Diogenes and the Honest Life

Ray Briggs
Is it possible to find a truly honest person?

Josh Landy
What if you didn’t need anything from anybody else?

Ray Briggs
Can comedy be a form of philosophy?

Josh Landy
Welcome to Philosophy Talk the program that questions everything…

Ray Briggs
…except your intelligence. I’m Ray Briggs.

Josh Landy
And I’m Josh Landy. We’re coming to you via the studios of kLW San Francisco Bay Area.

Ray Briggs
Continuing conversations that begin at Philosophers corner on the Stanford campus, where Josh teaches philosophy.

Josh Landy
And at the University of Chicago, where Ray teaches philosophy.

Ray Briggs
Today we’re thinking about Diogenes and the Honest life.

Josh Landy
Yeah, Diogenes, so he was that Greek philosopher living in the fourth and third centuries. BCE. He practiced a philosophical mode of living called cynicism, right?

Ray Briggs
Not modern cynicism, which is about seeing the worst in everything around you, but ancient cynicism, which is about living simply and honestly.

Josh Landy
Yeah, and he sure practiced what he preached. I mean, the guy didn’t even have a house. He He just had a large wine jar on the outskirts of town, I gotta say, Ray that doesn’t sound entirely appealing to me.

Ray Briggs
I don’t know. Sounds to me like he had a pretty great life. He didn’t have to work. He wasn’t beholden to anyone. He just pretty much did whatever he wanted.

Josh Landy
Yeah, like doing all his bodily functions out in the open. There’s a later writer who describes him as “doing in public the things of Demeter and those of Aphrodite.” Eww!

Ray Briggs
Oh, come on, Josh. Are you ashamed of having a body? Well, I am British even. So what’s the problem? Diogenes was just pointing out that human beings are animals. You wouldn’t disagree with that, would you? No. Fair enough. Okay, so why not live like the animals that we are? If we don’t, we’re going against nature.

Josh Landy
Going against nature is great. Don’t you appreciate having a roof over your head, heat in the winter, some nice meals to eat?

Ray Briggs
Nah, all that just makes you weak. If you’re the kind of person who can be comfortable out in the open, fending for yourself, nobody can ever tell you what to do. What are they going to do? Take away your patch of ground.

Josh Landy
I’m all for independence, but sounds like that comes at a pretty high cost. I mean, I feel like you’re going to enjoy that independence of yours for two glorious weeks, until you catch typhus or freeze to death.

Ray Briggs
Yeah, so what if you’re living the Diogenes life? Then you won’t be afraid to die. There’s nothing to be scared of, because once you die, you’re not around to experience it.

Josh Landy
I thought you said The point was to live like the animals we are. Animals try to avoid dying. Why should we be any exception?

Ray Briggs
Well, we’re special animals. We have reason, and we can see that death is really nothing to fear.

Josh Landy
Okay, so let me see if I have this straight. I’m sleeping on the icy ground eating berries and not caring about the predators and parasites that might send me to an early grave. Am I just not supposed to care about anything?

Ray Briggs
Well, no. Diogenes cared about a lot of things. He believed in honesty, and he was really generous with his time and advice. So he must have believed in helping others live a better life. Plus, he was a lot of fun. He had a great sense of humor.

Josh Landy
Oh yeah, there’s that hilarious story about the time he met Alexander, the great. Alexander says to him, What can I do to help you? And Diogenes says, Move You’re blocking my light.

Ray Briggs
Ah, cheeky!

Josh Landy
Yeah, he would have made a great Brit, I have to say. And he was famous for his clever zingers like that. He had a scout of them. We could even think of him as doing philosophy through comedy.

Ray Briggs
Exactly. That’s why we should be more like him.

Josh Landy
Let’s not go that far.

Ray Briggs
I bet our guest will get you on board. It’s Inger Cowan from the University of Virginia, who’s got a new book about Diogenes.

Josh Landy
In the meantime, we wanted to know if anyone is living the Diogenes life today. So we sent our Roving Philosophical Reporter, Sarah Lai Stirland, to find out. She files this report.

Sarah Lai Stirland
2000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Diogenes challenged norms with provocative public acts. He even lived like a feral dog.

Mark Usher
He pissed on people’s legs, he barked at people.

Sarah Lai Stirland
That’s Mark Usher, a classics professor at the University of Vermont. He’s the author of a book on dargense and the cynics called “How to Say No.” Diogenes believe that personal freedom and happiness came from desiring less training to endure hardship and choosing to live within the limits of the natural world. Like other ancient Greek philosophers, he believed that chasing money and power as an end was foolish.

Mark Usher
There’s a great quote where Diogenes says, to get out of the predicament we are in as human beings, we have to use the “logos”—our reason—or we have to use “brochos.” And “brochos” is a double-entendre, because it can mean ‘reins’, like reins that you put on horses, or it can mean ‘noose’. So if you don’t use your noodle, you might as well string yourself up, because you’re gonna you’re gonna self-destruct.

Sarah Lai Stirland
The cynics lived according to Diogenes values of less is more by living on the street.

Mark Usher
They were performance artists. They were trying to push the limits to show you what’s possible if you really wanted it to be possible

Crass
Vive la revolution! People of the world unite! Stand up, Men of courage, it’s your job to fight!

Penny Rimbaud
We were all working for a common end, and that is total revolution and a recreation of so called power.

Sarah Lai Stirland
That’s Penny Rimbaud, co founder, drummer and chief lyricist of the activist-anarchist punk band Crass. In 1979 Crass released their first album, “The Feeding of the 5000.”

Crass
I am a product, I am a symbol of endless, hopeless, fruitless, aimless games.

Sarah Lai Stirland
The lyrics and so many of their songs are filled with attacks against institutional authority.

Crass
They ask me why I’m hateful, why I’m bad. They tell me I got things they never had. They tell me go to church and see the light, cause the good lord’s always right. So what, so what?

Sarah Lai Stirland
Crass’s defiant attitude wasn’t just a stage act. They believed that Margaret Thatcher’s capitalist economy was the wrong path for the UK.

Penny Rimbaud
We were trying to offer people a release from the world that they felt that they were causing.

Sarah Lai Stirland
You can read about the band’s influence on Britain’s cultural and political scene in “The Story of Crass,” a book that discusses their legacy and many spectacular pranks. The book’s author, music journalist George Berger writes that the band, led by example. Crass sold more records than AC/DC at their peak, but they always publish their music independently, and they sold their singles at discounts through small record shops, fanzines and the mail

Crass
Buy now, pay as you go, buy now, say hello. You can put a mortgage on your life, to enter shoppers’ paradise.

Sarah Lai Stirland
At concerts, they handed out pamphlets with song lyrics, essays and anti-capitalist manifestos. They didn’t sell any merch. They organized an annual free festival around the summer solstice at Stonehenge. When they toured, the band stayed at fans’ homes.

Penny Rimbaud
We’d go to some little village or small town where they never got people playing, because all the nearly money there we did, because we didn’t play for money.

Sarah Lai Stirland
Rimbaud says the band wanted to help people instead.

Penny Rimbaud
If we did make money, we would leave it with the people who organized the gig, or for the local kids to create a magazine or buy a guitar or do something which would expand the purpose.

Sarah Lai Stirland
Their message was peace and kindness, but their music and activism was intended to shock the public interaction, and it often led to investigations and prosecutions. A local court in Manchester, for example, banned this track, batter motel for violating an obscenity law

Crass
You can do what you like. There’ll be no reprisal. I’m yours. Yes, I’m yours! It’s my means of survival.

Sarah Lai Stirland
True to their less-is-more message, some of the band lived in an abandoned farmhouse northeast of London. Many of them still do. Rimbaud, who’s now 82 ,says he still sleeps in the shed. They grow their own vegetables. Anybody is welcome to visit and stay in exchange for doing some work and sharing a story. As Rimbaud says…

Penny Rimbaud
There’s only one meaning to life, and that is to help each other. You do not need to suffer.

Sarah Lai Stirland
That was Crass’s project. Penny Rimbaud is still working on living up to the ideals of the ancient cynics. For Philosophy Talk, I’m Sarah Lai Stirland.

Josh Landy
Thanks very much for that report, Sarah. I’m Josh Landy, with me is my fellow philosopher, Ray Briggs, and today we’re thinking about Diogenes and the honest life.

Ray Briggs
We’re joined now by Inger Kuin. She’s professor of classics at the University of Virginia and author of “Diogenes: The Rebellious Life and Revolutionary Philosophy of the Original Cynic.” Inger, welcome to Philosophy Talk.

Inger Kuin
Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Josh Landy
So Inger, this Diogenes fellow was quite a character. What’s your favorite Diogenes story?

Inger Kuin
A story that I just love to pieces, always makes me laugh. Has Diogenes hanging out in the marketplace, in Athens, and then this guy comes up to him, who has been studying philosophy, who’s been thinking about stuff, and he thinks that he has hit upon something that is absolutely going to stump Diogenes. So he’s super excited. Walks up to Diogenes, and he says to him, do. Did you know that movement does not exist? Diogenes stands up, walks one lap around this guy and sits back down.

Ray Briggs
That is such a great story, but Inger Diogenes didn’t write anything down. So how do we know that any of this is true?

Inger Kuin
So this is a great question, a question that really exercises those of us who love Diogenes an awful lot. And it’s true, he didn’t write anything himself. He’s in the good company of Socrates and Jesus of Nazareth in this regard. But people who were alive at the same time as him do mention him, and two of those are Aristotle very well known, and a guy named on a secret is not well known at all. But these two men are contemporaries of Diogenes, and they mention him in his writing. So that’s our very first starting point. But they, admittedly, they don’t say a lot at all. The first time that somebody says more is in the third century BCE, but this is still within the period that people who could have known Diogenes themselves would still be alive. So this is then a papyrus text that has quite a bit of content, stories, anecdotes about Diogenes that would have been written down by somebody who could have known him. And in addition to that, what must have happened is that bystanders who saw Diogenes talk to other people who listened to him and were excited they remembered these they are all really memorable stories and really sort of striking things that Diogenes says. And these things are so good and so exciting and so valuable to these people, that they remember them and that they tell them to each other. So there’s a lot of oral transmission of information about Diogenes, and then it starts to get written down, and then there is a transmission of these stories through texts that get copied and passed around in sort of a network of people who thought that Diogenes ideas were worthwhile.

Ray Briggs
So he was a really colorful guy. It sounds like Do you worry that sort of having our information about him come mainly through stories that people told about him makes him sort of look more larger than life? Is that? Is that an issue? Should we maybe just care about the Diogenes character anyway?

Inger Kuin
So in my view, he was larger than life, and he was larger than life intentionally. So, so it is true that there are a lot of philosophers and historians who look at these narratives about Diogenes and they say, Oh, that’s too good to be true, right? That’s just sensationalism that cannot actually have happened. And I’m really very sort of dissatisfied with that approach, precisely because in Diogenes outlook on life, the shock value, the surprise value is central to everything that he does and says,

Josh Landy
You’re listening to Philosophy Talk today. We’re thinking about Diogenes the cynic with Inger Kuin from the University of Virginia.

Ray Briggs
Could we live well without our modern conveniences? Should we always live according to nature, or is it sometimes okay to enjoy a fancy dessert?

Josh Landy
Philosophy as a way of living—along with your comments and questions, when Philosophy Talk continues,

No Doubt
A simple kind of life

Josh Landy
A simple life, an honest life—is that always the best way to live? I’m Josh Landy, and this is Philosophy Talk the program that questions everything…

Ray Briggs
…except your intelligence. I’m Ray Briggs, and we’re thinking about Diogenes the cynic with Inger Kuin, author of “Diogenes: The Rebellious Life and Revolutionary Philosophy of the Original Cynic.”

Josh Landy
Got a sincere question about ancient cynicis?. Email us at comments@philosophy talk.org. Or you can comment on our website, where you can also subscribe to our library of more than 600 episodes.

Ray Briggs
So Inger, earlier I was telling Josh how we should all live, like Diogenes, and he seemed to think that was a bad idea. As the Diogenes scholar, who’s right?

Inger Kuin
This is not going to be a big surprise to anyone, but I think you were right, absolutely. I think I think independence is is the ultimate good, and that is worth a lot.

Josh Landy
We actually have a comment from a listener that’s going along similar lines. It’s from cm, black on blue sky. And cm says that man Diogenes, was definitely loud and proud. I sometimes thought of myself as living in a cardboard box and shouting philosophical insights to passers by. Is it a comfortable life? Probably not. But perhaps an honest life. So should we pick up on that? Inger? I mean, you mentioned independence. How about the honesty part? Does that make it worth living the idogeny style life?

Inger Kuin
Absolutely and they are intimately connected. It is being independent that allows Diogenes to be honest. It is because Diogenes doesn’t need anything from Alexander, from King Alexander of Macedon. He doesn’t want anything from him, and that’s why he can be honest and tell Diogenes you are blocking the sun. If he was hoping to get a job from Diogenes, he wouldn’t have said that, right? So they are, they are entirely connected.

Ray Briggs
I wonder what you’d say to this kind of objection. It’s great not to need anything, but it’s kind of a pipe dream. So Diogenes is living on alms that other people give him. He’s living in a wine jar that other people made, and he’s in this market that only can exist because a bunch of other people are kind of in social relationships, going about their business. So is he really independent?

Inger Kuin
There are definitely cracks in in his notion of independence, but I don’t think they are exactly the cracks that you point to, because I do think if Diogenes had been kicked out of Athens kicked out of Corinth, had been reduced to living in the forests, truly by himself, he also would have been fine, right? So what he is doing is he is trying to live the most simple, the most independent life possible while still being among people, because he does want to be seen. He doesn’t need to be seen in order for him to be able to teach other people about his way of life. And I think that’s that’s more of sort of the crack in his independence than really the material stuff, because I do think he would also be totally okay outside of the city.

Josh Landy
Yeah, and maybe you could argue it’s even a bigger challenge to live completely independently around other people. If you’re just off being a hermit, then it’s easy to avoid Alexander the Great you’re not going to run into him. I’m curious about the various dimensions of this independence, this self sufficiency, because it seems like there’s an inward, directed part and an outward directed part, right? The outward directed part is, I don’t depend on Alexander the Great. I don’t depend on anybody, right? I’m doing my own thing. I can speak honestly to anybody. I’m not asking Alexander for a job. I’m also not dependent on other people to house me and things like that. There’s also an inner kind of freedom, inner self sufficiency, a freedom from fear, a freedom from desire. Could you say a little bit more about that?

Inger Kuin
Inger, yeah, absolutely so. For Diogenes, the fears that he talks about are fears that are very common, right, fears that pretty much everybody has. And big example is fear of dying. And this is a fear that he addresses many times. He does it in two ways. On the one hand, he makes many really crass morbid jokes about how a dead body is just a corpse, and how people shouldn’t be so fussy about dying, because it’s going to happen anyway. And at the same time, he also has some pretty serious moments where he says, essentially, well, if you have died, you are no longer around to experience it, So death is nothing. And if you are alive, then death is not around. So you shouldn’t worry about it. It’s only in your imagination, in your thoughts.

Ray Briggs
All right, let’s actually grant that. It seems like the process of dying can be really unpleasant and painful and slow. Shouldn’t I be afraid of that?

Inger Kuin
Yeah, so I I’ve you for sure, myself am afraid of things like that, and it makes a lot of sense to me to be afraid of that. What Diogenes would say, and I think largely he is right about this, is that a lot of our suffering, that we might think is suffering because of pains, is actually mental suffering, right? So that sort of a lot of this suffering actually has to do with our fear of dying when it comes to physical bodily suffering, right? Diogenes says your your body is much stronger than you think. As long as you train your body and you exercise, then you actually can withstand a lot more pain than you think. Think and at the same time, if you are in so much pain, right? If you are in so much pain that it is truly unbearable, right? If you are a trained cynic like Diogenes, you’ve trained your body and you’ve arrived in a situation that pain is truly unbearable and that you know that you cannot bear it, then for Diogenes, it’s completely defensible to choose to end your life, and this is something that that he would then even recommend.

Ray Briggs
I see how this might work well for Diogenes, who is a pretty healthy guy first of all, but that seems like luck. He was a healthy guy. He was a psychologically robust guy. We’re not all like that, also, even if we’re all like that. Now we started off as babies, which are extremely soft, whiny, dependent things. So who exactly can do this? Can we all do this?

Inger Kuin
So Diogenes does teach children to do this. So you can definitely start young. And there are some later followers of Diogenes who correspond about what it would mean to raise a child as a cynic. And then they say, Well, you should wash them with cold water, and you should make a cradle out of a tortoise shell. So these, these are, you know, these are somewhat tongue in cheek conversations. I really, I think you raise a really important question. And I would say that this is, to my mind, a weakness in Diogenes thought in that he does not spend a lot of time thinking about what it means for people to be chronically ill or for people to be disabled, and how they are supposed to live a meaningful life, because they cannot be as independent as he thinks that people should be, they cannot be as independent as he is. I do think that there’s still something that you might derive from Diogenes in a situation like that, and that is that his rejection of status and success and of achievement and of social standing is something that sort of people who are not sort of living up to the high expectations of society, perhaps because they are chronically ill or disabled, they can you can look to Diogenes and say, well, those things don’t matter anyway, right? Your your self value, your enjoyment of life, comes from within and it comes from really small things, right? So if you are able to make your own decisions, to use your own powers of reasoning and to maybe enjoy the sunshine a little bit and sit outside maybe listen to the birds sing. These are things that are really important, right? These are the ingredients of a good life for Diogenes not having a shining career or winning the Olympics or stuff like that,

Josh Landy
You’re listening to Philosophy Talk today. We’re thinking about Diogenes the cynic with Inger Kuin from the University of Virginia. I mean, Inger, I’m quite tempted by a lot of what you’re saying. Appreciate the sunshine on your face. I like the idea that this is a philosophy that’s really about living. It’s not just about thinking abstract thoughts and exploring astronomy or ethical questions or things like that. It’s really the rubber hits the road. If you’re not living this life, you’re not really doing philosophy. I love it that it’s available to everybody. Doesn’t matter what age you are, what gender you are. I mean, I know, maybe not a baby, but you know certainly how much property you have, how much wealth you have, doesn’t matter. I like the independence part you’re you’re free from your own desires and fears, you’re free from Kings, you’re free from the gods. But I don’t know. I mean, what about the notion that, you know, Diogenes thinks we should be so free, so independent, that we shouldn’t fall in love, we shouldn’t have sex, we shouldn’t make families, because, after all, that’s, you know, if you’re if you’re in a relationship, if you fall in love with somebody, then you become vulnerable, you become dependent, is that something we need to go along with if we want to live the Diogenes life,

Inger Kuin
What I take from him, there are I should say two things. And the first thing is that what Diogenes is saying is that those things, falling in love, starting a family, having children are not necessary ingredients of a good life, and he actually rejects them, but he does still enter into meaningful connection. So I think every time somebody comes up to him in the marketplace and asks him a question, and he takes the time to answer it, since. Purely that is a genuine moment of interpersonal connection that that is meaningful to both Diogenes and to his interlocutor. So in that sense, he is more connected in the social fabric than you might think, just in a very non traditional way. Now secondly, when it comes to these much more deep personal relationships, Diogenes does say that they are very risky and that they are unpredictable, and that they make you vulnerable, and those things are certainly all true. Diogenes is not wrong about that, where he and I, personally, in my own life part ways is that I think that what you get out of a long and deep interpersonal relationship really sort of outweighs the danger of the vulnerability and sort of the riskiness of that. So he and I do part ways in that regard. I should I agree with you? Josh on that, thank goodness.

Ray Briggs
So if I find Diogenes way of life persuasive, should I just try to become like him? Should everybody try to be like him? Should some of us try to be like him and some of us not like what can I be a follower of Diogenes?

Inger Kuin
You can absolutely be a follower of Diogenes, but that doesn’t mean that you should be a carbon copy of Diogenes. There’s nothing that would be more abhorrent to him than that. What he wants you to do is to look at your own circumstances and to look at your own life and to look at your own society, and ask yourself the question at each and every turn, is this really the best way to be doing things, or can we perhaps think outside of what we see every day, and is there perhaps a better way to do things? And then you decide what that means for you in your life, when it comes to whether or not everybody should be a Diogenes, I think that for sure it’s good for society to have quite a few people who are as radically 24/7, critical and independent and honest as he is. I don’t think that a full society of people who are as extreme and radical like that would be super productive, right? I think, I think there are certain amounts of collective action that are hard, if you are a true radical cynic with with a capital C, that sort of make it difficult to live in a society that way, at the same time, I do think that everybody should keep a little Diogenes on their shoulder right to make sure that whatever collective action you are agreeing to undertake is really serving serving a purpose that is just and right and that you fully agree with and that you’re not doing it for the wrong reasons.

Josh Landy
That makes sense. Because, you know, I was thinking, imagine a whole society of dogenes is, first of all, it would die out within a generation, because there’s no marriage and families and what have you, no procreation. I should say next, you know, there’s no there’s a rejection of social norms would make it very hard for people to continue surviving, essentially, because, you know, human beings are social creatures and so on. So, you know, that’s probably a finite number of diogeneses that make a society flourish. But it’s not zero. I want to come back to something else, though, which I found absolutely fascinating about Diogenes, which is the comedy. I mean, you mentioned your favorite dodging story, that’s pretty funny. And there are so many other funny stories. He’s just full of zingers. And even today, some of them land. They work really well, and it’s almost as though he’s doing philosophy through comedy, because if you think about his response to this guy, he’s obviously read, listened too much to Zeno, or to some Zeno fan, and is saying, I can prove to you, motion isn’t real, very interesting move, literally, to get up and walk about. It’s not a refutation. He hasn’t proved the other person wrong. Instead, what he’s done is just to say, I’m not going to play your game, right? Aristotle has that great line where he says, Come, come. Tell me why philosophy is bad. And then if the person sort of, you know, goes along with that, Aristotle can say to that person, look, you’re doing philosophy. You just did philosophy, right there and showing me why philosophy is bad. Aha, I got you. Diogenes isn’t falling into that trap, right? I’m not going to play your game at all. I’m just going to make fun of you. What is the value for you? Inger of philosophy done through comedy in this way?

Inger Kuin
So I think in the example that you just mentioned, right? Even though Diogenes getting up and walking a lap around, this guy does not prove, prove what Zeno was trying to argue, namely, sort of the problem of, sort of proving the possibility of motion mathematically right. He doesn’t solve that. But people wouldn’t solve that problem until the 19th century. So if at all what Diogenes, what Diogenes is saying is that what zine that that sort of the state of Zeno speculation, was not covering reality, right? That it was not capturing everyday reality. And in that sense, by saying what I’m interested in is, is everyday reality. Diogenes Does, does sort of refute it on his own terms. But you are.

Josh Landy
We don’t care. It doesn’t matter exactly, exactly your way. I don’t care. Motion is real. It’s not real. We’re here to think about other things exactly.

Inger Kuin
Diogenes says motion is real enough for me, if I can engage in it ultimately, right? That’s what it boils down to. But to actually answer your question, I think that the value of doing philosophy through comedy is so so clear, because it means that everybody can do it is really easy to grasp. It makes it really accessible, and it makes it really, really memorable. And I think it also, in a way, it’s, it’s so persuasive because it’s, it’s instantaneous, right? There’s like, just like, such a moment where suddenly, right, the curtains open, and suddenly the world looks entirely different, right? So I think precisely because it like, because the things that he says are like a punch line in a joke, right? You understand it intuitively and immediately. And when he meets Alexander, Alexander understands intuitively and immediately that he has no power over Diogenes, and that his whole edifice of rule, of sway, of influence crumbles in the very moment that Diogenes says, I don’t need you.

Josh Landy
And the other thing that crumbles is death. I mean, this is something that I was very taken with in reading your work Inger, this idea that the jokes about death, they’re not just, you know, to make people laugh or something like that, or to draw attention. They are to put death in its place, right? They are to train people to experience death as unimportant, not to be afraid of

Inger Kuin
Absolutely, I agree with you and and just as Diogenes says, Well, you should try not eating fancy food, so that by the time that you’re broke, you can still be fine without eating fancy food. Similarly, he says you should practice laughing about death, right? Because if you if you practice this, then death will become smaller. You will put it in its place exactly as you say, Josh. So these these jokes, are these moments that sort of seem so frivolous or just silly are actually really meaningful in Diogenes,

Josh Landy
You’re listening to Philosophy Talk. Today we’re thinking about Diogenes, the cynic with Inger Kuin, author of “Diogenes: The Rebellious Life and Revolutionary Philosophy of the Original Cynic.”

Ray Briggs
Can you completely avoid depending on other people? Would you want to what would it be like if everyone lived that way?

Josh Landy
We are all individuals! More on that, plus commentary from Ian Scholes, the Sixty-Second Philosopher, when Philosophy Talk continues.

Portugal. The Man
Ooh-woo, I’m a rebel just for kicks, now Let me kick it like it’s 1986, now. Might be over now, but I feel it still.

Josh Landy
Was Diogenes just a rebel for kicks, or was it really onto something? I’m Josh Landy, and this is Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything…

Ray Briggs
…except your intelligence. I’m Ray Briggs. Our guest is Inger Kuin from the University of Virginia, and we’re thinking about Diogenes, the cynic.

Josh Landy
So Inger, things have changed a little bit since the days of ancient Greece. What can we take from Diogenes that’s still relevant today?

Inger Kuin
I think his advice, his his precept, his insistence that we should make our own choices, and that we should not be beholden to money, to friends, to powerful people, to influencers, but that we should actually, just at every point in Our life, think for ourselves and decide on our own whether or not what we’re about to do is a good idea. I think this, this is still just as important as it was in Diogenes lifetime.

Ray Briggs
So anger, maybe this is too collectivist of a thought, but I’m wondering if you’ll entertain it. If I want to set up a society where people. Are independent and able to be independent in the way that Diogenes wanted us to be. Are there things I should do to make it more or less likely that they can manage that?

Inger Kuin
In many ways, I think already that modern society is is closer to what Diogenes envisioned, in the sense that if we think about the ancient Greek polis that Diogenes lived in, but was not able to be a member of, because he was a foreigner. He was an outsider. He was an exile, right in that polis, your sort of actualization as a human being dependent entirely on having being a member of an elite household, on having the right political allies, on being involved in civic religious cult in the right way. So in that sense, it was so tight knit and in a way, quite closed off, that there was really not a lot of room to actually make up your own mind. So what, what we are living today, right where we can sort of look at the world and have so much information and sort of connect with people who live on the other side of the globe quite easily, in a way, I think this is something that Diogenes would have dreamt off right? After all, this is the guy who was the very first person to call himself a cosmopolitan, a citizen of the cosmos. So I think we are, in some ways, already a little bit more situated towards what Diogenes was looking for.

Ray Briggs
So I love that, and that’s kind of encouraging in one way, but it also makes me worry about us being too independent. So I’m thinking about people doing their own independent research, rather than like abiding by any kind of scientific consensus, just making up their minds regardless of the evidence. Would Diogenes have approved of that?

Inger Kuin
I think a lot of the time when people say that they are making up their own minds regardless of the evidence, or they are doing their independent research, they are actually listening to somebody they found on YouTube or somebody they found on social media, right? They are not actually doing their own research, right? If they were actually doing their own research, they would be reading scientific articles like like trying to learn scientific methods rather than sort of talking back something because they saw a certain YouTube video. I mean, I don’t, I don’t mean to sort of, I don’t want to be too, too dismissive, but I do think that a lot of sort of what passes for do your own research would absolutely not pass muster for Diogenes. He would say, Well, what do you mean? Prove it to me, right. Explain it to me. Like, why do you argue this? And then if you say, well, I read it online somewhere, that would absolutely not be good enough for Diogenes.

Josh Landy
So you we should be critical of the kind of ideology, the kind of standard ways of thinking about things that we pick up from our society, from people around us, but not just willy nilly, right? Not just at random. It should be on the basis of some kind of reason, something like that.

Inger Kuin
Yeah, and it’s an activity, right? You actually have to do it yourself, right? So for Diogenes, in this example of like, walking a lap around someone, it’s completely fine, right? From Diogenes point of view to say, You know what? Actually, I don’t really understand physics and math very well, so maybe I shouldn’t have an opinion about that, and I should be content with the fact that I can walk a lap around this guy here. Conversely, if you’re going to say, No, I like I do want to engage in that kind of speculation, then you have to put your money where your mouth is, and you have to actually do and actually understand it. But you cannot point to somebody and say, well, because that person who I’m reading says that they are anti establishment. By following them, I’m also anti establishment. Diogenes wouldn’t fall for that, right?

Ray Briggs
So does Diogenes have a picture of like, how we come to understand things? I think my picture is maybe a little bit more collectivist than he’d be comfortable with, where you have scientists working in groups and trusting each other, and I’m not sure he’d be down with that.

Inger Kuin
Yeah, I agree with you. That would be difficult for Diogenes. And this is why he he actually is of the opinion that he says, well, that type of second order speculation is something that I don’t engage in, right? So he is only interested in empirical outlook on the world and and what this means is that he is only engaging with things that he can see with the naked eye, things that he can touch, things that he can grasp, right? And he wouldn’t go further than that.

Josh Landy
So that’s okay. That’s one aspect of a kind of Yeah. Of worry from today about Diogenes, right? We’ve got a lot of people, quote, unquote, doing their own research and just attacking, you know, the standard views on things at random. Another kind of today centric worry might be shamelessness, right? Diogenes, in a way, is inviting us to move beyond shame. The body is nothing to be ashamed of. Do anything you need to do in full view of whoever’s passing by. There’s something, I suppose, impressively confident about it. There’s also something potentially EU about it, but, but there’s also, I think, a worry that today, we seem to be living in an age where shame doesn’t seem to be attaching to a lot of people in the way it used to, and that doesn’t seem like it’s uniformly a great thing. So what do you think? Do you think Diogenes? You know, do you think, in a sense, Diogenes sets a bad precedent that some folks are following today in trying to leave behind shame and just live any way they want, honestly.

Inger Kuin
I think not a lot of people are are being shameless today because they are inspired by a Diogenes specifically. But I absolutely see what you’re what you’re getting at, and in part, this was also the inspiration for me to work on this project, right, where I was really fascinated by how sort of this roguish type of behavior, where people are doing and saying things that that most people would be too afraid to do, but that they really capture The imagination in doing this right? And this was something that I saw in Diogenes, this rogue quality, and that sort of the popular appeal of rogues like that. And I did find that worrying. And it was sort of like I said, one of the reasons I started this project and wanted to know more about a rogue in antiquity who really captured the popular imagination. There are such big differences, though, ultimately, right, where, for Diogenes, if you are a unjust person, if you are not using your reason, what he calls logos, that’s definitely something to be ashamed of for him, right? But the fact that you have a body, right? The fact that you have to eat and the fact that you have to also relieve yourself, these are things that for Diogenes, we shouldn’t be ashamed about. And ultimately, what for me is important and what draws me. And then this is also how Diogenes, as followers, interpreted this in antiquity, is that a lot of people are much too hung up with the fact that maybe they shouldn’t be eating in a particular place, or maybe they shouldn’t be showing their body, but they don’t seem to be so worried about whether or not they are a just person, and this gets it the wrong way around. And this is what Diogenes This is one of the things that Diogenes is trying to show when he relieves himself in public. He says, Well, nobody died. We’re all fine. Maybe we are too focused on this sort of getting ourselves all twisted up and pretending like we are not animals and pretending like we don’t have bodies, right? Maybe we shouldn’t be so worried about that. Maybe we should be a little bit more worried about what it means to be a good person. Yeah.

Ray Briggs
I mean, in fact, in a lot of the trends that I disapprove of in today’s society, there is too much shame about having a body and ever being capable of getting sick, so we just dismantle our health services. So yeah, I think I’m inclined to agree that Diogenes has these resources. So I have one last question for you, Inger, so you suggested that we’d all do well to have a little Diogenes on our shoulder. If you could give one piece of advice, inspired by Diogenes for our listeners, what would you tell them?

Inger Kuin
What Diogenes tells us, that I think is so extremely valuable, is that he says you should ask yourself, what do I really need? And a lot of the things that you need are actually not so essential. And the other problem is that you will never possibly have enough of them, right? So if you buy the newest iPhone now, you will need the next one, next time around, right? Whereas, is that really? Is that really what’s making you happy? Is that really what matters? Well, probably not, if you stop to think about it long enough.

Josh Landy
That is an inspiring place to leave the conversation. Inger, thank you so much for joining us today.

Inger Kuin
Thank you so much. It was wonderful to be on I had such a great time.

Josh Landy
Well we did too. Our guest has been Inger Cohn, professor of classics at the university. The city of Virginia, and author of “Diogenes: The Rebellious Life and Revolutionary Philosophy of the Original Cynic.” So, Ray, what are you thinking now?

Ray Briggs
I’m thinking it’s time to take a short cold shower and then see if there’s anybody on campus who’ll give you their food.

Josh Landy
And while you’re about it, you know, maybe we should talk to the people on campus about courage. I mean, that’s one of the things I find most inspiring, this idea, speak truth to power. Don’t be afraid. I feel like some universities, maybe some corporations could learn a little thing or two in this day and age, fatalities. Just saying, we’re going to put links to everything we’ve mentioned today on our website, philosophy talk.org, and while you’re there, you can subscribe to our feed for free and question everything in our library of more than 600 episodes.

Ray Briggs
Now… a man who proves that rapid motion is possible, it’s Ian Shoales the Seixty-Second philosopher.

Ian Shaoles
Ian Shoales… In ancient Greece, cynicism embodied a belief in virtue as a way of life. Today, it’s degraded into a belief that nobody is virtuous. This cynicism has given us wars, bloated movie sequels and crocodile tears about the innocence of Miley Cyrus. Ancient cynicism arrived with antisthenes, a follower of Socrates, who was followed himself by a guy named Diogenes. We don’t know much about him, except for a lot of colorful anecdotes called creai in Greek. Now we don’t get creai anymore, but there used to be a mainstay of classical rhetoric, like the story about the guy at a dinner party. Woman says to him, if you’re my husband, I’d give you poison. He says, if you’re my wife, madam, I drink it. And it’s either Winston, Churchill, Samuel, Clemens, Oscar Wilde, or Andrew Lloyd George who said it accuracy isn’t the aim of a creai so much as illustrating a point. And Diogenes was a fountain of creai. He was so virtuously natural he lived in a tub in the marketplace. Even threw away a cup when he saw somebody drinking from cupped hands. The most famous story is the one about Diogenes and Alexander the Great bare bones. Alexander went to see Diogenes and asked if he wanted anything. Diogenes said, Yes, stand a little out of my son. Rather than slay digenes In a murderous rage, Alexander laughed with his comrades and said, Truly, if I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes. I have no idea what that means. And I would like to point out that nobody uses the word truly in everyday conversation. In a variation of the story Diogenes adds, if I were not Diogenes, I would want to be Diogenes. I’m not sure what that means, either, but it has the virtue of being trippy. Supposedly, this all happened in Corinth during the Isthmian Games, the only time Alexander was ever in Corinth. But Diogenes supposedly was a slave to a Corinthian at the time. Did his master awed by his philosophical skills, just let him roam around the Agora in his tub. Also, Alexander would have been just 20 and had not yet embarked upon conquerage. So why would Diogenes know who he was, and if he didn’t, there’s not much point to Diogenes dissing him. Also, everything I read about Diogenes makes him seem like a really obnoxious, smelly homeless guy. His ability to irritate, it seems, is what made him famous. Would Alexander really seek out a guy like that as a handsome young prince? Wouldn’t he much rather go drinking with his friends than go do favors for a smiley guy in a tub and again, greatness aside, why would Diogenes talk to him at all? On second thought, what an opportunity for a fame securing sound bite. Lest we forget, Diogenes also is the guy who carried her on a lantern looking for an honest man. What’s the point of that? From a modern perspective, seems more like a publicity stunt than legitimate quest, or maybe I’m just cynical. I gotta go.

Josh Landy
Philosophy Talk is a presentation of KALW San Francisco Bay area and the trustees of Leland, Stanford Junior University, copyright 2026.

Ray Briggs
Our executive producer is James Kass. The senior producer is Devon Strolovitch. Special thanks to Merle Kessler, Angela Johnston, Karen Ajluni, Steve Choi and Linda Fagan.

Josh Landy
Thanks also to Emma Lozman-Plumn, Michael Aparicio, Tom Lockhart, Matt Porta, John Lehman, Nancy Smith, Robert Smith, Henry Rutkowski, and Elizabeth Reitmeier.

Ray Briggs
Support for Philosophy Talk comes from various groups at Stanford University and from the members of KALW local public radio San Francisco, where our program originates.

Josh Landy
The views expressed (or mis-expressed) on this program do not necessarily represent the opinions of Stanford University or of our other funders.

Ray Briggs
Not even when they’re true and reasonable. The conversation continues at our website, philosophy talk.org, where you can become a subscriber and question everything in our library of more than 600 episodes. I’m Ray Briggs.

Josh Landy
And I’m Josh Landy. Thank you for listening.

Ray Briggs
And thank you for thinking.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
A letter from the Diogenes Club! Maybe Mycroft is putting you up for membership. It’s only to have the distinct pleasure of blackballing his brother.