Diogenes Laertius [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy](Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-17)
Diogenes Laertius, native of Laerte in Cilicia, was a biographer of ancient Greek philosophers.
Diogenes is generally as reliable as whatever source he happens to be copying from at that moment.
Especially when Diogenes is setting down amusing or scandalous stories about the lives and deaths of various philosophers which are supposed to serve as fitting illustrations of their thought, the reader should be wary.
The most renowned of these is Diogenes of Sinope, the philosopher who walked throughout Athens carrying a lantern in daylight, searching for an honest man. The other is Diogenes Laertius, who lived in the 3rd Century CE and was an historian of various teachers of philosophy, including the teachings and customs of the Druids.
Diogenes calmly bore the rebuke and said, "Strike me, Antisthenes, but you will never find a stick sufficiently hard to remove me from your presence, while you speak anything worth hearing." The philosopher was so much pleased with this reply that he at once admitted him among his scholars.
Diogenes probably was visited by Alexander, when the latter held the general assembly of the Greeks at Corinth, and was received by him with rudeness and incivility, which may have given rise to the whole story.
Diogenes scolds Hegesias after he asks to be lent one of Diogenes’ writing tablets: “You are a simpleton, Hegesias; you do not choose painted figs, but real ones; and yet you pass over the true training and would apply yourself to written rules” (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6, Chapter 48).
For Diogenes, each individual should either allow reason to guide her conduct, or, like an animal, she will need to be lead by a leash; reason guides one away from mistakes and toward the best way in which to live life.
Diogenes is a harsh critic of Plato, regularly disparaging Plato’s metaphysical pursuits and thereby signaling a clear break from primarily theoretical ethics.
www.iep.utm.edu /d/diogsino.htm (1683 words)
Friendster - Joel Garland(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-17)
Diogenes, "the Cynic," Greek philosopher, was born at Sinope about 412 BC (according to other sources 399 BC), and died in 323 at Corinth, according to DiogenesLartius, on the day on which Alexander the Great died at Babylon.
Diogenes asked him not to stand between him and the sun, to which Alexander replied "If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes." (In another account, Alexander found the philosopher rummaging through a pile of human bones.
Diogenes is the first person known to have thought, and said, "I am a citizen of the whole world," rather than of any particular city or state.
Diogenes of Sinope is said to have been a disciple of Antisthenes, a cynic whom Plato says in Phaedo was present at the death of Socrates.
Diogenes was considered by his sympathizers to be a devotee of reason and an exemplar of honesty, and said by his detractors to be an obnoxious ragpicker and an offensive churl.
Diogenes maintained that all the artificial growths of society were incompatible with happiness and that morality implies a return to the simplicity of nature.
DiogenesLaërtius (Διογένης ὁ Λαέρτιος), the biographer of the Greek philosophers, is supposed by some to have received his surname from the town of Laerte in Cilicia, and by others from the Roman family of the Laërtii.
Barnes, Jonathan, "Diogenes Laertius IX 61-116: the philosophy of Pyrrhonism" in W. Haase and H. Temporini (ed.) Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, II 36.6 (de Gruyter: Berlin/New York, 1992): pp.
Diogenes Laertius: the Manuscripts of "The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosphers" (notes on the publication history of Diogenes Laertius, from R.D. Hicks' edition of the "Lives", 1925)
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C.D. DIOGENES was a native of Sinope, the son of Tresius, a money-changer.
But Eubulides, in his essay on Diogenes, says, that it was Diogenes himself who did this, and that he was banished with his father.
And the boys retained in their memory many sentences of poets and prose writers, and of Diogenes himself; and he used to give them a concise statement of everything in order to strengthen their memory; and at home he used to teach them to wait upon themselves, contenting themselves with plain food, and drinking water.
Notes on Diogenes Laertius(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-17)
Diogenes Laertius is the author of the only work to survive from antiquity which describes the history of philosophy from its inception to the beginnings of the Common Era, called The Lives of the Philosophers.
On P. 334, Diogenes Laertius says that Socrates offered 25 drachmae as a fine at his trial, and then suggested free meals at the Prytaneum.
Diogenes Laertius does not indicate that there is any difference between Plato and Xenophon and later sources such as Justus of Tiberias and Eubulides.
Amazon.com: Reviews for Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Volume II, Books 6-10 (Loeb Classical Library ...(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-17)
Diogenes Laertius has faithfully copied three of his letters and a collection of maxims: the sum Athenian philospher's intact works.
DiogenesLartius' Lives of the Philosophers is a flawed work by an unsinspired thinker and poetaster.
His work is, however, indispensable to the student of ancient western thought and writing, as his quotations of many earlier philosophers, poets, and miscellaneous writers, whose works have perished, have left a large body of fragments for the historian to collect and analyze.
His fame was so completely overshadowed by that of Democritus, who systematized his views on atoms, that Epicurus doubted his very existence, according to Diogenes Laertius x.
However Aristotle and Theophrastus explicitly credit Leucippus with the invention of Atomism.The most famous among Leucippus' lost works were titled Megas Diakosmos (The Great Order of the Universe or The great world-system) and Peri Nou (On Mind).
Laertius Diogenes, DiogenesLartius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers,
www.crystalinks.com /leucippus.html (919 words)
Amazon.com: Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Volume II, Books 6-10 (Loeb Classical Library No. 185): ...(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-17)
This rich compendium on the lives and doctrines of philosophers ranges over three centuries, from Thales to Epicurus (to whom the whole tenth book is devoted); 45 important figures are portrayed.
Diogenes Laertius lived probably in the earlier half of the 3rd century A.D., his ancestry and birthplace being unknown.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Diogenes Laertius is in two volumes.
Diogenes Laertius is the author of the only preserved example of an ancient "history of philosophy." The title of his book varies in surviving manuscripts but seems most likely to have been Compendium of the Lives and Opinions of Philosophers (circa thir...
Diogenes Laertius(C. 200 Ce) Diogenes Laertius is the author of Compendium of the Lives and Opinions of Philosophers, the only general book on philosophers and their philosophy that has been transmitted from classical antiquity.
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www.bookrags.com /Diogenes_Laertius (159 words)
Mill Utalitarianism John >> Stuart Utillitarianism Mill Blackwell - Great Uitllitarianism Mill(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-17)
John Stuart's feats as a child were exceptional; at the age of three he was taught the Greek alphabet and long lists of Greek words with their English equivalents.
By the age of eight he had read Aesop's Fables, Xenophon's Anabasis, and the whole of Herodotus, and was acquainted with Lucian, DiogenesLartius, Isocrates and six dialogues of Plato (see his Autobiography).
He had also read a great deal of history in English and had been taught arithmetic.
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Melissus of Samos, a Greek philosopher of the Eleatic School, was born probably not later than 470 B.C. According to DiogenesLartius, he was not only a thinker, but also a political leader in his native town, and was in command of the fleet which defeated the Athenians in 442.
The same authority says he was a pupil of Parmenides and of Heraclitus, but the statement is improbable, owing to discrepancy in dates.
