Diogenes: The Rebellious Life and Revolutionary Philosophy of the Original Cynic
by Inger N.I. Kuin
If Diogenes did not exist, we would not have to invent him, because he lived a life of disrupting expectations.
This is a book about Diogenes the Cynic. Not Diogenes the cynic, which is a joke that works poorly in English.
Structured as a biography, the author takes a sort of ‘what if’ reading to the biography of Diogenes, a middle ground between overly credulous ancients and dismally disbelieving contemporaries, assuming that the stories about him reflect some truth or true event, so the project is to find out what that might be.
Cynicism stands aside philosophically. Its influence is evident in more remarked on philosophies of the time like Stoicism. It shows up rarely but consistently throughout the eras. Yet the author points how how no one is willing to swallow the frog, how it is always a consistently elided Cynicism, frequently over matters of sex and a more general contempt for conventional action, that (particularly Stoicism and Christianity), wanted nothing to do with.
It is a good read, relatively short. The problem is the overall lack of evidence. The author is aware of this, and more interested in the structure of conjecture and story. For me that is pretty neat in terms of thinking about the way the philosophy works, but I can see readers whom it would frustrate.
I think that the value here is in the always funny retelling of all the stories about Diogenes. Even when not true, they are hilarious, and much like with Cynical philosophy represent a sort of perpetual bit of the human condition that is frequently unrepresented.
My thanks to the author, Inger N.I. Kuin, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Basic Books, for making the ARC available to me.
CITATION HEEDED 