SYMHC Classics: Diogenes of Sinope

Today we reach back to our 2015 episode on Diogenes of Sinope, 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

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Happy Saturday, everybody. Coming up on the show, we have
someone who was inspired by the cynic philosophers, particularly Diogenes,
who I have a soft spot for. So we thought
it would be a good time to go back to
our episode of Diogenes, which originally came out in July.
So enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class,

(00:24):
a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm colleague Fry and I'm
Tracy the Wilson. And it's been a little while, Tracy
since we've done any episodes on ancient history that is
correct show today, do you want to go back to
four b C with me and talk about an enigmatic

(00:46):
Greek philosopher. Yes, So this guy is really quite a
fun character. He opted for a life of poverty to
want of comfort. He was a self proclaimed citizen of
the world. He's sometimes um uh uh credited with inventing
the word cosmopolitan relating to being a citizen of the world. Uh.
He was an enemy of pretense, he was an amant

(01:08):
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 put an
accent on the middle syllable, so it's Sinope. Sinope sounds
more natural to me. So we're going with that. Apologies
if that irritates anyone. But the trick with him is

(01:29):
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 evidence that he did. So
what we have is information that's been passed down by

(01:50):
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 this that I kind of
look at Diogenes of Sinnapy as a sort of ancient
Greek tyler dirden and 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

(02:13):
some ways like one long Monty python sketch. So it's
quite fun. 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 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,

(02:35):
not really confident on that date. He was born in
Sinnape Pathlagonia, on the coast of the Black Sea, and
there's not really a lot known about his childhood. We
do know that his 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 some money changer, or simply

(02:56):
a banker. And we do know that Diogenes worked along
signed his father, and specificity as to the specific job
title aside. The really interesting part of this relationship with
money is that at some 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

(03:18):
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 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

(03:40):
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, there is a discussion
of Diogenes either being urged by the oracle to commit

(04:00):
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 not certain again of
how this particular habit of currency vandalism actually played out

(04:21):
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 fled before he
could ever be tried for the crime. Whichever of those

(04:43):
scenarios was the case. The Agenes did move to Athens
after this whole currency incident. This would 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 of his own. Uh.
In a much contested and I will keep saying that,

(05:04):
but I just want to point out, like they're there
are ongoing debates over the veracity of various accounts. H.
But in a much contested version of the story of
how Diogenes became antistanes disciple, Diogenes Laertius tells how Diogenes
had to really wear Antistanes down before the elder man
finally conceded to take him on as a student. When

(05:26):
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 also continuing to

(05:46):
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 took the lessons

(06:08):
of Antithonese two extremes, believing that he had to live
the philosophy rather than really 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. Some accounts indicate that

(06:32):
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 a whole other account of how

(06:52):
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 is and
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 Imminent Philosophers, the agnes, then questioned as

(07:17):
to his habit of living on the streets, said that
the Athenians had already 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 a quick word from a sponsor.

(07:45):
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, 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. So you may wonder how a

(08:08):
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 maybe fantastical fables of Diogenes.

(08:29):
We just don't know. He did believe that manners were
a form of lying, so he was pretty comfortable being
really outspoken and really brudeally 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

(08:50):
do in private as part of living in a civilized society.
Diogenes 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 the spot about believing
that manners were a form of lines. So he was
just outspoken and brutally honest, and I was like, I
think I used to date this guy. And then I
got to the next midence I was like, Nope, did

(09:11):
not date this guy. Thank goodness. There's another story of
a wealthy group of 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
gonna talk some more about dogs, because they are often

(09:31):
associated with him. But this is basically this time in Athens,
when he was doing all of these too, some seemingly
outlandish things 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

(09:55):
between Diogenes and Plato was not simply a matter of
mild name calling. Diagene 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

(10:18):
view of this definition, Diogenes plucked a foul, possibly a chicken,
and brought it with him into the philosopher's academy, showing
everyone how he was 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

(10:41):
you can't be claiming that. But again, he was a humorist,
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 uh described as a candle, but

(11:01):
much more commonly as a lantern, even during daylight, and
he 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 Diagones 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

(11:24):
using comedy to make a statement about the people of
Athens having lost their humanity. They 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

(11:46):
dream 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 trap things
of human constructs, Badginies would say that he sometimes saw
a man as the brightest and wisest of all animals,

(12:07):
but when he thought 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

(12:27):
we could totally take care of ourselves if we got
rid of all of these societal constructs. H 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 double life. He would expound,
for example, that all elements are in all things, and

(12:49):
that all substances 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, people really thought I mean,

(13:13):
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 contract constructs, is also
considered the father of cynicism, and this is where the
dogs come in. So the word cynicism is related to

(13:33):
the Greek word for dog, and there's no historical consensus
as to how dogs came to be so closely associated
with Diogenes and 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 would probably agree with the

(13:56):
second one is that his mentor and Histones taught at
a school called Sinos Sargees, which I may be pronouncing wrong,
but that translates roughly to place of the white dog.
So it was more of a linear homage to his
teacher than anything else. The third suggestion kind of loops
back to the first one, which is that it's a
comparison between diogenes philosophy of anti pretense and the general

(14:20):
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 life and beyond. If
you look at any artists renderings of the philosopher, the

(14:44):
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 to get a
little bit wacky. Here's what's going on. So while he

(15:05):
was traveling, at one point, the story goes that Diogenes
was actually captured by pirates. You gotta have pirates in
a good wacky story. And then he was taken to
Crete and he was sold as a slave to Zeniads
of Corinth, and as a slave, Diogenes allegedly told his
new owner that he had no special skills or abilities

(15:26):
other than governing men. So he was made a tutor
to uh Zenid'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 Zeniads
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 with one another

(15:49):
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,

(16:09):
we just don't know. And and that's 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

(16:30):
in Athens. So he slept and bathed 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

(16:51):
and stone slinging. When the boys 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

(17:14):
as walking with a cane and 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, when Diogenes allegedly had an encounter with Alexander
the Great. Apparently, Alexander wanted to meet this unconventional philosopher

(17:37):
because he had heard a 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.

(17:59):
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.

(18:25):
That's such a good singer. I love it. Um. He
would lecture in public spaces, and if no one stopped
to listen, he got in this really interesting sort of
cruel it's almost click abating 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

(18:48):
then berate them for coming to listen to him whistling
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 violinists will just bust in the
subway and I'll sort of walk on by, not realizing

(19:11):
what's happening. Uh. The Agonies lived the remainder of his
life in Corinthe, Greece, and died there in at the
age of ninety. His cause of death is as cloaked
in murky variations as 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

(19:32):
all the previous dog stuff food poisoning, eating a raw
ox 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

(19:53):
of these stories were probably written to add drama. But
he was elderly when he died, and he had been
around a very long time, hime, 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

(20:13):
had told people that he should be thrown to the
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. Uh. The
account of his death plan is a little bit different
in the third century Diogenes laardious writings. There, he is

(20:36):
said to have told Zeniads 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 erected

(20:59):
in Sea and up 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

(21:22):
than 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 a 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, people would ask him why he insisted

(21:44):
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 new, but his response
was apparently, why so suppose I had run a long

(22:05):
distance ought I to stop when I was near the
end and not rather press on. I love him, He's
so dedicated to his whole thing funny. I mean sometimes, uh,
we laugh at people's foibles in the in the podcast
because they are humorous. We don't often get to laugh

(22:26):
at somebody who's being deliberately comical in the podcast. This
is a nice change of pace from feeling mildly guilty
about laughing at somebody's comical foibles. Yeah, he needed 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 through comedy, which I always am a big fan of.

(22:47):
I think he's brilliant. Thank you so much for joining
us on this Saturday. If you have heard an email
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(23:09):
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(23:30):
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