For Diogenes, honesty was a key value, and he saw Athenian conventions and manners as a form of lie. Diogenes didn’t just renounce possessions-he promoted obscenity, broke taboos, and was relentlessly and proudly rude.
That philosophy, which embraced poverty and rejected the material and cultural trappings of Greek life, came to be known as Cynicism.īut the Cynicism of Diogenes was more than an ascetic movement. When he saw a child cupping his hands to drink water, the radical philosopher threw away his own cup, remarking something along the lines of “A child has beaten me in plainness of living.”ĭiogenes began building upon the moral and political theories of Antisthenes, eventually developing a lived philosophy that was inspired by, but distinct from, his mentor’s. He took up residence in a barrel (some describe it as a jar, others as a wine cask or tub) at the Temple of Cybele. Diogenes took those teachings to heart in a more extreme way than his teacher, renouncing almost all of his physical possessions and embracing a life of homelessness. He headed to Athens, the capital of Greek philosophy and culture, where he became enamored with the teachings of a philosopher named Antisthenes who preached a life of asceticism and simplicity. Either way, Diogenes soon skipped town-perhaps because he was exiled, or because he fled before he could be tried for his crimes. While some historians believe their motivations were political, others think the defaced coins may have been the result of an incident involving the Oracle of Delphi. As a young man, Diogenes began working with his father, but before long, the pair had a life-changing brush with the law: For reasons now lost to time, Diogenes (or possibly his father, or possibly both of them) began defacing money. His father worked with money-perhaps as a banker or minter. Often said to have been born in 412 BCE in Sinope, now a city in Turkey, Diogenes seems to have had an unremarkable childhood. Nevertheless, the legend and legacy of Diogenes, as much as the actual person, have played an essential role in the evolution of philosophy as a discipline. It’s important to note, from the outset, that there is a huge amount of historical speculation about Diogenes: The philosopher left behind no first-hand accounts of his own life (or if he did, they’ve since been lost), and his larger-than-life persona has likely inspired plenty of apocryphal tales over the last 2500 or so years. Plato reportedly called him “a Socrates gone mad,” while 21st century historians have compared his life to “one long Monty Python sketch.” But, though some believed him to be crazy, Diogenes was also one of the most respected and beloved philosophers of the 4th century BCE, and one of the founders of the ancient Greek school of philosophy known as Cynicism. Diogenes of Sinope was an ancient Greek philosopher and self-proclaimed "Citizen of the World" who, at different points, allegedly lived in a wine barrel (or possibly another kind of jar), urinated on guests at a banquet, and made a regular practice of insulting famous figures and lecturing shoppers in the marketplace.
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