Diogenes of Sinope

 

Western Philosophy Ancient philosophy
Diogenes by John William Waterhouse, depicting his lamp, tub, and diet of onions.
Name	Diogenes (Διογένης ὁ Σινωπεύς)
Birth	ca. 412 BC
Death	323 BC
School/tradition	Classical Greek, Cynicism
Main interests	Asceticism
Influences	Antisthenes
Influenced	The Stoics, Peter Sloterdijk

Diogenes (Greek: Διογένης ὁ Σινωπεύς Diogenes o Sinopeus) "the Cynic", Greek philosopher, was born in Sinope (modern day Sinop, Turkey) about 412 BC (according to other sources 399 BC), and died in 323 BC at Corinth. Details of his life come in the form of anecdotes ("chreia") from Diogenes Laërtius, in his book Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers.

Diogenes of Sinope is said to have been a disciple of Antisthenes, who (according to Plato's Phaedo) was present at the death of Socrates. Diogenes, a beggar who made his home in the streets of Athens, made a virtue of extreme poverty. He taught contempt for human achievements and a return to animalism. His was a relentless campaign to debunk social values and institutions.

Dog theme

Many anecdotes of Diogenes refer to his doglike behavior, and his praise of a dog's virtues. It is not known whether Diogenes was insulted with the epithet "doggish" and made a virtue of it, or whether he first took up the dog theme himself. The modern terms cynic and cynical derive from the Greek word kynikos, the adjective form of kyon, meaning dog ^[1]. Diogenes believed human beings live artificially and hypocritically and would do well to study the dog. Besides performing natural bodily functions in public without unease, a dog will eat anything, and make no fuss about where to sleep. Dogs live in the present without anxiety, and have no use for the pretensions of abstract philosophy. In addition to these virtues, dogs are thought to know instinctively who is friend and who is foe. Unlike human beings who either dupe others or are duped, dogs will give an honest bark at the truth.

Diogenes was a self-appointed public scold whose mission was to demonstrate to the ancient Greeks that civilization is regressive. He taught by living example that wisdom and happiness belong to the man who is independent of society. Diogenes scorned not only family and political social organization, but property rights and reputation. The most shocking feature of his philosophy is his rejection of normal ideas about human decency. Performance artist, exhibitionist and philosopher, Diogenes is said to have eaten (and masturbated) in the marketplace, urinated on the man who insulted him, defecated in the amphitheatre, and pointed at people with his middle finger. Sympathizers considered him a devotee of reason and an exemplar of honesty. Detractors have said he was an obnoxious ragpicker and an offensive churl.

Despite having apparently nothing but disdain for Plato and his abstract philosophy, Diogenes bears striking resemblance to the character of Socrates. He shared Socrates' belief that he could function as doctor to men's souls and improve them morally, while at the same time holding contempt for their obtuseness.

Life

In Athens

One of the most important anecdotes about Diogenes suggests that he was exiled from Sinope for "adulterating the coinage". In his new home, Athens, Diogenes' mission became the metaphorical adulterating/debasing of the "coinage" of custom. Custom, he alleged, was the false coin of human morality. Instead of being troubled by what is really evil, people make a big fuss over what is merely conventionally evil. This distinction between nature ("physis") and custom ("nomos") is a favorite theme of ancient Greek philosophy, and one that Plato takes up in The Republic, in the legend of the Ring of Gyges.

Diogenes is alleged to have gone to Athens with a slave named Manes who abandoned him shortly thereafter. With characteristic humour, Diogenes dismissed his ill fortune by saying, "If Manes can live without Diogenes, why not Diogenes without Manes?" Diogenes would be consistent in making fun of such a relation of extreme dependency. He would particularly find the master, who could do nothing for himself, contemptibly helpless. Attracted by the ascetic teaching of Antisthenes, a student of Socrates, Diogenes became his pupil, despite the brutality with which he was received, and rapidly surpassed his master both in reputation and in the austerity of his life. Unlike the other citizens of Athens, he avoided earthly pleasures. This attitude was grounded in a great disdain for what he perceived as the folly, pretense, vanity, social climbing, self-deception, and artificiality of much human conduct.

The stories told of Diogenes illustrate the logical consistency of his character. He inured himself to the vicissitudes of weather by living in a tub belonging to the temple of Cybele. He destroyed the single wooden bowl he possessed on seeing a peasant boy drink from the hollow of his hands. When asked how to avoid lust of the flesh, Diogenes began to masturbate in answer. When rebuked for doing so, he replied, "If only I could soothe my hunger by rubbing my belly." He used to stroll through the Agora at full daylight with a torch (or, as legend sometimes has it, a lantern). When asked what he was doing, he would answer, "I am just looking for an honest man." Diogenes looked for an honest man and reputedly found nothing but rascals and scoundrels.

In Corinth

On a voyage to Aegina, he was captured by pirates and sold as a slave in Crete to a Corinthian named Xeniades. 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. As tutor to Xeniades' two sons, he lived in Corinth for the rest of his life, which he devoted entirely to preaching the doctrines of virtuous self-control.

At the Isthmian Games, he lectured to large audiences, who turned to him from his one-time teacher Antisthenes. It was, probably, at one of these festivals that he met Alexander the Great. The story goes that while Diogenes was relaxing in the sunlight one morning, Alexander, thrilled to meet the famous philosopher, asked if there was any favour he might do for him. Diogenes replied, "Stand out of my sunlight." Alexander still declared, "If I were not Alexander, then I should wish to be Diogenes." (In another account, Alexander found the philosopher rummaging through a pile of human bones. Diogenes explained, "I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave.")

When Plato gave Socrates's definition of man as "featherless bipeds" and was much praised for the definition, Diogenes plucked a cock and brought it into Plato's Academy, saying, "This is Plato's man." After this incident, "with broad flat nails" was added to Plato's definition.

Death

There are numerous accounts of Diogenes' death. He is alleged variously to have held his breath, to have become ill from eating raw octopus, and to have suffered an infected dog bite. When asked how he wished to be buried, he left instructions to be thrown outside the city wall so wild animals could feast on his body. When asked if he minded this, he said, "Not at all, as long as you provide me with a stick to chase the creatures away!" When asked how he could use the stick since he would lack awareness, he replied "If I lack awareness, then why should I care what happens to me when I am dead?" At the end, Diogenes made fun of people's excessive concern with the "proper" treatment of the dead. The Corinthians erected to his memory a pillar on which rested a dog of Parian marble.

Ideas

Along with Antisthenes, Crates of Thebes, and Xeno, Diogenes is considered one of the founders of Cynicism. The ideas of Diogenes, like those of most other Cynics, must be arrived at indirectly. No writings of Diogenes survived even though he is reported to have authored a number of books. Cynic ideas are inseparable from Cynic practice; therefore what we know about Diogenes is contained in anecdotes concerning his life and sayings attributed to him in a number of scattered classical sources. None of these sources is definitive and all contribute to a "tradition" that should not be confused with factual biography.

It is not known, for example, whether Diogenes made a virtue of naked survival out of necessity or whether he really preferred poverty and homelessness. In any case, Diogenes did "make a case" for benefits of a reduced lifestyle. He apparently proved to the satisfaction of the Stoics who came after him that happiness has nothing whatever to do with a person's material circumstances. The stoics developed this theme, but made it benign. Epictetus, for example, preached the virtue of modesty and inoffensiveness, but maintained that misfortune is good for the development of strong character.

Diogenes maintained that all the artificial growths of society were incompatible with happiness and that morality implies a return to the simplicity of nature. So great was his austerity and simplicity that the Stoics would later claim him to be a wise man or "sophos". In his words, "Man has complicated every simple gift of the gods." Diogenes is the first person known to have said, "I am a citizen of the whole world" (cosmopolites). This was a radical claim in a world where a man's identity was intimately tied to his citizenship in a particular city state. An exile and an outcast, a man with no social identity, Diogenes made a mark on his contemporaries. His story, however uncertain the details, continues to fascinate students of human nature.

Art and popular culture

Both in ancient and in modern times, his personality has appealed strongly to sculptors and to painters. Ancient busts exist in the museums of the Vatican, the Louvre, and the Capitol. The interview between Diogenes and Alexander is represented in an ancient marble bas-relief found in the Villa Albani. Rubens, Jordaens, Steen, Van der Werff, Jeaurat, Salvator Rosa, Nicolas Poussin, Karel Dujardin, and Giovannino (who declared himself as rebirth of Diogenes) have painted scenes from his life.

Diogenes is referred to in Anton Chekhov's story Ward No. 6, William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Francois Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, as well as in the first sentence of Søren Kierkegaard's novelistic treatise Repetition. He is a character in Terry Prachett's Small Gods. He is referenced in the eleventh episode of キノの旅 (Kino's Journey). He is mentioned in the songs Start Wearing Purple by Gogol Bordello, Get Off by Bad Religion and Oh, Diogenes! from the Rodgers and Hart musical The Boys From Syracuse. He also is a figure in Seamus Heaney's The Haw Lantern and the animated series Reign: the Conqueror where he plays a more pivotal role in the life of Alexander the Great.

Several allusions to Diogenes appear in the movie Fight Club. Particularly, these include the direct quotation "The things you own end up owning you," and the browbeating of eager recruits (quite similar to the torments Diogenes endured so as to be accepted by Antisthenes). Other comparisons can easily be drawn, as the movie's ideology bears striking similarity to Diogenes' views. For example, the intentional squalor in which the main characters choose to live, and Tyler Durden's editing of pornographic frames into family movies (reminiscent of Diogenes' tendency to masturbate in public).

In addition, a depiction of Diogenes "Seeking an honest man" is prominent on the Led Zeppelin album "Four Signs" also known as Led Zeppelin IV. In the Graphic Novel of Neil Gaimans Neverwhere, the Marquis de Carabas refers to Diogenes as his patron.

The Diogenes Club

Main article: Diogenes Club

The philosopher lent his name to the fictional Diogenes Club, an organization that Sherlock Holmes' brother Mycroft Holmes belongs to in the story "The Greek Interpreter" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The group is the focus of a number of Holmes pastiches by Kim Newman.

Diogenes also features in Part Four of Elizabeth Smart's By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept.

Diogenes and contemporary theory

Diogenes is discussed in a 1983 book by German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk (English language publication in 1987). In his Critique of Cynical Reason, Diogenes is used as an example of Sloterdijk’s idea of the “kynical” — in which personal degradation is used for purposes of community comment or censure. Calling the practice of this tactic “kynismos,” Sloterdijk explains that the kynical actor actually embodies the message he/she is trying to convey. The goal here is typically a false regression that mocks authority — especially authority that the kynical actor considers corrupt, suspect, or unworthy.

See also

• Diogenes syndrome

References

• Diogenes, Herakleitos and Diogenes, translated by Guy Davenport. Bolinas: Grey Fox Press, 1979. ISBN 0-912516-36-4. (Complete fragments of Diogenes translated into English.)

• Critique of Cynical Reason, by Sloterdijk, Peter. Translation by Michael Eldred; foreword by Andreas Huyssen. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987

The chief ancient authority for his life is Diogenes Laertius vi. 20; see also Mayor's notes on Juvenal, Satire XIV, 308-3 148

• Diogenes of Sinope: The Man in the Tub, by Luis Navia. Greenwood Press, Westport Press, 1989. ISBN 0-313-30672-9.

External links

• Diogenes: Stories from Millions of Mouths
• Diogenes of Sinope, by Diogenes Laertius, translated by C.D. Yonge
• Diogenes of Sinope; The Columbia World of Quotations
• Diogenes of Sinope by Farrand Sayre, presented as a blog
• Diogenes of Sinope
• A day with Diogenes
• Teachings of Diogenes
• James Grout: Diogenes the Cynic, part of the Encyclopædia Romana
• 1975 Lancet article introducing Diogenes syndrome (via PubMed)pms:Diògene

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