Diogenes of Sinope

Diogenes of Sinope was the father of the Cynicism school of philosophy. He was also an incredibly eccentric figure who spoke out against pretense, and he used humor to convey his ideals. Read the show notes here.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm colleague
Fry and I'm Tracy B. Wilson. And it's been a
little while, Tracy since we've done any episodes on ancient
history that is correct. So today, do you want to

(00:22):
go back to four D b C with me and
talk about an enigmatic Greek philosopher. So this guy is
really quite a fun character. Uh. He opted for a
life of poverty to one of comfort. He was a
self proclaimed citizen of the world. He's sometimes um uh
credited with inventing the word cosmopolitan relating to being a

(00:43):
citizen of the world. Uh. He was an enemy of pretense.
He was an amant guarde thinker, and he was also
a humorist. So he had a lot of irons in
the fire of philosophy. And this is Diogenes of Sinope.
And I've heard, I've listened to a bunch of pronunciations,
some uh at an accent on the middle syllable, so
it's Sinope Sinnape sounds more natural to me. So we're

(01:04):
going with that. Apologies if that irritates anyone, but the
trick with him is that his biography is based almost
entirely on apocryphal stories. There is some but not much
solid information about his life, and additionally, it appears that
he didn't write down any of his own philosophy. There
is some debate over that, but there's really been no

(01:24):
evidence that he did. So what we have is information
that's been passed down by his students and biographers, sometimes
you know, several centuries later. And I have to admit,
with my own personal kind of uh point of view
on this, that I kind of look at Diogenes of
Sinnapy as a sort of ancient Greek tyler dirden, and

(01:45):
that may become more apparent and why I would think
that as we talk about his ideals and his philosophy
and his life also reads in some ways like one
long Monty python sketch. So it's quite fun. Uh. This
is not one where you're going to get a lot
of horrible stuff, although there are some twists and turns.
But I think it will be an enjoyable little trip

(02:05):
to the ancient past, So let's do it. Diogenes is
usually cited as being born in the year four twelve BC, and,
as with much of ancient history not really confident on
that date. He was born in Sinape Pathlagonia, on the
coast of the Black Sea, and there's not really a
lot known about his childhood. We do know that his

(02:26):
father worked with money, although we don't know the precise
nature of the work. Some biographies listed as one and
some of another. He could have been a mentor or
perhaps a money changer or simply a banker, and we
do know that Diogenes worked alongside his father and specificity
as to the specific job title aside, The really interesting
part of this relationship with money is that at some

(02:48):
point Diogenes and his father together or Diogenes alone or
even his father alone but taking credit by Diogenes, started
defacing the currency that they were working with. There have
been lots of archaeological finds that corroborate that a lot
of currency from the time was damaged, but we don't
really know why coin defacement was the hobby of Diogenes

(03:10):
and possibly his father, although there are some theories on
that yeah, it may have been a politically driven move
related to the Greco Persian wars of the time. Another
perspective on the currency defacement features the oracle at Delphi
playing a fairly significant role. In the text Lives of
Eminent Philosophers, written in the third century CE by Diogenes Laertius,

(03:34):
there is a discussion of Diogenes either being urged by
the oracle to commit this vandalism although he was urged
to vandalize political currency and instead to face state currency,
or of being called to the oracle after the fact
to realize that his behavior had been predestined. And we're

(03:55):
not certain again of how this particular habit of currency
vandalism actually played out in terms of repercussions. There are
accounts that Diogenes was exiled for this behavior, and some
of them involve a lot of um interplay with his
father and who was taking blame and who really did it.
But there are also conflicting accounts that say that Diogenes

(04:18):
fled before he could ever be tried for the crime.
Whichever of those scenarios was the case. Diogenes did move
to Athens after this whole currency incident. This one wind
up being a pivotal move because it's at this point
that he started down the path of philosophy. One of
socrates former students, Antissanes, took Diogenes on as a student

(04:39):
of his own. Uh. In a much contested and I
will keep saying that, but I just want to point out,
like they're there are ongoing debates over the veracity of
various accounts. But in a much contested version of the
story of how Diogenes became antisthenes disciple, Diogenes Laertius tells
it how Diogenes had to really wear Antisannes down before

(05:01):
the elder man finally conceded to take him on as
a student. When Antistanes raised a stick to Diogenes to
drive him away, his devotion was so vehement to becoming
a pupil that he put his head in the path
of the stick and said, strike, for you will not
find any stick hard enough to drive me away as
long as you continue to speak. Uh. And while we're

(05:24):
also continuing to talk about contested facets of the Diogenes story,
we actually don't know for certain that he really did
study under Antistanes. This is something that still gets debated
to this day by historians and classicists. So keep all
of that in mind as we go to say Diogenes
was an impassioned student, would really be an understatement. He

(05:46):
took the lessons of Antissanese two extremes, believing that he
had to live the philosophy rather than really to just
talk about it. He wanted to reject artificiality and the
luxury of of Athenian life. In fact, he wanted to
reject creature comforts so badly that he decided to live
in a tub in a building dedicated to the goddess Civilly.

(06:10):
Some accounts indicate that it was actually an empty wine
barrel and not a tub, and that he was merely
in a public square. But regardless of the details of
his tub or barrel, he was inspired, he said, by
the mouse, which was a creature which he admired greatly
for the adaptability that it showed. It didn't need all
of these trappings. It could just live anywhere. Naturally. There's

(06:30):
a whole other account of how he came to be
living in this cask or tub, and in this version
he wrote ahead to a friend in Athens that he
was coming and that his friends should find him suitable accommodations.
The friend was unable to secure lodgings for Diogenes, and
so the possibly exiled man opted for a nearby barrel
or tub in the public square in Lives of Eminent Philosophers.

(06:54):
The Athneys, then, questioned as to his habit of living
on the streets, said that the Athenians had our ready
built him places to live in, meeting all of the
public spaces around him. It's an interesting approach to life.
But before we talk a little bit about some of
the ideals that Diogenes expounded on, we're gonna pause for

(07:15):
a quick word from a sponsor. Diogenes owned nothing, and
he depended on the kindness of others and some wiggly
logic that we're going to talk about momentarily in order
to survive. He did, at one point allegedly possess a
cup uh. That is until he saw a young boy
drinking from his cupped hands, at which point Diogenes threw
the vessel away, claiming that it was simply an unnecessary possession.

(07:39):
So you may wonder how a philosopher living on the
streets managed to survive the elements. He's said to have
taken up the habit of training himself to withstand any conditions,
so he would roll in hot sand during warm weather
and embrace cold marble statues in cold weather. Uh. Those
those may be fantastical fables of Diogenes, we just don't know.

(08:03):
He did believe that manners were a form of lying,
so he was pretty comfortable being really outspoken and really
rudely honest. Uh. He's also said to have pretty commonly
urinated in public and even masturbated openly. Uh. Basically any
of the natural human activities that someone might do in
private as part of living in a civilized society. Diogenes

(08:27):
felt those should all be allowed in public. That's part
of authentic life. When I first started looking at your outline, Holly,
I got to this thought about believing that manners were
a form of lying. So he was just outspoken and
brudely honest, and I was like, I think I used
to date this guy. And then I got to the
next dance, I was like, Nope, did not date this guy,
Thank goodness. There's another story of a wealthy group of

(08:50):
people throwing Diogenes bones during a banquet and calling him
a dog, after which he lifted his leg and urinated
on them canine style. Yeah, we're going to talk some
more about dogs because they are often associated with him,
But this is basically this time in Athens when he
was doing all of these too, some seemingly outlandish things

(09:11):
of living publicly in a tub or barrel and peeing
on people that bothered him. Uh, east people started to
call him crazy. In fact, Plato supposedly called Diogenes quote
a socrate has gone mad. So the relationship between Diogenes
and Plato was not simply a matter of mild name calling.

(09:31):
Diogenes was very openly critical of Plato's work. For example,
one of the ongoing philosophic discussions of the day was
analysis of the nature and definition of what it meant
to be human. Plato had to find man as a featherless,
biped animal. To point out the limited view of this definition,
Diogenes plucked a foul, possibly a chicken, and brought it

(09:54):
with him into the philosopher's academy, showing everyone how he
was is carrying by Plato's definition a human being. Yeah,
I always get this is one of the famous stories
of Diogenes, and I always get a little hung up
on it because it's not the chickens natural state, so
you can't be claiming that. But again, he was a humorist,

(10:16):
so any the first prop comic, perhaps um the debate
over the nature of man and what defined humanity continued
to lead to more eccentric behavior on the part of Diogenes.
So he would walk the streets of Athens carrying a lantern.
Sometimes you'll see it described as a candle, but much
more commonly as a lantern, even during daylight, and he

(10:36):
would hold it up to people's faces, claiming to be
looking for an honest man and never finding it. So
we're laughing at this guy pretty openly. And it's important
to point out that Diogenes was considered very humorous. So
while he was on the surface looking for an honest
human being in a way that might have seemed crazy
at best or jerkish at the worst, he was using

(10:57):
comedy to make a statement about the people of Athens
having lost their humanity. He really felt that humans were
living in pretense rather than in harmony with nature. That's
where he starts to sound a lot like Tyler Dirtan
to me. We should also mention, though, that he was
not the first or only philosopher who believed that most
humans were walking around in this sort of contrived dream

(11:18):
state of inauthenticity. Heraclitis, Sophocles and Plato all tackled similar
issues in their work, but none of them took to
the streets to challenge people openly and in their faces
about it. To further comment on the trappings of human constructs,
the Agenes would say that he sometimes saw a man
as the brightest and wisest of all animals, but when

(11:39):
he saw that fortune tellers and soothsayers were heavily patronized,
he thought that mankind was the most foolish animal of all.
And he really believed pretty implicitly that humans should be
self sufficient as part of their natural state. Like he
really thought we exist in a way that we could

(12:00):
totally take care of ourselves if we got rid of
all of these societal constructs. But he also did a
little bit of fancy footwork, uh philosophically, to make sure
that his needs were met while he was living his natural,
self sufficient tub life. He would expound, for example, that
all elements are in all things, and that all substances

(12:22):
are united, So snatching a little bit of food or
stealing a little bit of wine was just making use
of the natural elements that are all around you. In
the vapor, they just happened to take the form of sustenance,
and apparently despite all the public urination and open criticism
of literally everyone around him, Diogenes was much beloved in Athens. Yeah,

(12:44):
people really thought I mean, they called him crazy, but
they also thought he was very smart and he had
a lot of interesting ideas, So he's such a fascinating creature.
Um and Diogenes, a synopy with his disdain for social
contracts constructs, is also considered the father of cynicism, and
this is where the dogs come in. So the word

(13:04):
cynicism is related to the Greek word for dog, and
there's no historical consensus as to how dogs came to
be so closely associated with Diogenes in his philosophy, but
there are several popular theories. The first one is that
he extolled the virtues of the dog's way of living
as being entirely without pretense, which people who love dogs

(13:25):
would probably agree with. The second one is that his
mentor and Tisanes, taught at a school called Sino Sarges,
which I may be pronouncing wrong, but that translates roughly
to place of the white Dog, So it was more
of a a linear homage to his teacher than anything else.
The third suggestion kind of loops back to the first one,

(13:47):
which is that it's a comparison between diogenes philosophy of
anti pretense and the general characteristics of a dog. Yeah,
so that one is more like from other people saying, hey,
you kind of live like a dog, rather than him
going dogs are awesome, they're not pretentious. It's more of
one that's put on him rather than him expounding on
And this association of dogs with Diogenes persisted throughout his

(14:10):
life and beyond. If you look at any artists renderings
of the philosopher, the majority of them, I would say,
because there have been a lot of paintings of him
throughout the years feature one or more dogs by his side.
There are a lot of images of him kind of
tucked into his little tub or his cask, and sometimes
there are four or five dogs just around him. They're
almost always dogs in the picture. So things are about

(14:34):
to get a little bit wacky. Here's what's going on. So,
while he was traveling, at one point, the story goes
that Diogenes was actually captured by pirates. You've gotta have
pirates in a good wacky story. And then he was
taken to crete and he was sold as a slave
to Zenids of Corinth, and as a slave, Diogenes allegedly
told his new owner that he had no special skills

(14:57):
or abilities other than governing men. So he was made
a tutor to uh Zeniad's children, and eventually he was
considered a member of the family rather than a slave.
And an alternate version of the story and Diogenes actually
chose the Zenids as the man that the pirates should
sell him to, saying that his potential master looked like
he really needed to be governed. Many different details compete

(15:20):
with one another when it comes to the relationship between
Diogenes and the man who purchased him. He might have
been set free immediately and then employed. He might have
started out as a slave and then slowly that aspect
of the relationship diminished. Or he might have stayed a slave,
although one with a great deal of personal freedom his
entire life. Yeah, we just don't know. And and that's

(15:43):
another another one of those things that different tellings put
it different ways, and different um translations have probably led
to some of that muddy water in that arena. And
despite the fact that he was technically a slave during
at least part of this time in Corinth, it does
appear that Diogenes lived there in much the same way
that he did in Athens. So he slept and bathed

(16:05):
and gave his lectures in public spaces, and he eschewed
the trappings of society, and he continued to share and
live his philosophy of personal responsibility and minimalist living. As
for the lessons that he bestowed upon the children that
he was tasked with teaching, he not only taught them academics,
but also writing, archery and stone slinging. When the boys

(16:26):
were in the gymnasium, he was adamant that they not
be trained in the standard athletic style, but in a
gentler manner, getting their heart rates up and color in
their cheeks, but not really pushing to extremes. Yeah, this
one always seems kind of odd to me. It's one
of the many later writings about him, because you see
him so often depicted as walking with a cane and

(16:47):
so like. Picturing him teaching them all of these physical
things seems odd to me, But you never know. Perhaps
it was true. Um. There's another sort of famous story
about him involving his time in Corinth and Diogenes allegedly
had an encounter with Alexander the Great. Apparently, Alexander wanted
to meet this unconventional philosopher because he had heard a

(17:10):
great deal about him. And when he finally found this
man on the streets of Corinth and inquired as to
whether he was, in fact the philosopher that he sought,
Diogenes is said to have replied, yes, get out of
my sunlight. The eccentric philosopher openly criticized Alexander, which perhaps surprisingly,
actually endeared him to the ruler, so much so that

(17:31):
the king of Macedonia once said that if he were
not Alexander the Great, he'd be Diogenes of Sinope. In
another belittling move, Diogenes supposedly responded, if I were not Diogenes,
I would also wish to be Diogenes. He's genuinely funny.
That's such a good singer. I love it. Um. He

(17:55):
would lecture in public spaces, and if no one stopped
to listen, he got to this really interesting sort of
cruel it's almost click baiting of the ancient style. He
would start whistling until onlookers came, and once he had
drawn a few people and gotten their attention. He would
then berate them for coming to listen to him whistling

(18:15):
and being musical, and point out how ignorant they were
that they did not stop earlier to listen to the
far more important things he had to share. I e.
His philosophy sort of reminds me of when, Uh, like
Joshua Bell, a virtuoso violinist, will just bust in a
subway and yeah, I'll sort of walk on by not
realizing what's happening. Uh. The Athony has lived the remainder

(18:38):
of his life in Corinthe, Greece, and died there in
three at the age of ninety. His cause of death
is as cloaked in murky variations, is basically every other
part of his life story varying a counts list. A
dog attack resulting in rabies, which would have been kind
of ironic considering all the previous dogs, stuff food poisoning,

(19:00):
eating a raw oxaf or maybe a raw octopus. Uh,
and even committing suicide by holding his breath until he died.
And that last one is just as unlikely as it sounds.
Probably he just died of old age. Yeah, I think
some of these stories were probably written to add drama.

(19:20):
But he was elderly when he died, and he had
been around a very long time, and that was quite
an old age. I love that there are accounts that
say he held his breath until he died. That can't work.
You pass out and start automatically breathing. But while Diogenes
had told people that he should be thrown to the

(19:40):
dogs as food when he died, he was instead given
a proper and honorable burial. He was again, despite being
this really eccentric, cranky public urinator, very beloved. H The
account of his death plan is a little bit different.
In the third century Diogenes Laerd his writings. There, he

(20:01):
is said to have told Zenids that, in fact, he
wanted to be buried on his face quote because in
a little while everything will be turned upside down. And
with that statement he was referring to the political situation
at the time, uh the Macedonians were rising in power,
and he thought a pretty big cultural shift was gonna
undoubtedly follow that. A statue of the philosopher was later

(20:23):
erected in Scenip, Turkey, and it features a dog by
his side and the signature lantern he would shine in
people's faces. Yeah, so that is the more modern day
version of where he was born. And one of the
reasons I think that the life of Diogenes comes with
a lot of variation in the telling and most likely
some outright fabrication, is that he was a larger than

(20:46):
life personality, and sometimes that will kind of build you know,
people will build on some very real, larger than life
things and kind of add their own embellishments. But I
really like, uh, this one story about him. That is
an nice way to kind of sum up his his life,
particularly at the end, because allegedly as he was nearing
the end of his life he was getting very old,

(21:07):
people would ask him why he insisted on continuing living
his difficult path of poverty when he really could retire
and live in greater comfort. Again, he was much beloved,
He probably had a lot of options and plenty of
people that would have been happy to take him in,
and he may have still been part of Zenia's family.
We don't entirely know. But his response was apparently, why

(21:28):
so suppose I had run a long distance, ought I
to stop when I was near the end and not
rather press on. I love him, He's so dedicated to him.
His whole thing funny. I mean sometimes, uh, we laugh
at people's foibles in the in the podcast because they

(21:48):
are humorous. We don't often get to laugh at somebody
who's being deliberately conical in the podcast. Is Yeah, a
nice change of pace from feeling mildly guilty about laughing
at somebody's calm, cold foibles. Yeah, he knew his foibles
were what they were. He he had a really good
sense of like what he was he was drawing out
of people. He was trying to get people to think

(22:09):
through comedy, which I always am a big fan of.
I think he's brilliant. Uh. But now I we'll switch
gears because I have a little bit of listener mail
help me. This one is from our listener Diane, and
she's writing about our Right Brothers episode when I was
lucky enough to interview David McCullough, and she says, uh,
You're Right Brothers. Podcast was a delightful one to listen to.

(22:30):
I was amused to here near the beginning of your
podcast that while most folks know who Wilburn Horble Right
were and what they're remembered for, most people know little
more than that about them, let alone the cast of
players that played a part in their historical events. I
am one of those ill informed people. Twelve years ago,
my dad, aged seventy, and I learned about a man
named Charles Taylor. We learned he was Wilburn Horble's mechanic

(22:53):
credited with designing and building the engine for their first
successful aircraft. As an aside, we talked about that in
the podcast. You may recall if you listened. She says,
did you know there is a Charles Taylor Master Mechanic
Award which is awarded by the f a A to
those who have worked the aviation industry as an aircraft mechanic.
I did not know that. She says. The eligibility requirements
are impressive, not the least of which one requirement is

(23:16):
worked for a period of fifty years in an aviation
maintenance career, and quote the applicant must have been an
f a A A certified mechanic or repairman working on n
registered aircraft maintained under the Federal Aviation Regulations for a
minimum of thirty of the fifty years required. She sent
us a link to more information and she says, ha ha,
this is where we get the really good part. How

(23:37):
did we come to learn about this man? You ask?
My father, Leo, is a volunteer at the Owl's Head
Transportation Museum here in Owl's Head, Maine. At their annual
volunteer banquet in two thousand three, my father was surprised
by the f a A with a presentation of the
Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award. We all learned a little
more about the Right Brothers that day, but mostly about
Charles Taylor. And I am so very proud of my

(23:58):
father's achievement. How one hereful it was that someone recognized
this enough to put forward an application for him to
receive this prestigious award. Uh. And she goes on to
sort of show the cool credentials that her dad has.
It's so amazing, that's a huge achievement, So kudos to him.
And she um mentioned that listening to our podcast, she
thought Mr McCullough sounded just incredibly delightful. He is he's

(24:20):
so sweet and kind. Uh. And the stuff that we
cut out at the beginning and the end of our
phone call, I just was so delighted talking to him.
He was so sweet. Uh. And she mentioned that her
dad is very hard to bry for, so she bought
him Mr McCullough's book on the Right Brothers that just
came out and that he's been delighted with it. Um
had not read it before and so he really enjoyed it.
So thank you so much for sharing that with us,

(24:42):
because it's such a cool family connection to a part
of history that you know. Again, Charles Taylor, I didn't
know anything about him before I read that book, so
it was very very cool to learn about him, and
now the owners are really prestigious award based on him.
I love it. If you would like to write to
us and share your awards or just talk about anything
you talked about on podcast, you can do so at
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(25:04):
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(25:24):
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