An outline of Diogenes’ philosophy

According to one story, Diogenes went to the Oracle at Delphi to ask for her advice and was told that he should ‘deface the currency’. Diogenes understood this to mean that he should deface the political currency - show people that the things that people valued, especially things that gave people status are worthless.

He thought that the person who wants the least is the happiest, and so he trained himself to not want things - specifically by trying to get the exact opposite of what he wanted, by doing exactly what he feared. (Nowadays people call this paradoxical intention. It’s a useful technique to help stop yourself blushing, for example.)

Diogenes took this to extremes - he did not even want to care about what other people thought, about his reputation, so he made a point of being as embarrassing and absurd as possible:

• He went to the toilet in public

• He lived in a barrel

• He walked around with a candle during the day

• He would endlessly look for a good person

• He would go to Plato’s lectures and eat food loudly

• When King Phillip came to Corinth, everyone was rushing about trying to look busy, Diogenes mocked them by pointlessly rolling his barrel up and down the main square. ‘I do not want to be thought the only idler in such a busy multitude; I am rolling my tub to be like the rest.’

• Alexander the great once came to visit Diogenes. He was excited to meet him and asked if there was any favour he might do for him. Diogenes replied, ‘Yes, stand out of my sunlight.’ Alexander then declared, ‘If I were not Alexander, then I should wish to be Diogenes.’ ‘If I were not Diogenes, I would still wish to be Diogenes,’ Diogenes replied.

#Axiology