He also rejected social conventions and norms, choosing to live as an outsider and critic of mainstream society.ĭiogenes was critical of conventional morality and argued that people should rely on their own reason and judgment to determine what was right and wrong. He famously lived in a barrel and rejected material possessions, arguing that they were unnecessary for a fulfilling life. He believed that people should reject material possessions, social status, and conventional values, and instead focus on living a simple and virtuous life.ĭiogenes believed that the virtues of honesty, self-sufficiency, and independence were essential for living a good life. In this essay, we will explore Diogenes’s philosophy and its implications for ethics, politics, and human nature.įor Diogenes, the goal of life was to live in accordance with nature and to be true to oneself. He was a controversial figure who rejected traditional social norms and conventions, living a simple and ascetic lifestyle. Yonge (see: ).Diogenes of Sinope was a Greek philosopher who lived in the 4th century BCE. I have used the English translation by C.D. This text is largely based on The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, by Diogenes Laertius. The latter is the most heard cause of death. How did he die? Some say he ate an ox's foot raw, and was in consequence seized with a bilious attack, of which he died others say that he died of holding his breath for several days. Diogenes is said to have died when he was nearly ninety years of age (to be a lonely, cosmopolitan cynic apparently is very healthy). Seeing a runaway slave sitting on a well, Diogenes said, "My boy, take care you do not fall in.”įinally, Diogenes’ death. with his typical cynical sense of humor.įor example, once, while he was sitting in the sun in the Craneum, King Alexander the Great was standing by, and said to him, “Ask any favour you choose of me.” And Diogenes replied, “Cease to shade me from the sun.” What is striking, and of course consistent with his cosmopolitan philosophy, is that Diogenes approached everyone, slave and king, foreigner and countryman, in exactly the same way, i.e. The following anecdote accurately describes the cosmopolitan situation: once Diogenes was going into a theatre while every one else was coming out of it and when asked why he did so, “It is,” said he, “what I have been doing all my life.” His cosmopolitan sense of humor may have chased his fellow human beings away. And then when people flocked round him, he reproached them for coming with eagerness to folly, but being lazy and indifferent about good things. On one occasion, when no one came to listen to him while he was discoursing seriou sly, he began to whistle. Having been in a very dirty bath, Diogenes said, “I wonder where the people, who bathe here, clean themselves.” When asked why people give to beggars and not to philosophers, Diogenes said, ‘Because they think it possible that they themselves may become lame and blind, but they do not expect ever to turn out philosophers.’ One day Diogenes saw an unskillful archer shooting so he went and sat down by the target, saying, ‘Now I shall be out of harm's way.’ The complete lack of bonds and his absolute right to free speech made it possible for Diogenes to have a very peculiar sense of humor. It means regarding the most excellent thing among men to be the “freedom of speech”. It means, in the words of Diogenes, adopting the same fashion of life as Hercules had, preferring nothing in the world to liberty. So what is it like to be a citizen of the world? Diogenes gives the answer: it is to belong to no community whatsoever. Asked about this incident later on, Diogenes replied: “The people of Sinope condemned me to banishment, and I condemned them to remain where they were.” Since then, Diogenes considered himself “a citizen of the world”. Diogenes was a native of Sinope, but at some point he was banished from there.
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