διογένης

Cynicism really took off, however, with the arrival of a rather scruffy young man who told Antisthenes that nothing would keep him from learning from him, even after Antisthenes beat him repeatedly with a stick. The young man’s name was Diogenes. He came from a small town called Sinope, and when people asked him if it was true that his fellow citizens had condemned him to exile, he would reply, “Yes, and I condemned them to remain in Sinope.”

Diogene’s quick wit and, dare we say it, cynical outlook disguised a first-class intellect focused on proving a single principle: that we have to own nothing, absolutely nothing, to be truly free. Diogenes was the first homeless philosopher. He chose to live instead in a great water jar outside an Athens temple, to beg for food in the street, and to freely defecate and urinate in public.

Naturally, this drew an enormous audience and great publicity. The ruder Diogenes behaved, in fact, the more his sophisticated Hellenistic audience loved it. In an age when philosophy was being reduced to sound bites, Diogenes provided the juiciest of all. Most people have heard of his walking the streets of Athens with a lantern, looking (he said) for an honest man and never finding one. Someone else once found him for food from a statue. When then asked him why, he said, “I’m learning to deal with rejection.”

At one point he met the greatest celebrity of the age. Alexander the Great himself. The great king had heard about the famous Cynic and on a visit to Corinth wanted to meet him. Alexander found Diogenes sunning himself in an outdoor court of the local gymnasium..

“I am Alexander the king,” the conqueror said.

“I am Diogenes the Cynic,” replied the philosopher and continued to sun himself.”




Is there any favor that I may bestow upon you?” Alexander asked.
Diogenes looked up with a frown. “Yes,” he said, “Stand out of my light.”

Later Alexander said if he could not be himself, he would want to be Diogenes. As a later scholar pointed out, no one asked Diogenes if he would prefer to be Alexander. ~ Page 85



(Plato supposedly described Cynic Philosopher Diogenes as “a Socrates gone mad.”)