None of his many writings have survived, but details of his life come in the form of anecdotes (chreia), especially from Diogenes Laërtius, in his book Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers.
His life was a relentless campaign to debunk the social values and institutions of what he saw as a corrupt society. He believed that virtue was better revealed in action than in theory. After being captured by pirates and sold into slavery, Diogenes eventually settled in Corinth, where he was admired by Alexander.ĭiogenes was a staunch admirer of Hercules.
He regularly argued with Plato, disputing his interpretation of Socrates and sabotaging his lectures. He became notorious for his provocative behaviour and philosophical stunts such as carrying a lamp in the daytime, claiming to be looking for an honest man. He became a disciple of Antisthenes, and made a virtue of extreme poverty, famously begging for a living and sleeping in a tub in the marketplace. Exiled from his native city for defacing the currency, he moved to Athens and declared himself a cosmopolitan (in defiance of the prevailing city-state system). Diogenes taught his philosophy of Cynicism to Crates who taught it to Zeno of Citium who fashioned it into the school of Stoicism, one of the most enduring branches of Greek philosophy.ĭiogenes of Sinope was always controversial. He intellectually humiliated Plato and was the only pupil ever accepted by Antisthenes, whom he saw as the true heir of Socrates. Also known as Diogenes of Sinope (Greek: Διογένης ὁ Σινωπεύς, Diogenēs ho Sinōpeus), he was born in Sinope (modern-day Sinop, Turkey) in 412 or 404 BCE and died at Corinth in 323 BCE.ĭiogenes was one of the few men to ever publicly mock Alexander the Great and live. Diogenes the Cynic (Greek: Διογένης ὁ Κυνικός, Diogenēs ho Kunikos) was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynic philosophy.
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