The Daily Stoic - The REAL Difference Between Stoics and Cynics | Cynicism Expert Inger Kuin (PT. 2)

Episode Date: November 22, 2025

What can Diogenes teach us about the roots of Stoicism? In today’s episode, Ryan and classicist Inger Kuin break down the real gap between Stoicism and Cynicism, discussing why one trusted order and structure while the other thought most of society was nonsense. They get into Diogenes’ legendary stunts, the Stoics’ attempt to distance themselves from him, and why the world still needs people who question absolutely everything.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.Check out Inger’s website: https://ingerkuin.com/Be sure to pick up a copy of Inger’s new book Diogenes: The Rebellious Life and Revolutionary Philosophy of the Original Cynic. 📚 Books that Ryan recommended to Inger:Tales of Soldiers and Civilians: and Other Stories by Ambrose BierceThoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot by James Stockdale Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman 🎟️ 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.

Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.ca slash Wondery. That's audible.ca.com. Look, ads are annoying. They are to be avoided, if at all possible. I understand as a content creator why they need to exist. That's why I don't begrudge them when they appear on the shows that I listen to. But again, as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in, it's a lot to keep something like the Daily Stoic going. So if you want to support a show but not listen to ads, well, we have partnered with Supercast to bring you a ad-free version of Daily Stoic. We're calling it Daily Stoic Premium. And with premium, you can listen to every episode of the Daily Stoic podcast completely ad-free. No interruptions. Just the ideas, just the messages, just the conversations you came here for. And you can also get early access to episodes before they're available to the public. And we're going to have a bunch of

exclusive bonus content and extended interviews in there just for Daily Stoic Premium members as well. If you want to remove distractions, go deeper into Stoicism and support the work we do here. Well, it takes less than a minute to sign up for Daily Stoic Premium and we are offering a limited time discount of 20% off your first year. Just go to Daily Stoic. com slash premium to sign up right now or click the link in the show descriptions to make those ads go away. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same

topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. In some ways, the bane of my existence

is what people think the word stoic means, right? I think I say this in the intro of the Daily Stoic. Like, not only is stoic an unappealing and misunderstood word to most people, particularly in America, but stoic philosophy doubles it, right? Adding the philosophy on the end means people go, oh, right? And I've been battling this since I went out with the book proposal of the obstacle as the way. Are people actually going to be interested in this when they have these preconceived notions of what these words mean?

And of course, stoicism is not the only school where this is true, right? Epicureanism seems to mean hedonism to people or gluttony or even in the ancient. world this was a problem like epicurus was presented even by some of the stoics is this like perverted weirdo who was corrupting people and living in you know sin and and and excess which of course this is not what epicureanism is about at all now the same is true for cynicism at least epicureanism sounds fun right cynicism sounds negative and short-sighted and small-minded and sarcastic and rude and mean and all these things, right? But like with lowercase stoicism and uppercase stoicism, lowercase cynic and uppercase

cynicism have very different origins, very different meanings, and the schools are not that different from each other. I think it was Marshall, the Roman poet, said the difference between the stoics and the cynics is that there's a shirt between them, meaning the stoics were a little better dressed than the cynics. Diogenes, the cynic, who we're going to talk about in today's episode, was a transgressive, rebellious, fascinating figure, but actually Stoicism would be impossible without cynicism. Zeno's first teacher was a guy named Kratis. The founder of Stoicism was tutored by a philosopher named Kratis, and also his wife, was a fascinating cynic philosopher. Kratis was known as the door opener. I talk about him in Wisdom Takes Work.

He's the door opener who opens the door to philosophy for Zeno. So in today's episode, which is actually part two, part one, I ran earlier in the week. My guest, Professor Inger Kuhin, talk about cynicism versus Epicureanism versus Stoicism. We talk about the invention of this lowercase cynic, where the cynics might actually have things more right than the Stoics. Then I want to recommend some books because when we walked through the bookstore, she and I continued this conversation and ended up talking about philosophy quite a bit more. As I said, in part one, Professor Kuhin is a researcher, writer, and teacher focused on the intellectual history of ancient Greece and Rome. She's an associate professor of classics at the University of Virginia, home of Gregory Hayes, also, my favorite

translator of meditations. She's originally from the Netherlands, so she publishes in English and Dutch. You can go to her website, ingerkuin.com, and be sure to pick up her book, Diogenes, the Rebellious Life and Revolutionary Philosophy of Diogenes, the Cynic. I really like this conversation. I really liked her, and I think you will like this episode. Do check it out. And as I said, please come see me. I'm going to be in Seattle here very shortly. I'm giving a talk on December 3rd, I believe. At Seattle, you can buy tickets at dailystoic.com. And then I'm going to be in San Diego and Phoenix in February. Grab all of that at daily stoiclyb live.com. So let's talk the difference between the stoics and the cynics. Because

the Stoics are directly descend from the cynics. I mean, Zeno's teacher is Cretes, the cynic. So how does this happen and what do you see as the major differences between them? Okay. This is a great question. Big one, big one. So, I mean, essentially what happens is that Zeno found his own school. Yeah. Right? And and comes to be known as the Stoics after the place where they meet, as is all sort of well, well known. And what – so I would say there's sort of two – there's sort of a big philosophical difference between the two, and then there is, shall we say, a historical difference between the two, right? Where the Stoics were quite invested in distinguishing themselves from the cynics and saying, like, we are doing our own thing. We are doing something different, right? This is important to them precisely because the cynics were the guys who lived in the street, right? So that's where that comes from. The same time... Like we're not the sexual perverts like them.

Yeah, exactly. At the same time, the Stoics cannot really deny their connection to the cynics because then they cut their own tie to Socrates. And sort of Socrates as the important forefather of living a contemplative life of philosophy is a forbear that the Stoics do want, which means that they have to accept the genealogy from. Socrates to antithynes to Diogenes to Cretis to Zeno. Got it. Right? So they are in this bind, right, where they're both wanting to underplay the connection, but they can't completely deny it.

So, so, yeah, so in a historical sense, it's clear that that descends from the other. Exactly, exactly. And that Cretes himself in person was a student of Diogenes. They lived at the same time. And that Zeno then lives at the same time as Cretes and is a student of Cretes. So that all sort of works, works just fine and from a historical perspective. Then in addition to sort of needing this, needing this distance, there's also pretty fundamental differences philosophically.

And I think the sort of the most impactful difference ultimately is that for the Stoics, there is a divine organizing principle that is at the heart of everything. And that means that the world is ultimately well organized, right? To put it a little bit in a banal way, right? But for the Stoics, ultimately, there is the understanding that the world is well organized, such as it is. And the thing to do is to understand this organization and then to bring yourself, bring your inner self in line with this organization, simply put. Now, for the cynics, there is no such overarching. organizing principle, right? There is no divine organizing principle that that dies at everything

together. And for Dysynics, that also means that the status quo, the world that we live in, such as is today, is not necessarily the best of all outcomes, right? And Diogenes and the cynics, they definitely love the world, right? They think that the human body is an awesome thing in terms of everything that it can do. They admired a natural world. They admired the fact that the sun warms us, that we can drink water from the river, that sort of we, that animals are able to take care of themselves

and find food just like that. And if we are a little bit more like that, then we can live a good life with what nature has given us. Living in accordance with nature. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But beyond that, there's nothing about this world that's necessary, right? So when it comes to the social structures, the city that we live in, sort of the sort of societal institutions for descendants, these are not necessary, precisely

because, for instance, animals seem to be able to do without them quite well, right? And that sort of, and that has a lot of downstream consequences in terms of how, how diogenes things about kingship and how he thinks about rulership, right? Whereas for the Stoics, it makes a lot of sense to live in an autocracy because ultimately there is one divine organizing principle in the cosmos. So why would there not be an emperor on Earth? It's like one believes in order and systems and logic and the other is a little bit more random and anarchic

that like, hey, this is all made up and you can choose to believe in the made-upness, but you don't have to. It doesn't mean anything. This is just how things are. God didn't make them this way and they don't have to remain this way. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

So the society that we live in, the status quo is not God-given. It's not divine. That's not part of nature. Exactly. It's not part of nature. And anything that's not part of nature for the cynics is open to questioning and is not necessary. And this would include things like the moral order. Like, hey, this is why you can't masturbate in public.

People are like, you can't do it. And Diogenes is like, why not? You know? And so it does, yeah, it's like one believes there's such a, you know that Margaret Thatcher thing where she says, there's no such thing as society. There's just individuals and their families, right? Yeah. Although she's obviously coming out of it from a very, but Diogenes is saying like, this is all made up. You can do whatever you want.

And the Stoics are like, no, no, no. There's a reason for all of this. and whether there is a reason or not, probably have some fundamental fear of the anarchy that comes if you question it. So it's like even if there is no reason, this is better than the alternative. So let's there's a conservatism to stoicism that maybe isn't lowercase conservatism that is not there in Diogenes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And I think sort of when you when you said earlier about masturbating in the market square as a moral question. I think Diogenes would say it's a question of etiquette, right? It's not a moral question, right? Right. Like, moral questions are about justice. Yes. Right?

And about, you know, and about... And he's saying etiquette is stupid and it doesn't matter. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And the stoics are like, yeah, but we're all descend into apes killing each other if there's no etiquette and is morality just another version of etiquette, a more extreme version of etiquette. And ultimately for the Stoics, it's about understanding and making sense of society such as it is, right, in order to adjust to it and in order to sort of lead the most, you know, the most virtuous and dutiful life within that context, within your station, within the city that you live in, whereas for cynics, we're questioning it to see if maybe there might be a better way to live. Is that the fundamental flaw of diogenes though, which is like he can do it because everyone else buys into the other system? And he is able to exist not as a parasite, but as an exception to the rule. But if that was the rule, everyone would starve, there would be anarchy or there would be just a lot less people would be able to live, right?

Like you need for the world that we have it then and now, you need people who go to work every day. So I agree with you that if we had a society that consisted solely of diogenesis, right, that there would be sort of a lack of constructiveness in a sense, right? There would be a lack of coherence and constructiveness. And this would be a problem. The society without diogenesis is extremely dangerous. Yes. It's Sparta or something. Yeah, yeah. Because because if you have a society without any diogenesis, then there is no pushback. There is no questioning.

There is no sort of bringing things back to the human measure and sort of deciding, well, but how does this affect me in my everyday life? And do we really need to be doing this? Is this really the best of all possible outcomes? And this is, you know, this sort of, again, goes to the heart. heart of this, you know, philosophical impurity or ambiguity in Diogenes in the sense that he does live on the fringes of society and he lives on alms and in order for him to, you know, someone has to be making the money to give to Diogenes. Exactly, right?

Like, there has to be. Somebody made the jar that he lives in. Right. You know, he doesn't live in a hut. He's not an off-the-grid survivalist who can do anything for himself. That's what's so interesting about him. right? Like he's not going off into the woods and living off the land. No. He is living off the refuse of society. Yeah, because he thinks is stupid. Yeah, but exactly. But at the

same time, he does think, like he does still appreciate his fellow humans just enough. Yes. That he thinks that they are worthy of what he has to say. That's true. He's not an antisocial. He's not a hermit in that sense either. He's just, he's just like. like, why are you going to that job, man, you know? Right. Exactly. Exactly. Like, do you, like, is this, is this a good job? Do you believe in this job, right? Does it, like, does this job align with your ideas of justice? And if it doesn't, you should stop going to that job because you don't actually need that money. You don't actually need that car. You can do without it. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So, so, and this is ultimately what Diogenes means by freedom, right? Is, is the freedom to be able to make those. choices and those decisions because you are not afraid of being a beggar and you have taught yourself to be able to live on the street and to live on very little. And because you have boiled down life to its essence in that way, right, you are able to be happy with your handful of beans and your, you know, stale bread, right? And that knowledge, that preparation then

allows you to be independent and to say to Alexander, no, I don't need anything from you. Just get out of my sunlight. That's all I need. Well, Diogen is able to say that to Alexander in a way that Seneca is not able to say that to Nero. And so you go, who actually gets it right. Yeah. It's interesting, too, how much this boils down to that expression about the narcissism of small differences. Like the Epicureans and the Stoics way more in common than difference. Yeah. The cynics and the Stoics are way more in common than difference, especially because, like, yeah, it's not like the Stoics were like the man and then Diagis is not the man. First off, because they're obviously, Zeno is literally training under one. But, like, the Stoics are questioning so many of the assumptions that also believe you should live in accordance with nature.

I think is it Juvenile who says between the Stoics and the cynics, they have only a shirt between them? And it's like one, yeah, one is wearing clothes and the other's like, we don't even need clothes. And so it's just like the degree to the extremes with which you're willing to take it. Like the Stoics are like, we love all the philosophy stuff, but somebody has to serve in the army and somebody has to clean the streets. Like somebody has to do this stuff. And Diogenes is saying like, not us, you know. And then I think the Stoics are saying, if we don't do it, either nobody's going to do it or someone where. worse is going to do it. And that's, I think, one is making this kind of pragmatic, you could

say, responsible choice. And it's not that the other is irresponsible, but there is something, I think, both in the Epicureans and in the cynics, that's like, well, we don't want to be bothered with that stuff. We're going to retreat to the garden or we're going to just ask her questions, but like somebody else makes sure that the soldiers are manning the city walls. 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.

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If you're hiring, do it the right way with Indeed. So this is where cynicism and Epicureanism have a lot in common in the sense that they withdraw from political life in a way that the Stoics very much did not. At the same time, it's this kind of pragmatism, right? Well, if I don't do this thing that I have an inkling might be wrong. Yeah. A worst person will do it. Yeah. Right?

I mean, these are the kinds of decisions that totalitarian regimes are built on. But also functioning democracies, right? Absolutely. Like both of them. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, absolutely. But in the case of a functioning democracy, right, to be able to say, I will do this job, right, even though I don't feel like it today, right? I would rather sleep in, right?

I would say that's what a functioning democracy is built on. But I will do this job because, and I know it's an unjust task that I'm contributing to, right? Because if I don't do it, someone else would do it, right? That's like, I don't, you know, I don't think that's part of a functioning democratic regime. And I think that's precisely why Diogenes' thinking is so important, is so powerful. Because it forces you to ask that question every day. You're absolutely right. They have so much in common, right?

The Stoics and the scenes have so much in common. And there's so much that the Stoics learned and took. from Diogenes and from Cratees. And this has all to do with, you know, precisely the notion that we should not be afraid of death, the notion that we should actually think about our lives and, like, spend time thinking about how to live our lives well, that we should not get lost in luxury goods

that we really don't need all that much to be happy. Right. These are all things that they share. Cultivating that kind of resilience. Like one of my favorite stories about Diogenes is, he's seen begging a statue. Right, exactly. And they go, what are you doing?

And he's like, I'm practicing being rejected. Exactly. And you just go, oh, yeah, there's this, this idea that like exposure therapy, basically, like doing hard, uncomfortable thing. Like, Diogenes, you go, he's a homeless person, but that's a difficult existence. I mean, it's cold there in the winter. It's hot in the summer. And he is exposed over the years to the elements. He has a toughness that you're not typically associated.

with the philosopher, but he's kind of like in the way that Marina Abramvich is effectively an athlete, he is an athlete in terms of inhabiting the human body and finding out what it's capable of. Yeah, exactly. And this is this is what the Stoics and the cynics share, this notion that by preparation, whether that's mental preparation or whether it's bodily preparation, you can prepare yourself and therefore be more free and be less afraid because you know that you have. have that resilience, and you know that you're capable of these things. And, you know, this is why for Diogenes, it's really important to know that he can live without nice food and live without wine. But once he's trained his body, it's fine to have a glass of wine because he knows he can do without it. And he can reject Alexander the Great because other than death, there's nothing Alexander can do to him. Right. There's nothing Alexander can take from him. And he realizes in that moment that that makes him more powerful than Alexander. Or it frees him to speak truth to power

that Aristotle cannot because Aristotle doesn't want to lose his job. Yeah. Right. And Diogenes doesn't have a job. Right. And so he's like, you suck. You know, that there's an empowerment. The powerlessness creates an empowerment. Exactly. And that's why this anecdote is so important. And that's why we all love it so much is because it says so much about power that that power only exists when you let the other person wield power over you in that way. And if you are Diogenes, you don't need anything from Alexander and you are not afraid of him. And that means that even though he's Alexander, his power goes up and smoke. And Alexander realizes that in that moment, that's why he's so impressed with Diogenes. And this is what he takes with him for

rest of his life. And I mean, I think we haven't talked about this yet, but I think sort of one of the places where you really see the difference between the Stoics and the Cynics is when it comes to the question of slavery. And also the difference between Aristotle and Plato and the Cynics and the Stoics because this is something that was so ingrained in ancient society was so much a part of everyday life that for the Stoics, it is, well, paper, right? It's part of society and it's something that they cannot, do not venture to think outside of, right? Even Epictetus, the slave, doesn't seem to go like, this isn't right. It's more like it's happening to me. I wish it wasn't happening to me, but the idea that the institution itself is an

injustice. It's remarkable how many centuries it takes us to get around to that. Exactly, exactly. And sort of for Epictetus, he comes to terms with his condition. of enslavement by going within and seeking freedom inside of him. And ultimately, this leads the Stoics to really not think about slavery all that much, right? Because they have sort of gone within and decided that inner mental freedom sort of obviates real, real life slavery in the world. But Diogenes does not make this step, right? And I think this is sort of the most powerful moment where you see that Diogenes is able to think outside of the status quo and precisely because the world is not necessarily as it should be. There's no reason why the status quo should be good. You don't have to revere it, right? You don't have to try to make sense of it as it is. You can say, no, actually, this is ridiculous. And that is what Diogenes does do, centrally.

before anyone else and more clearly and more in a much more principled way to say that this notion of one human being owning another human being is completely absurd, right? And the Stoics, as much as they take from Diogenes, they don't take that. Yeah, it's like society needs the sort of freaks and hippies and artists and weirdos who question everything, a lot of which, not shouldn't be questioned, but, But there are good answers to why. And then there's the bucket, the handful of things that it actually turns out the reasons are pretty spurious. Yes.

And Diogenes, by effectively rejecting everything, is able to be right about this thing that. What's interesting, too, is like, as I feel like the earlier Stoics are more cynical, more of the cynics school. And then by the time we get to Rome, now you have so many additional centuries of, of the status quo, being the status quo, that it's harder for them to question. Like, Cato thinks Rome is a republic. By the time it gets to Seneca, there's been so many bad emperors and so much civil war that he's just like, this, like, let's just go to with the most stable of the people, you know? And by the time it gets to Marcus Aurelius, he's not like, like the idea in Gladiator that he would give it up is so, like, no, like there is that lowercasey conservatism to the state. Stoics that the more transgressive radical early Stoics would not have conceived of.

Yeah. And I mean, sort of a more socio-historical way of thinking about that is that sort of like as Stoicism becomes institutionalized and as Stoicism sort of seeps into the upper regions of society, the Stoics start to become people who have much more to lose. And at that point, it becomes much more difficult for them to. to sort of be as critical and as principled and as questioning as the cynics are. What's fair, Upton's and Claire says it's very hard to get someone to understand something that their salary depends on them not understanding.

Right. And yeah, it's like the feature and the bug, the Epicureans and the cynics are always on the outside so they can see things clearly. The Stoics slowly but surely get absorbed to not just be the inside, but kind of the dominant view of the elites in Rome. And so they have not just the sort of fear of change, but they also have, in some cases, good reasons, but not good, but just they just go, do you understand the cost, not like the literal cost, but it's like that's easy for you to say, you don't have to make said decision or you don't have, that's easy for you to say, let me tell you all the reasons why, you know, and that is the, that's just the they evolve further and further from each. other to the point of being probably incomprehensible to each other. Right. Yeah. No, I mean, they, like, Stoics become so invested. They are insiders in a way.

And from the inside, it can be really difficult to see. And if you are no longer communicating with people who are on the outside, then you've lost that, that opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. The other one where I think the cynics are more right than the Stoics, or it takes a while, is, uh, Zeno is not just taught by Kratis, but by Krati's wife. And there is an equality of the sexes to, I mean, there's some misogynistic comments from Diogenes, but, but there was a kind of equality in the lowliness of cynicism that it takes a while, takes maybe until Musonius Rufus, who also teaches, as these interesting essays on whether women should be taught philosophy, and he says yes, but like, as Stoicism gets absorbed into the social hierarchy of Rome, certain

questions are no longer asked and certain radical notions of equality go away. Yeah. Yeah. And what's interesting about this to me is that Diogenes himself does not explicitly really have an awful lot to say about women other than some off-collar remarks, for sure. But it is then with the next generation with Kratis and his wife, Hipparchia, that it becomes clear that there is, there's nothing about cynicism that precludes women from participating in it. And then it is Hipparchia who sort of takes up, like, seizes that opportunity and then it becomes a feature of cynicism precisely because to be a philosopher and to like ask these questions, you do not have to have wealth. You do not have to be sort of a ruling member of your polity because philosophy has become this much more basic day-to-day thing as it is for Diogenes. And there is virtue in not having anything. And there is virtue in not participating in the policy as a political actor.

So all of these things that sort of would preclude a woman from being a serious philosophical actor before are gone in Diogenes' thinking. And then Hipparchia and Krati sort of draw the natural conclusion from it, which was there already at the start. it just wasn't realized in Diogenes' lifetime. And then he just personally didn't seem to care that much about it. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And then once Hipparchia sort of joins the ranks of cynic philosophy, she becomes a figure who's quite popular in imperial cynicism and sort of is featured a lot in the cynic letters and sort of her, like her ownership of philosophy becomes important.

And I do wonder if, you know, if that does not also influence misoenic letters. Rufus, who is, you know, is a little bit of an outlier among the Stoics. He's not a Roman senator in the way that these other Roman Stoics all seem to be, come from the best families and inherit power and status. Yeah. And then Moussonia sort of continues to think about this question. Like, well, why shouldn't women be studying philosophy? Virtue is virtue. What does it have to do with your genitals?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Nothing. Yeah. And then also, here he is teaching probably the most. most cynic adjacent of the Stoics, right? Epictetus is the closest, I think, because also he sees Rome from the outside and isn't part of the elite. So he's less, you know, he's more radical. He is more indifferent to the things that, you know, Marcus, he realizes is sleeping on a hard mattress by choice. Seneca is practicing poverty one day a month. And Epictetus is like, no, no, this isn't a game.

Right. This is life. Yeah. Yeah. And also, I think. When you're reading Epictetus, you hear Diogenes a little bit more than a lot of the other Stoic writing. There's something about Epictetus's insistence, sharpness, wit, and also very much sort of the active, ongoing educational situation that you see in his writings, that he's always in conversation with someone. Also not a writer, unlike Seneca or Marcus or these others. Exactly, exactly. That feels close to Diogenes. And then we get the mirror of the Alexander and Diogenes when Hadrian, who's obsessed with Greece, stops in and attends Epictetus's lectures. Right.

And you're just like, again, some people like, did it happen? Did it not? And it's like, it probably did happen. And it would make sense. And there's something that they probably both would have appreciated in the moment, the irony and the contrast between master and student. It's just a remarkable little scene. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think for Hadrian, like all of Greek culture, all of the Greek world, you know, was entirely where his heart does. And he was sort of invested in it from head to toe. So there's an element of it where it's like you find out like Paul Ryan's a rage against the machine fan. And you're like, you like you like you obviously don't fucking get it. You know? And there's something like Marcus really seems to have sincerely liked the philosophy. Hadrian seems to have really been.

a student of it, but like effectively puts zero of it into, it's like he likes like the images and the symbols, but not any of the ideas. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think also that for Marcus Serrili is the, you know, the fact that we can read the meditations, but that it's so, you know, that they are not written as public facing documents, right? I mean, we are really seeing him there in his private moments. So we see him struggling with these things in, like, in an honest way that I think is believable and makes sense for a ruler. But in terms of, you know, would Diogenes say, you've really understood me, Marcus Aurelius, maybe in some moments into meditations, but not in his actions. He would have stamped on his carpets.

Right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And, you know, Marcus Aurelius went on being Marcus Aurelius. no matter sort of what he understood, as did Alexander, you know. 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. We're big at decorating here at the holiday household, as you can imagine, and Wayfair can help make holiday prep easy by having all your home needs in one place. their Black Friday sale is the perfect time to score huge deals on all things home. Starting October 30th, you can shop Wayfares can't miss Black Friday deals all month long.

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So when this happens is in the 18th, 19th century, like the late 18th, early 19th century. So up until that time, the word cynic and the vernacular European languages only means a cynic philosopher into spirit of diogenes. Got it. Like it means the philosopher, not an attribute of a person adjacent to the thing. Exactly, exactly. Like that latter word does not yet exist. The uppercase becomes the lowercase. Exactly. So at this time, the lowercase is introduced. And the lower case is introduced with reference to Rousseau. And what's really interesting about this is that Rousseau himself aligns himself to some extent with Diogenes. And Diogenes was a very popular figure in the French Enlightenment in general because he places such an emphasis on the human use of reason.

and is sort of so anti-authoritarian and anti sort of the traditional divisions in society, which is all very much at home in the French Enlightenment. So Diogenes is a popular figure, uppercase cynic, is a positive term. It's about intellectual independence. Then the problem with Rousseau becomes that there is sort of a big mismatch between his philosophy and the way he lives his life. Yeah, he's a shitty person. Yes. And he's not ashamed about being a shitty person.

Right. For people don't know, he has like five kids and he just one after another gives them up for adoption, just doesn't want them. Yes, yeah. Among other things. And he's very open about this. He's not embarrassed about this at all. Do you think he's a sociopath or something? What do you think it is?

Oh, I really don't know. I mean, I think maybe, like, when I think about Rousseau and sort of this problem is that he would, like, where Diogenes would say, yes, I've changed my mind. Or, yes, this is not entirely inconsistent of me, right? I think Rousseau was trying to make it all fit, right? And sort of that's where he becomes a hypocrite and somewhat crazy. I was thinking about this. Rousseau is like if Camus actually had murdered someone. Right.

You know what? Like, if the stranger wasn't a novel and he just murdered someone just to see what it was like, Rousseau has the elements of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it is in reference to Rousseau that this lowercase cynic word is invented, right? And sort of then comes to mean hypocritical or living your life as if there is no difference between good and bad. Cynic becomes nihilist. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And sort of the notion that there are no standards of justice and that. that it doesn't matter, right? This is a very pessimistic worldview, which is the absolute opposite of what Diogenes thinks, right? Diogenes thinks that it is possible to be a good person and to live a good life. And he thinks that this is something that everybody can do and he wants to teach everybody about this.

He's an idealist in a weird way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, they say, like, a cynic is a spurned idealist. He's not spurned. Right. He just believes it. And he believes it to these preposterous extremes. which he, for the most part, puts into practice.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And it is, it is the, it is the fact that he really believes this, right? That to my mind makes that he's absolutely not a lowercase cynic. Yes. But I think he is sort of able to be an idealist because he does not pretend to be flawless, right? Right. And there's this other anecdote, which I really love, where he says, I'm sort of like, choir director, and I sort of give the pitch to the chorus, but I give it a little bit higher

because I know that they will not quite be able to hit the tone. So if they are sort of striving for what I'm seeing for them, they will get very far in the right direction. So there is sort of this understanding that, you know, what he is doing is not systematic, is not perfect. Right. He is he is setting a tone for us that we can sort of go towards. And I think it is precisely because of this acceptance of this impurity that you're protected against becoming a spurned idealist, right? Because you were never an absolutist idealist anyway, right? And being an absolutist idealist is so dangerous, you know, because it is it is impossible. Right. And then once you get knocked down, once you sort of fall. into the abyss, then what are you going to do, right? Then you're sort of in this place where it's like, well, there's, it's not possible to do the right thing anyway. So why even bother and, you know, none of it, none of it matters.

That's why you become a lowercase cynic. Yeah, if Diogenes was a cynic, in that sense, he wouldn't have spent all this time trying to teach people. Oh, absolutely. He would have given up on them. Like, he doesn't like some of the people in Athens, but I would, he seems like he likes the people of Athens more than Socrates does. Do you know what? Why would you say that? I just mean like, well, first off, he manages to be transgressive and different and provocative and

nobody kills him. Right. You know, like, in a way, Diogenes has better social skills than Socrates. Like, I can't get over the fact that Socrates goes on trial and, you know, like 51% of the jurors vote to acquit him. or vote to convict him. And then when he gives his speech at sentencing, like, 55% vote to convict him to death. Like, he's so obnoxious that, you know, they say art is getting away with it. Diogenes, for the most part, gets away with it in a way that Socrates doesn't. And I think just to go against this idea of being cynical and nasty and antisocial, I think the people of Athens humor, diogenesians, There is more fondness than you might presume or it wouldn't have allowed to go on.

Right. Yeah. No. And I think that Diogenes is shamelessness and his give and take, as it were, right, are what sort of, there's just something about the moment that allows you to, like when you're in an exchange with Diogenes, right? Like somebody comes up to him and says, and says, did you know that movement? is not possible, right? And he's trying to sort of like open this very theoretical, complex, philosophical dilemma of people who were excited about at the time. And theogynes just gets up and walks a circle around him. Here's your featherless biped. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And these

moments are so absurd and disarming that they allow you to look at yourself and look at the world differently in that moment in like sort of a very performative, direct way. Whereas if you're, in a conversation with Socrates, and, you know, I fell in love with ancient philosophy because of Socrates, because of Plato, right? These were my first, my first people and my first authors. But often when you read a platonic dialogue where Socrates is questioning someone, it's like such, it's like such a slow burn. Just say what you fucking mean, dude. Like he makes you think that you're doing so well. He makes you think that you're like on to something. And he's like, oh, really. Really? Oh, really? Well, let's go to the next step. And then only at the very, very end is like, oh, wait a second. Everything of what I just said is nonsense. And we're only finding out now. Right. I think there's, in a way, this is an extreme position, but I, there's something kind of intellectually dishonest about the Socratic method, right? Like he's able, he knows what he thinks, but he never has to say it. He just relentlessly questions you until you question what you thought. And then his implication. hangs there, right? And I think there's something refreshing about Diogenes who just says what he means in a clever, straightforward way from the jump. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's very direct and transparent

and quick. And it's, you know, it's a performance. It's a moment. It's a punk song. Yeah, it's a moment. It's a punk song that you can share. And then you are altered. And I see, I'm, you know, I'm going to be like very nuanced here. Like, I think that the Socratic method is amazing precisely because it takes you through your own arguments and sort of you go step by step and you sort of get there yourself, right? And I do think that that's beautiful and that's really important. It's just that when we read- Being interrogated by Socrates, though, is different. Oh, exactly, exactly.

And also, like, when we read Plato's account of these interrogations, which of course, you know, are. written after the fact and are scripted in a certain way, it's, you know, it's just so clear and it just makes the interlocutor look so bad. And it makes, you know, and I agree with you that there are many moments where it does feel like Socrates is being dishonest. Like, you clearly know where this is going. Like, why does it have to be, why does it have to be like this? Yeah, I think it was McCauley. He said the more I read about Socrates, the more I understand why they kill them. And, yeah, I just, Diogenes gets away with it, you know, and that's an impressive feat, I think.

Absolutely, yeah. Well, I think the book is amazing, and I think more people should know who he is. So thank you for writing it. Thank you so much for talking with me about it. You want to check out some books real fast? Yeah, let's do that. Great. Let's do it.

Ooh, okay, so do you know about Ambrose Pierce, the American cynic? No. He's like our most famous cynic. So, okay, so he's, he wrote The Devil's Dictionary. He's known famously as the cynic. He fights for the Union in the Civil War. And he writes this famous story called An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,

which is probably the most famous. Ever this short story? It's like an amazing short story. It's like super good. So then he becomes like this sort of muck-racking journalist in the Gilded Age. He's like temporary with Mark Twain and stuff. And so everyone, he's like lowercase,

cynic because he's calling out all the bullshit and the horrors of his time but like people aren't getting like Diogenes he's this idealist at heart he's like I don't understand why we're letting these railroad barons by our democracy and it's this fascinating guy I think you're oh I'm so excited thank you so the crazy sort of irony of it is he's actually stoic like his his father's name is Marcus Aurelius Beers and his uncle who who's also, it was a Civil War General, is named Lucius Verus Beers.

So he's kind of steeped in his classical tradition. And he's more, I haven't looked that much of what he said about dad, but he has this devil's dictionary, which has all these hilarious things. Like, let me give you his, let me give you his definition of a philosopher. It's so good, the phrasing is good, I don't wanna do it.

Ambrose, Beers. I had no idea that this, you never even heard of him? No, I had no idea this guy existed. I am so excited. This is what I'll be bringing on in plane. And the stories are, like, there's not a great biography of him. Carrie McWilliams, who was like a sort of muck-raking journalist in the 1900s, write a biography about him, but it's very out of print.

So his definite, so the devil's dictionaries is his most famous work because most of his journalism, other than this one short story, is all forgotten. But his definition of a philosopher is, all are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher. That's excellent. So that one's good. And then the two stories I would read. So he has, okay, so, yeah, occurrence of Alquharic, start there, and then read a Parker

Aderson philosopher, which is this short story about this union soldier who's caught as a spy, and he is like being interrogated and he's this brave sort of prisoner. And he's aping all the things that a stoic or a cynic would say. if they're about to be a sentence to death, which he knows is his thing. And then, like, at the last second, and all of his things have a twist, so I won't.

But at the last second, they tell him, oh, you're not going to be executed by firing squad. You're a spy. You're going to be hung. And then we see whether he means the philosophical pretensions or not. So I think he'll really like him. Okay.

What else might you like? What do you think of the best addition of, like if someone is like, I want to read Diogenes, other than your biography, because we've been trying to round out the philosophy. I think I read the Penguin collection of badges, but what do you recommend to people? I mean, I think the Penguin Edition by Robin Hart is really good because it's quite complete and it has sort of like, it has basically everything you need in English. There's also in this series, in this Princeton series, there is a recent one.

Is there one of the Agenies? Yes, yeah, yeah. And I think it's called How to Say No. How to Say No, okay. This series is incredible. No, it's a great series, yeah. I think doing it, I don't know why it's also in Latin. I think it would be more accessible if it was just.

Oh, I was just going to say, I think it's so nice that they're bilingual because, you know, maybe it'll tempt people. Yeah, maybe. Sure. Into seeing if they can read some of this on their own. Yeah. So yeah, how to say now is the Princeton one about Diogenes, which I think is great. Okay. All right. Yeah.

He's sort of like Musonius Rufus where there's just not a great, have you read this? Yeah. Yeah. I think her translation. I thought it's really good. Yeah. It's what I give to my students. The title is not good.

Right. Yeah. as like cynic or stoic where you're like wait so okay like because it's it so comes down to the words right it's like that one should disdain hardships to me sounds like it's saying like avoid hardships in the same way that like apathy or resignation or um indifference are these words that like mean the opposite of what no and it's exactly like also same word uh or a similar thing was scorn yeah with students like i always talk about score like what do they mean you should scored it.

Yes. Well, what it means is that you shouldn't allow yourself to be bothered by it, but you shouldn't avoid it, right? You should be ready for it and if you encounter it, then you have to, you know, not be derailed, right? That is what it means. But, yeah, I mean, those words are used... Are these things better in other languages?

Like, like how does Dutch render the... Are there similar problems or it's like, no, no, no, because our word is, you know, like that bazillion consonants in it and... There's similar. problems yeah I mean there's a you know the only thing that that I really like about German is that they actually came up with two different words for modern cynicism oh really and for ancient cynicism where modern cynicism is sinism with a z and then ancient cynicism is kinism with a K see that's brilliant so that is

really really helpful so helpful I wish we did that in other languages but not in Dutch when the Germans also would be like well why don't we just mash like 15-word together and call that a new word yes they like to do that too but we like to do that in Dutch a little bit as well yeah that's long words for sure we don't do that in English very much no everything's its own little word I know but the nuance of it is interesting have you read I just I'm writing about it now have you read any of Stockdale I have not do you know who that is so Stockdale's maybe this this book I think is really interesting yeah no I've definitely I've

definitely I know his story yeah I haven't read him it's it's more it's more overtly philosophical than you would think like so as he's parachuting in he says like he knows he's like I'm entering the world of Epicetus like he's explicitly thinking of a POW camp as a training ground to be a philosopher which is heavy and very interesting yeah and also so so true to the stoics and the cynics yes to sort of say okay this is what I'm experiencing this is happening to me right now and this is what I've trained for and I'm ready for it and it's an opportunity to sort of to develop

myself even further and but also the idea that the philosophers are not having easy tenured lives oh yeah no in the sense of like like even Diogenes you go but it's like he's living thousands of miles from or I don't know hundreds of miles how far it is exactly, but he, like, exile must not have been fun. Like, he might have made a light of it, but he's sent away from where he, and he loses everything, you know, like, there is this sense of, like, I love this. They did a new edition of Victor Frankel, and it's yes to life, and then the subtitle is, in spite of everything.

There's something about that of the ancient stokes of just having a rough go at it that I think is powerful. Yeah, and also the very basic, I mean, it almost sounds like a, latitude but I do think it's so meaningful to say that philosophy is something that you live right it's it's it's something that's in your experience and it is in the everyday and it is in the very smallest thing and like in your very smallest decision and it's it's not an armchair activity well I think that's probably why Diagogy is so dismissive of that like the thing about like what's a human it's a featherless biped or the the like oh we can't walk or

you can't move and it's like let me show you he's just like I don't have time for this bullshit let me like these are not the questions we should be asking the questions are not like how do we know if we live in a computer simulation it's like what am I supposed to do about the fact that the government just took my stuff and threw me in jail yeah yeah no and especially if you were sort of pursuing all of these hyper theoretical abstract questions but in your every day life are sort of being very unreflective and very unethical, like, I mean, that, like, that is what just gets Diogenes mad, right? And what do you think he thought of Bereslaw? Oh.

Actually working for Alexander. Oh, I mean, I think, you know, I think he thought just as, as badly of it as he thought of Plato going to Sicily, right? I think he would have had no, no respect, right? James Rahm was actually just here. Yeah, I saw. His book about, what's the tyrant's name? Dionysus. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's fascinating. Yeah, that they would both, because his book about Seneca, I loved Dynabria, that too smart people would get snookered so badly by something that, like, and I guess this goes to your point about being on the outside of the inside, that is so transparently obvious to everyone else who thought about. And then you're like, oh yeah, there's all the, like, you see it now, these smart people who, who, like, there's obviously these dumb people who fall

for demagogues, right? All the time. That's what a demagogue does. But what's more interesting than, of course, terrifying is the mental gymnastics that a smart person can do to be like, actually this isn't horrible and it's good and that's why I should participate. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I mean, I think it's, I think it's a combination between, you know, wanting, wanting to be part of, of, of the moment, right? And sort of being misguided about what your best, exactly, wanting to be in the room where it happens, right? And being misguided about the tradeoff between impact and also being misguided about what impact is, right? I mean, Diogenes goes into the marketplace because he thinks that's where it can have impact, because that's where everybody will see him and talk to him

and he does. And yeah, I mean, yeah, I think it's a combination between wanting to be in the room where happens and sort of you know being sensitive to status being sensitive to status of the king and being like well if the king wants me to come and also that the superpower of kings it's the brutality often and the violence and the power but also they're really good at provoking that reaction in people like they're really good at making you think that you're important to them and that they need you and that you can restrain them and you know like they're the superpower is like the superpower of a trump is his ability for every person to meet him and go oh it's going to go

differently with me and you like that Elon Musk is going to be like no i think it's going to go well it's like anyone with like so what is that ability and i think that's what's what what both Plato and Nero Fall For, and Diogenes has no, like, doesn't entertain it for a second. He sees Alexander for what he is. No, and I think, you know, for Diogenes, he meets Alexander, and if Alexander had wanted to change his life after he met Diogenes, great, right? But Diogenes was not going to go to Alexander and was not going to change himself and drop everything because he thinks he's the one and because he thinks well who it's Alexander I mean he was

ultimately just not intimidated by Alexander he was like okay Alexander is just the same as the fishmonger I talked to yesterday and if Alexander wants to talk to me that's just as interesting as talking to the fishmonger that's great um but he's also probably like he's a psychopath I I think he probably reads it I bet he sees him clearly as unchangeable in a way that Aristotle fools himself about. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Yeah. That he would listen. Yeah. No. And also, you know, for Diogenes, he, I mean, he sets the terms. Yes. Right? Like, so, okay, if there was maybe some hope for Alexander, the very first step is that he

comes to him instead of expecting Diogenes to go there, right? So it's already in that motion that you see the big difference between. between dodging and everyone else, that he won't go and visit them. Yeah, I have a quote that I keep next to my desk where it's soft, and I think they were Pompey's last words. It's a line from soft please. He says, whoever goes to the court of a tyrant

becomes his slave, even if he goes there, a free man. 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.