The Daily Stoic - The Most Misunderstood Philosopher of All Time | Diogenes Expert Inger Kuin

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

Diogenes wasn’t a Stoic… but without him, the Stoics don’t exist. His life was so bold, so uncompromising, and so brutally honest that it reshaped the entire philosophical world the Stoics inherited. In today’s episode, Ryan sits down with classicist Inger Kuin to unpack the wild and brilliant philosophy of Diogenes, the original cynic. Inger Kuin is a researcher, writer, and teacher focused on the intellectual history of ancient Greece and Rome. She is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Virginia. Originally from The Netherlands, she publishes both in English and in Dutch. Be sure to pick up a copy of Inger’s new book Diogenes: The Rebellious Life and Revolutionary Philosophy of the Original Cynic. Check out Inger’s website: https://ingerkuin.com/📚 If you’re interested in learning more about Diogenes and Cynicism, check out these books:The Cynic Philosophers: From Diogenes to JulianHow to Say No: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Cynicism🎟️ Come see Ryan Holiday LIVE: https://www.dailystoiclive.com/Seattle, WA - December 3, 2025 San Diego, CA - February 5, 2026 Phoenix, AZ - February 27, 2026 👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/🎥 Watch the video episodes on The Daily Stoic YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, it's Ryan. I am recording this on my wife's phone, not at the office, at home, because it was a long crazy day of the office. We called each other. She was driving home. I was driving from picking up the kids and we said, what are we going to do for dinner? And that's when I remembered we had Hello Fresh in the fridge. Hello Fresh is the number one meal kit in America, making home cooking easier with chef-crafted recipes and fresh ingredients delivered straight to your door. In this fall, they're serving up even more to love. This isn't the Hello Fresh you remember, but it's bigger. It's doubled its menu. It's healthier. They've got a healthier menu, including 15 high-protein recipes each week, and it's tastier. You can get steak and seafood recipes delivered every week for no extra cost.

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Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our felt. fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating, and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are, and also to find peace and wisdom in their lives. Hey, it's Ryan. And welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast.

I remember very vividly I went to a talk that Robert Green gave at this bookstore in Silver Lake, whose name is escaping me. You know what? I want to look this up. Bookstore Los Villas. Ah, that's what it's called Skylight Books. Okay, Robert Green gave a talk at Skylight Books. Like, it would have been 20 years ago. I don't know.

But I remember he was talking about this philosophy. for Diogenes, the Cynic. And not having gotten a philosophy degree, I had never heard of Diogenes, the Cynic. And so I went and I read about him. And I've been, someone I've been reading about, you know, ever since, fascinated by him. And actually, when I was in Australia last summer to do some talks, by the way, I'm going to do some more talks. I'm in Seattle next month. And then I'm in Phoenix and San Diego.

I believe in February, you can grab all those tickets at Daily Stoak Live.com, check the dates. And then I believe we have another tour in the works for the fall. But that's neither here nor there. When I was in Australia, we went to this bookstore in Australia, and I saw they had this book about Diogenes the Cynic. And I was like, oh, I'd love to read more about him. So I grabbed this book. I'm reading the intro.

And, well, I caught a stray bullet while I'm reading it. I mentioned it on stage while I was in Australia. Let me play this for you. When I got here a couple weeks ago, I got this book on Diogenes, The Cynic. I went to Abbey's bookstore there, not far from here, right near Hyde Park. And reading this book, because I'm researching it for something I'm writing, and this is what it says. It says, considering Stoicism's unexpected resurgence in today's pop culture marketplace, it may be worth pointing out that the teachings of Xenocleanthes and Chrysippus,

the school's original triumvirate, have precious little in common with the vulgar forms of Stoic Doctor, are now being hawked from all corners of the internet and dispensed at weekend retreats for Wall Street and Silicon Valley warriors who come together to enjoy manly companionship fortified by selective readings from Epictetus and Mark Cerellius. So I came all the way to your lovely country and I caught some stray bullets from this random book I bought.

So the point is there was some interesting stuff in the book. I took a bunch of notes. I actually liked it, even though the author clearly doesn't like me. but I was hoping for something a little better. And maybe someone who I think understands how Diogenes can apply to everyday people in everyday life. And as it happens, Diogenes has a lot in common

with the Stoics. Actually, let me read you this, because here's someone a little bit smarter than me describing how the Stoics and the cynics, which is a misunderstood school, are connected. Just like Diogenes, stilocks are concerned with the dangers of desire, but unlike him and Epicurus, they privilege mental over physical well-being. Also, even though they adopted the phrase living in accordance with nature from Diogenes,

they mean something else by it. For the Stoics, what suits someone and is, therefore, in accordance with their individual nature is whatever divine providence has assigned this person. As a result, options that would not seem at all natural to Diogenes, and the Epicureans, like choosing to participate in public life, this can be natural to the Stoics if it's something that was faded for you. Nevertheless, the idea that your task is to find out through philosophy and reason what is in accordance with your nature was formulated by Diogenes and taken over by the Stoics. Also, the central Stoic notion that it's possible to train yourself

through Achis, to live without luxury goods, and to be happy under all sorts of different conditions comes straight from Diogenes' playbook. I think that's well said. And we should study and learn from all the different philosophical schools, even when they might be critical of what we think or us personally from time to time. Nietzsche, of course, having some good things to stay about the Stoics, some negative things. Seneca reminding us that we should read like a spy in the enemy's camp. So with that being said, I wanted to have. have Inger Kuhin on the podcast to talk about her fascinating biography of Diogenes. It's called Diogenes the rebellious life and revolutionary philosophy of the original cynic. She is a researcher,

writer, and teacher focused on the intellectual history of ancient Greece and Rome. She is an associate professor of the classics at the University of Virginia. We had a lovely little chat about George Long, one of the original translators of Marxianist, who was also there, Gregory Hayes is at the University of Virginia, so it's a great school source, school and source of stoic teachings. She's originally from the Netherlands, thus the name and the accent you'll hear in today's episode, and she publishes in both English and in Dutch. You can check out Inger's website, ingercoon.com. And as I said, check out the new book Diogenes, the rebellious life and revolutionary philosophy of the original cynic. Inger and I share our favorite Diogenes

stories, how he practiced living in accordance with nature, that critical phrase that he coined and the Stoics picked up on. This is going to be part one of the episode and I will bring you part two later in the week. I think you're really going to like this episode. Enjoy. It's time for Black Friday. Dell Technology's biggest sale of the year. That's right. You'll find huge savings on select Dell PCs like the Dell 16 plus with the Intel Core Ultra processor and with built-in advanced AI features, it's the PC that helps you do more faster. From smarter multitasking to extended battery life, these PCs will get the busy work done so you can focus on what matters to you. Plus, you can earn Dell rewards and many other

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See, I don't have that. You don't even have a galley? I don't. Oh, wow. They didn't send me one. And I realized at some point, oh, maybe I should ask for one. And now I've heard that the real books are coming, like, are going to be ready so soon that I was like, oh, it's fine. Yeah.

But it's fun to see. Well, it's kind of an interesting experience. Like, I have a book out in October, and I don't have books at all. But, yeah, they send you the galleys, and you're like, oh, it's so excited. And then you're like, after it comes out, you're like, well, what am I supposed to do with these? Right. So you just, like, pile up all the different things. Right, yeah, yeah.

That is an intermediate. And then if you're lucky, and you get lots of foreign translations, they send you those. And they're cool for like five seconds. And then I'm like, well, what am I supposed to do with a Mandarin version of the books? I've not met. one person that I could ever even give it to. Right. And then they take up space.

Yeah, I have hundreds of foreign translations that I feel. Do you ever have those things? This would be like, this would be a feeling that Diogenes is not familiar with at all. But do you ever have like something that someone gives you and then you feel you don't want it, but you feel bad throwing it away? For sure. And so it's like, I can't throw away a French translation of one of my books. Yeah.

But I literally have no reason to have that. whatsoever. And I sometimes think about that famous story about Diogenes where he's, he goes to the well and he's drinking with the cup and he sees the boy drinking from his hands and he shatters the cup. You're like, I don't need this. It's totally superfluous. But I'm not going to throw it away. Right. Especially because it was, you know, a gift and somebody gave it to you. Well, I mean, I don't even know if they give it to you. They're just contractually obligated to send me my copies and then I'm like, what else does it do with it? No, I was thinking of the other situation where somebody has really picked out a gift for you. And that's even more difficult. Yes. Or you ever get

something that comes in like a fancy box, like all Apple products? Right. And then you're like, I should probably keep this iPhone box. And it's like only because it's like perfectly designed to feel like it's significant, but it's literally garbage. Right. No, it's hard. I think I've moved enough times to have gotten rid of, like I've gotten rid of things like that and also have become a little bit better at not keeping them in the first place. I'm so mad at it. And then, like, I just, I actually just found that they sponsored the podcast, which was nice, but like, what are you supposed to do with all your kids' art? Oh, that's really hard. Yes. That's really hard. And, you know, my, my mother is always in the process of, like, my parents are just sending me all my shit back. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

This is also happening to me. And I mean, most of the time, I'm like, oh, I'm so excited to have this. You know, which then sort of proves her right for having kept it. But now it's in my place. And I go, wait, okay. So you kept this for 30 years because this is my third grade art project or like, you know, a plate that I made. And it's like, I have an eight-year-old. Do I have to keep this for 30 years before I foist it back onto him? Yeah.

But actually this company, they just sponsored the thing and they, that you mail them all the art and they take a picture of it and then they just put it in a book. Okay. And you have a digital version of it. So then it's like, you know, it's like the box of the stuff is this big, but then the book is this. So it's just slight compression. No, that's great. And then do they then get rid of the art for you? Well, that's what they were supposed to do.

But then they mailed me back the art and now I have the same problem again. Because now I have the book and the art, so I actually have twice the problem. Okay. Yeah. No, that's, they should take care of that for you. That should be part of the service. I know. Because that's the hardest part.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is funny. Like, I think people think philosophy is impractical. or theoretical or academic or whatever. And then you go, wait, this guy at a well 2,500 years ago actually is perfectly expressing this timeless dilemma of modern life.

And in fact, it's more of a modern problem than an ancient problem because, like, having one cup is not that big a deal. It's like what happens when you can mass produce unlimited cups in China and now we're drowning in cups? Yeah. No, and that for me is what makes it so powerful

is that even Diogenes, having just a one cop, decided that he didn't need that. So what am I doing with my 25 dresses, right? I mean, it's just, yeah, it's just sort of so much more crazy. Well, and that Athens was such an affluent society that even then there's like the people who have too much and the people who don't have enough. And there's just the like, why do I need this? Do I need this? What are by, like, that people were wrestling with some of these ideas of minimalism 25 century. years ago is pretty nuts. Absolutely. I mean, I think, I mean, I am a classicist by training. I read and

teach and think this for most of my waking hours. And for me, it's still completely mind-blowing that, A, we can read anything that they wrote or read anything about what they said and thought. And that B, it's meaningful, that it translates and that it, you know, it has. has an effect, that it touches you, that it makes you think about your own everyday life, that it has application. Yeah, and that this guy, like, just the cup story would be one. Right. But there's like 15 or 20 of these kind of great diogenes things that just cut to the bone

of what it means to be a person. I mean, his greatest hits album, you could put it up against any philosopher. And it might actually, like, there's like a couple Aristotle stories that stick with people, a couple of playdust. I mean, he might have a better, greatest hits than Socrates. Mm-hmm. Especially because they are so taken from life. And like from everyday life situations. And because the way they have been passed down to us is sort of they've been totally reduced to their essence, to their core. That's how they've been transmitted. And that's why they're so powerful. No, that's a great point. They don't survive to us in these. complicated books with titles you can't pronounce. It's not Diogenes and Nicomanchian ethics or whatever. It's just these little bits, these little stories that were powerful then and they

echo down. Do you have a favorite? Oh, I was worried this kind of a question would come. I think, I'm going to say two favorites. You could say as many as you want. Okay, okay, good. So one of my favorites is when Diogenes meets Antistinies, who has been a student of Socrates and who is living a sober, simple life. And Diogenes is very impressed with Antistinies, and he wants to study with him. But Antisthenes does not want a student, does not want anyone following him around. So Antisnees actually beats Diogenes with his staff, right? Yeah. And then Diogenes says, as long as I think I can learn something from you, you won't find a stick that's hard enough to keep me away.

Wow. And I just find sort of that, that devotion to learning and sort of that devotion to anticinies and to sort of, you know, he latched onto anthiscanies and thought there's some truth there. There's something there that I need. And sort of that clarity, I find very, very beautiful and sort of really, really speaks to me. I'll give you one, then you'll be your other one. Okay. I like the one where somebody goes up to Diogenes and said, we're saying this now, but you used to say this. And he goes, yeah, well, there was a time I used to piss my bed.

Right. And so his ability to be a free agent and change his mind and evolve, I feel like there's not a great expression of that idea until, you know, 2,000 years later, Churchill switches parties. And someone says, why are you switching parties? And he says, well, I used to think a lot of stupid things when I was a conservative. There's no implication about modern or, you know, whatever. There's a British conservators. I used to think a lot of stupid things. And I decided not to do that anymore. You know, and this idea of like, yeah, you change your mind. So again, he just expresses just in such a, it's such an uncouth. but like perfect way, this is what it's about.

Yeah, absolutely. And also it's sort of he will always take the truth and the heart of the matter over what people expect of him. What sort of the pattern might be, what corner they want to put him in, right? You could have said, well, it's complicated. Here's why. Or actually, I didn't change my, like the politician who tries to does the somersaults to be like, well, they're not actually flip-flopping. He's like, I did.

I was done before. I'm not dumb anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, yeah. I mean, it boils down to an honesty and not, you know, not trying to pretend that things are are different than they are. And yeah, and there's such a, such a straightforwardness in that. And yeah, I mean, I think other anecdotes that I really like a lot are in this same vein where people take diogenes to task for drinking a glass of wine or for eating like a certain type of food that. that he's supposed to abstain from, right? And, you know, for instance, someone sees him in a bar and he's like, I, you know, I saw you drinking a glass of wine in a bar. And then Dehagin he says, well, if I'm at the barbers, I get my hair cut, right? If I'm in a bar, I'm going to drink a glass of wine, right?

And it sort of comes down to that same notion of, yes, in general, I don't drink wine because I don't need it and it's superfluous. But if I'm in a bar and somebody offers me a glass of wine, then there's no reason why not. And he's not always the hero in the stories. Like one of my favorite ones is the exchange between him and Plato, where he goes to Plato's house. And, you know, he's notorious for rejecting fancy things. And he gets to Plato's house. And he sees Plato has lots of fancy things.

And he begins to stamp on his carpets. And he says, I am stamping on Plato's vanity. And Plato gets the better of him when he says, you know, how vain you are. are when you stamp on other people's vanity. Basically, there is a kind of like immaturity and egotism to Diogenes. He's better than everyone, smarter than everyone, less attached than everyone, and it must have also been pretty insufferable. For sure, yeah.

And this is where Plato is so right in that moment that Diogenes needs an audience. Yes. And that that is... He's like a punk performance artist. Exactly. Exactly. And people need to see him, right? He needs to be seen for his message to come across.

And that is the fundamental impurity of his thought, right? That he cannot fully live out his independence unless somebody sees it, right? But I think that the fact that he embraces that impurity, right? That he does not try to reason it. away or deny it or sort of, you know, find a loophole to make sense of it, I find really disarming, right? And I think that there's something so important about that impurity, right? Because I think it's precisely sort of the search for for watertight, complete philosophical systems. He's not the Dalai Lama or the Pope. He's not infallible, perfect. He's not this like holy figure. He's

this flawed human being who in challenging the conventions as aggressively as he does often finds wisdom and truth. And sometimes you go, well, I'm glad you tested that hypothesis for us, but I don't think I want to live in a jar. Right. Yeah. And it's also like the way that he is living is the way in which he interprets what it means to live in accordance with nature. And he is offering that to us as a performance that we can then interpret. But if we think about the course of antiquity and if we think about what people in the past did with Diogenes and how they responded to him,

they didn't copy his behavior exactly, but they were still very inspired by it, right? And sort of a good example of this is we're in the later period in time, Dio Chrysostim and Julian right? These are people who live a few centuries later, try to make sense of of Diogenes defecating in public in the marketplace, right? And worse things. And worse things. Let's say more inappropriate things. Yes, yeah, exactly, exactly. And for Diocrosostum, there's this sort of real emphasis on the shamelessness and that he is not threatened by people trying to destroy his reputation, right? And for

Dio Chrysostom, this is really important because he is being exiled by Emperor Domitian and is having his honor removed. He can no longer be an upstanding member of the polity, and he's trying to come to terms with that. And he sees and here's this story about Diogenes in his mind's eye, and he thinks, well, Diogenes was not ashamed in that moment. Diogenes was not ashamed in that act. So I'm not going to be ashamed about being chased out of Rome. Right. And I think sort of that the fact that he can take that moment and take something out of it that's useful for him and that he can sort of understand Diogenes' behavior in his way instead of making fun of it or sort of like, you know, being horrified or being disgusted, right? But actually take something from it that's not a carbon copy, right? He doesn't go around pretending to be Diogenes, but he still gets so much out of it. Yeah, in a way, he's a performance artist and a philosopher. So he's kind of like a Marina Abramovic kind of character where you're like,

okay, the message of the artist is present is now that you have to sit at a table for 30 consecutive days. It's like, can you do it for five minutes? It's a statement about how society is missing a thing or how hard a thing actually is and should it be hard and what does it mean that it's hard. And so, yeah, a lot of the extremeness that his stunts go to, like an artist, are designed to shock and catch your attention. And then when that wears off, make you question some underlying convention or status quo or, you know, your own participation in that world. You're not supposed to sell all your things and move in to a barrel. He already did that. Right. And then you can fall

somewhere along that spectrum after you've derived the lessons from that. Yeah. And I think that if Diogenes were alive today and if it was possible to talk, with him, you know, I do think he would keep pressing us, right? I do think that like every step of the way, he would say, well, do you think you have done enough? And do you really think that this is the best, most just way that you think you can live? Right. He always turns it back to us. Right. So he would keep asking the questions, but he's not expecting anyone to become exactly him. That would horrify him, right? That, like, runs totally counter to the way that he thinks and the way that he is.

So for people who aren't familiar with him at all, let's start where he starts. How does he end up as a philosopher in Athens? He's in exile, right? Yes, that's right. So Diogenes is born and probably a pretty well-to-do family in a town that's called Sinipi, and it's on the coast of the Black Sea, and today it's in Turkey. and he grows up there with his family, and at a certain point, either just him or him and his father get exiled from Sinope. So they have to leave.

They cannot live there anymore, most likely because there was some problem with the coinage, with the mint. So Diogenes' dad was in charge of the mint, and there was some irregularity that led to them having to leave. You could have been a counterfeiter. You could have been stealing in some way. Yes. Yeah. I mean, sort of there's there's a Greek word that's used to describe it that can mean both making, making false coins or damaging coins that have already been made. Yeah.

So that's sort of where the ambiguity is. Then, you know, the amazing things is that there are some coins that have Diages Jesus' dad's name on it. And there's also some damaged coins, you know. So there's some. corroboration, but it's, you know, it still doesn't get us quite to knowing exactly what happened. But, you know, it's insane, just like the level, that like the level of detail would still survive to this day that you can verify some tiny claim in one ancient philosopher's text. Especially for Diogenes, because about him, like, people are always ready to say, oh, it's just sensationalism. Oh, it's just made up, right?

So when for Diogenes, you find like a snippet like that in the material record. That's just amazing. It's just insane. In any case, Diagis can't stay in Sinepe, and he goes first to Athens, which at the time really is the intellectual center of the world. So I should say Sinepe, where he's from, is not a backwater either. It's an important trading city, and it's sort of very interestingly on the border between the Greek and Persian spheres of influence. and it sort of, you know, changes pans a couple of times in Diogenes' lifetime. So that's an important city, too.

But he gets exile, which means he loses his citizen's citizen rights in that place. And ends up in Athens, which to him ends up being really exciting, right? A few times he says, like, well, the Sinopians might have convicted me to exile, but they have convicted themselves to staying in a peace. Not all that bad up. I feel like we just got our Halloween decorations up, and now the next holiday season is here. It's hard to believe it, but Thanksgiving is nearly here.

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right now to shop Wayfair's Black Friday deals for up to 70% off. W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Sale ends December 7th. In Athens, he meets Antisthenes, who was a student of Socrates, and who sort of sets him most likely on the path of philosophy, even though in Sinopee already he might have sort of picked up on some of his ideas from influences from the North in Skithia and influences from the East and India. It's really in Athens that he comes into his own and also people get to know about him. That's the nice thing about being at the intellectual center of your time that people also get to know about your ideas. And this is right after the death of Socrates? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So a few decades after the death of Socrates, which is still, you know, very reverberating for people. And this philosophy thing is kind of new. Like not obviously, we go to. there's the pre-socratics and then the post-socrat.

But it's like it's still up for grabs what this philosophy thing is going to be and mean to the Western world because it's all being figured out just then. Yeah. I mean, it's a very vibrant time for it. And if we think about ancient wisdom and people trying to figure out how the world works, if there are gods, what they are like, I mean, this is something that people have. been doing for at least two centuries already at this point. But at this time, fourth century BC in Athens, there is a very vibrant competition over what philosophy should be, what it should

be like, what kind of questions should be pursued, and in what way they should be pursued. So in that sense, it is a perfect time for Diogenes to show up there. And I think we sometimes think of the kind of classical Athens as this like, you know, people walking around in Togas, The statues are shiny or the marble is shiny. The statues are painted. It's this beautiful kind of like we it's like, oh, this is like before it turned into ruins, which it was. But it was also like in quite a lot of flux and like Sarktius lives through a great power conflict. There's wars. And then Diogenes is right there in the middle of the reign of Alexander the Great who's in the middle of gobbling up the world. Not unlike, now he's exactly comparable, but not unlike a Nepal. Holian or a Hitler, where just one guy is just remaking the world violently in his image. Yes, yes. And this is something that people don't know and can't know at the time. But when Diogenes is born, there's still sort of notional independence for a Greek city-states.

And by the time he dies, there is not. and it's never really going to come back. So in that sense, he lives through this pivotal time. And it's also this sort of really deep irony that sort of the most anti-authoritarian, anti-autocratic philosopher lives through the advent of Philip and then Alexander taking over in the Greek-speaking world who are autocrats and, you know, ultimately with some twist and turns still will pave the way for Rome to take over, which ultimately also devolves into autocracy. So it is sort of this really strange moment to think that Diogenes still had, you know, both feet in these two worlds. Well, and that's why I think their philosophy is so relevant throughout history is that it

wasn't like it, they had all the same problems that we have now. And they had demagogues and disruption. I mean, they lived in an understanding. certain future. They did not know they lived in classical antiquity. Absolutely. It was all topsy-turvy, scary. What's happening today? Here's the new latest news from, you know, the distant lands of the, like they were experiencing most of the same feelings that were experiencing to that. Yeah. Yeah. And I also, I also really like what you said about when we think about ancient Athens. We think about opulence, shiny temples, people having their lovely dinner party. And obviously that was going on. People were wealthy and were sort of engaging in these amazing building projects. But people were also trying to scrape by and sort of make a living and have this hard-knock life on, you know, on the margins of society. And there, again, Diogenes is such an interesting figure because he interacts with both worlds.

He is invited to Plato's house to a dinner party and can. trample on his carpet. But he does live with the poorest of the poorest and a jar on the streets. So he's also sort of experiencing both sides of that. And at least according to the legend, interacts with Alexander the Great directly. Yes. So you have the intersection, there's a couple of these examples in antiquity of like a powerless philosopher interacting with a incredibly powerful emperor type. Yeah, yeah. So the story of Alexander and Diogenes, especially because, as you say, it conforms to this type, right, there are quite a few people who will say, it's too good to be true. Yes.

You know, as a story, it's too good to be true. And it probably didn't happen. And what I did in doing my research was, well, I'm really interested in finding out when people first started to say that it didn't happen. Sure. Right. So I sort of like went back in time in the research and sort of like tracing people's footnotes and who refers to whom and like how like how does this get started. And then what I found was sort of that this suspicion of the of the meeting actually happening starts with this French scholar who himself does not doubt the meeting at all. He just says that some of the sources about the meeting are questionable. This guy's name is Pierre Bale, and what he starts to do is he takes all of these narratives about the ancient philosophers and sort of starts to subject him to criticism. Like, do we think does actually happen, right? Which is a fairly revolutionary thing at the time. Does Chrysippus actually laugh himself to death?

Probably not. Right. But these things were presented unquestioned by the ancients, like. in book after book after book? Yeah, for the most part. Yeah. I mean, you know, even in antiquity, some people will say, uh, some people believe this. Some people don't, right? Even in antiquity, or they'll be like, this happened and this happened, but clearly only one of them could have happened. Right. Exactly. But it's more like, no, my job was just to list to you all the things that people have said happened. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's a different understanding of history, not the singular narrative, but the, but the multitude.

Yeah, the multitude and, you know, the importance of passing down these multiple versions. that, you know, at a later moment in time, people can make up their own minds, right? But I would say that before this guy, Pierre Bale, comes along, there is a little bit of a sense of, like, well, let's just go with the best story. Yeah, right? And let's just go with the stories that we have. And then he starts to be much more critical. But when it comes to the meeting of Diogenes and Alexander, Pierre Bale, like, he actually does believe it happened. And he just thinks that Seneca's version of it, in particular, contained some problems in the sense that in that version, Alexander is already presented as being godlike and ruler of the world.

And the reason why that is a problem is because Alexander and Diogenes, they actually meet before Alexander goes on his Eastern campaigns. And then Alexander famously never comes back to this. Sure, right. He does. Yeah, exactly. So the language that's used in that description of the meeting, can't be right, because it causes a chronological problem. Sure. At the same time, there are other accounts of the meeting, right, that don't have that problem at all. Right. And this is why Bayle himself says, well, Seneca's version is not great, but it did happen, and then there's these other versions. But sort of then later scholars only take Seneca's version cannot be right, right? And they run with that, right? And Seneca's like 500 years

after this happened. Yeah, 400 years after this happened. And then very quickly, it becomes the meeting of Alexander Adiogenes, which has been roundly dismissed so many times. We don't even have to think about it anymore. Right. And then, I mean, when I sort of went back this, you know, went back down this chain of transmission, I was really dissatisfied with the case that people were making for the meeting

not happening. And I end up saying in my book, did I think, you know, as far as we can know anything for sure about antiquity. I think it's very likely that it didn't happen. They were in the same place at the same time. Alexander could very easily have known about Diogenes from Aristotle and from this other guy on a secretus who they knew in common. Alexander has an interest in philosophy. And we have sort of good reasons for why the meeting would have been reported on, namely by this guy that they know in common on a secretist. So for me, it seems like sort of of this whole notion of, oh, it's too good a story to be true, right? And then one of the other lines

of argument is like, well, why would Alexander have wanted to meet Diogenes, which sort of, you know, goes to the heart of Diogenes' reputation problem and this idea of Alexander being, you know, being sort of this very elevated regal, royal figure who would not go and talk to essentially a homeless person, right? And that, I mean, for me, those, for me those arguments again, just weren't good enough anymore. And then precisely because we have this connection for how the story might have gotten to be recorded and some of the Greek texts that we can still read about it, that for me is like, you know what, I think this actually happened. One, if it didn't, we would have to invent it happening because it's so perfect, right? The most powerful man in the world and this powerless person and ultimately one is more powerful than the other, right?

Like, you know, one conquers the world, the other conquers the need to conquer the world. And that's so the symmetry of it is beautiful. Are we sure that Diogenes exists? Like, I know with Socrates, it's like, how do we know or Jesus? How do we know that it's, there's not so much evidence. Where does he fit on that spectrum? Like, are we absolutely positive that it's not all a literary invention? I think that the coin that has his father's name on it.

Right, is a really, really powerful sort of point in his favor of existing. And then there's also a papyrus text that describes an anecdote which features Diogenes, which is not as famous as some of the other texts because the papyrus scrap itself was discovered relatively late. So it sort of doesn't come part of the stories that we tell about Diogenes. But this papyrus text is the text is sort of dated as having been raised. written within, let's say, 60, 70 years after Diogenes' lifetime. So I think... There was a guy named Diogenes.

Yes, exactly. It would be, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. And I'll see you next episode.

You know,