that he wished to be sold to a man who needed a master. One time, he was captured by pirates and sold as a slave. Nothing that we’re told is true.“ –Hymn to Diogenes “If I were not Diogenes, I would still wish to be Diogenes.” “If I were not Alexander, then I should wish to be Diogenes.” Diogenes was relaxing in the morning sunlight and replied, “Yes, stand out of my sunlight.” / “Don’t deprive me of what you cannot give me”Īlexander and Diogenes by Nicolas Andre Monsiau Thrilled to meet the famous philosopher, Alexander asked if there was any favor he might do for him. In another story, he mocks Alexander the Great – Alexander would have been twenty at the time, and Diogenes would have been around seventy. “If you knew how to wash vegetables, you wouldn’t have to pay court to kings.” “My good Diogenes, if you knew how to pay court to kings, you wouldn’t have to wash vegetables.” One day Diogenes was knee-deep in a stream, washing vegetables. ![]() Stories of modest living, the essence of mysticism. He disputed his interpretation of Socrates, and sabotaged his lectures, sometimes distracting listeners by bringing food and eating during the discussions. In any event, all our information comes (like our information on Jesus, Lao Tzu, Buddha, etc) second-hand at best, many as anecdotes coming from Roman authors many centuries later, and some, much later again, from Muslims who saw Diogenes as a proto-Sufi.ĭiogenes has had more – and much more continuing – influence in Islamic culture than in the Christian and post-Christian world-view.ĭiogenes of Sinope was contemporary and often an adversary of Plato. Reputation- (valued by patriarchal societies-which depend on female and other servilities) is a very fragile thing to want. On the other hand, Socrates-Plato had quite a lot to lose – reputation. ![]() He honed himself into the position of having nothing to lose but life itself. He believed that virtue (the goal of most Greek philosophers but an irrelevance to consumer-societies) could be attained only by fighting hypocrisy, greed, luxury, and corruption (conventional morality). He lived as a beggar in the streets of Athens (was exiled from Sinope, Black Sea coast of modern-day Turkey), sleeping, and eating wherever he chose (by the temple of Cybele), making a virtue of his extreme poverty. “I am just looking for an honest / righteous man.” The legend goes on with Diogenes walking the streets, almost naked, with long hair and a beard carrying a lamp/lantern in full daylight when asked what he was doing, he would answer: 412-323 BC), aka Diogenes the Cynic, or kynikos / dog ( σκύλος), was by far the truest and most radical pre-Christian Greek philosopher, regarded as a pioneer of the Cynic Philosophy – a Zen-like non-School of anti-Philosophy expounding and embracing an ascetic and transcendental nihilism. Diogenes with his Lantern in the Market Place by Jacob Jordaensĭiogenes (aprox. ![]()
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