![]() “Is it true, Diogenes, that you have been doing lewd acts in public and within your barrel?” Diogenes was asked, “I only wish that I could cure my hunger too, just by rubbing my belly.”Īlexander is supposed to have offered Diogenes any reward he wished that he had the power to grant (some say it was the king of Minos). “The dog is honest he is not impressed by grand words, fancy clothes, or titles” said Diogenes, “he is loyal to those who are good to him he bites those who ill-treat him or his friends, and he’s not embarrassed to do what he does to live.” (There were several other dog-philosophers, including Socrates, and two other philosophers named Diogenes). ![]() Plato was discoursing on his theory of ideas and, pointing to the cups on the table before him, said while there are many cups in the world, there is only one `idea’ of a cup, and this cupness precedes the existence of all particular cups. “I can see the cups on the table,” said Diogenes, “but I can’t see the `cupness'”. “That’s because you have the eyes to see the cup,” said Plato, “but”, tapping his head with his forefinger, “you don’t have the intellect with which to comprehend `cupness’.” Diogenes walked up to the table, examined a cup and, looking inside, asked, “Is it empty?” Plato nodded. “Where is the `emptiness’ which precedes this empty cup?” asked Diogenes. Plato allowed himself a few moments to collect his thoughts, but Diogenes reached over and, tapping Plato’s head with his finger, said “I think you will find here is the `emptiness’.ĭiogenes claimed to have gotten his morality from the dog, cynic in ancient Greek (Κύνες). Coming up to him, Plato said, “My good Diogenes, if you knew how to pay court to kings, you wouldn’t have to wash vegetables.” “And,” replied Diogenes, “If you knew how to wash vegetables, you wouldn’t have to pay court to kings.” Diogenes is supposed to have said: “If the slave can live without Diogenes, Diogenes can live without the slave.”ĭiogenes was knee deep in a stream washing vegetables. “And where,” asked Diogones, “do they keep the pictures of the sailors who prayed to Poseidon and drowned?” (I’ve also seen this story told of Diagoras of MIlos).Īt one point Diogenes had a slave, but the slave ran away. “Their pictures and stories are kept in the temple of Poseidon where everyone can see them,” the religious man added. A religious man tried to convince Diogones that Poseidon was the great god of the sea by telling him miracle stores about the sailors who prayed to Poseidon and were saved from drowning. Was he, the son of a banker, a counterfeiter in his hometown of Sinope? Did he really meet Alexander the Great? Was he truly an apologist for incest, patricide, and anthropophagy? And how did he actually die? To answer these questions, Roubineau retraces the known facts of Diogenes' existence.īeyond the rehashed clichés, this book inspires us to rediscover Diogenes' philosophical legacy-whether it be the challenge to the established order, the detachment from materialism, the choice of a return to nature, or the formulation of a cosmopolitan ideal strongly rooted in the belief that virtue is better revealed in action than in theory.A story is told about a philosopher of Ancient Greece, Diogenes of Synope. ![]() Roubineau sifts through the many legends and apocryphal stories that surround the life of Diogenes. In this book, Jean-Manuel Roubineau paints a new portrait of an atypical philosopher whose life left an indelible mark on the Western collective imagination and whose philosophy courses through various schools of thought well beyond antiquity. A favorite subject of sculptors and painters since the Renaissance, his notoriety is equally due to his infamously eccentric behavior, scorn of conventions, and biting aphorisms, and to the role he played in the creation of the Cynic school, which flourished from the 4th century B.C. The ancient philosopher Diogenes-nicknamed "The Dog" and decried by Plato as a "Socrates gone mad"-was widely praised and idealized as much as he was mocked and vilified. An engaging look at the founder of one of the most important philosophical schools of ancient Greece.
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