Diogenes

Diogenes in his barrel (Lantern console, Utrecht, NL)

A well-known Dutch drinking song, composed by the poet and play writer Willem Godschalck van Focquenbroch (1640-1670) tells us that the Greek philosopher Diogenes of Sinope (404?-323 BC) lived in a barrel. Specifically, Diogenes lived in fact in a wine barrel, which was not unusual in his days for poor people. It says much about the man: He was unconventional if not eccentric, for if he had wished so, he could have lived in a house, but he preferred a simple life. Although less known than the great classical philosophers, Diogenes would have great influence on western thinking. Who was this man?
Diogenes was born in Sinope on the north coast of the present Turkey, but he lived most of his life in Athens and Corinth and the years there were his most fertile years as a philosopher. He had to leave Sinope because of a certain affaire and went to live in exile in Athens. While on a voyage to Aegina on the Peloponnesus, he was captured by pirates and in Crete he was sold as a slave to a certain Xeniades, who lived in Corinth. Xeniades, who seems to have liked Diogenes, made him the tutor to his children. It was also in Corinth that Diogenes met Alexander the Great. When asked by Alexander, what he (A.) could do for him, Diogenes replied: “Stand out of my sunlight”. Diogenes died in Corinth, but his body wasn’t given to the wild animals, as he wished, but he got a grave next to a town gate with a memory pillar on which rested a marble dog. In the second century AD, the monument was still there.
The dog was placed on the memory pillar, since this animal symbolized Diogenes’s way of life. He wanted, so he said, to live as a dog. Diogenes wanted to live a simple life and to live on what he got; he didn’t strive for power. Diogenes probably didn’t write books with his ideas, which is according to his life philosophy, for he simply wanted to live life as he encountered it. Nevertheless, in his time he was already famous – and that’s why Alexander wanted to see him – by his lifestyle and by the answers he gave to those who asked him questions. Much of what is known about him is known by hearsay. Anyway, we know that he was a pupil of Antisthenes, a student of Socrates. Antisthenes didn’t want to have students and chased them away. When Antisthenes said to Diogenes “I’ll beat you, when you don’t go away”, Diogenes replied “Beat me”. So, Diogenes became the only pupil of this philosopher. Diogenes met also Plato. They had fierce discussions with each other. In these discussions, we find the essence of Diogenes’s philosophy. Plato called Diogenes a dog, but for Diogenes this was not an insult but a badge of honour. “Dog” in Greek is “kunos”, and from this word the word cynic is derived. For Diogenes a cynic life meant a simple life that you take as it is. Don’t desire wealth. It’s not important and it will give you nothing. But a dog’s life was also symbolic of an independent life, independent from the state. Plato called Diogenes also worse than Socrates, meaning that he went too far in his choice for poverty, his dedication to philosophy and his independence from the state. On the other hand, for Diogenes Plato’s ideas were too theoretical and they had nothing to do with the practice of life. For Diogenes they were meaningless. Moreover, Plato made himself dependent on the power of others, so Diogenes, for instance when he entered the service of the King of Syracuse.
Diogenes didn’t hesitate to shock others, for example by masturbating in public or – what’s normal today but then it wasn’t – by eating in public. Diogenes was also antiauthoritarian, and he stated that all humans are equal and he rejected slavery. He declared himself a citizen of the world and not of a certain state. One must not be connected to one place only. Diogenes is said to be the first person to have used the word cosmopolitan. This was radical in a world where your identity was determined by the city-state you belonged to.
Diogenes’s way of life and his ideas, which he not only expressed in words (when asked) but which he also lived, made a profound impression on others. He became one of the founders of the “school” of Cynicism (which was not a formal school), a philosophical view on life that has been influential till the present. Note that the word cynic, which refers to the ideas of Diogenes and his followers, must not be confused with the word cynical, which actually is the same, but which is more or less equal to the word sarcastic. “Cynical” is a later derivation from “cynic” and it got a different meaning (in some languages, they still use the same word for “cynic” and “cynical”).
Diogenes’s Cynicism had also an influence on other philosophical currents and views. Via his pupils Crates and Stilpo Diogenes’s ideas reached Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism. Moreover, cynic ideas had an influence on Pyrrhonism (Montaigne has been influenced by this philosophical current), and on Epicureanism. It’s even not unlikely that cynic ideas, like those about simple life and equality, have influenced the first Christians and the New Testament, and maybe also the ideas of Jesus of Nazareth, although this is controversial.

Sources
- Inger N.I. Kuin, Diogenes. Leven en denken van een autonome geest. Amsterdam: Athenaeum-Polak&Van Gennep; 2022