Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

This is yet another Loeb book where I have shamefully lost the companion volume! This is volume II of the 'Lives of Eminent Philosophers' and it has, among many others, sections on Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Zeno, Epicurus and Diogenes - this last is the philosopher-cynic, not our author Diogenes Laertius, who is really little more than a sophisticated gossip. But actually, that is more than a little harsh, this collection of anecdotes is not only fun but it gives us information that is often only mentioned by our author, D. Laertius. Unfortunately, without confirmation, much of what he testifies to is either not accepted or, at the very least, open to question. But for those of us interested in the philosophers, and the relations between them and their ways of philosophizing, this book really is both educational and entertaining. For instance, on Diogenes (the philosopher-cynic, not our author, the gossip) we read, "Being reproached with begging when Plato did not beg, 'Oh yes,' says he [that is, Diogenes the Philosopher says] 'he does, but when he does so -He holds his head down close, that none may hear.'" It seems that many of the first generation of 'Socratics' were contemptuous of what might be best described as Plato's (ahem) 'kowtowing' to popular opinion. 'Begging' here means (probably) Plato's attempt to influence the City and its Nomos. For many of the other Socratics there was on the one hand Philosophy and there was on the other hand Law (Nomos) and never the two shall meet. But Plato, through his cautious writing, intends to 'influence' the City in order to make it more philosophical - or, at the very least, more friendly to philosophy. Recall that Kojeve once remarked (something to the effect) that once Socrates set foot and began speaking in the marketplace modernity itself becomes inevitable. We always need to add that this supposed 'inevitability' vanishes entirely if Plato chose to live like the philosopher Diogenes did... But the squabbles and banter between the Socratics Diogenes and Plato can be quite interesting: "Others tell us that what Diogenes said was, 'I trample upon the pride of Plato,' who retorted, 'Yes Diogenes, with pride of another sort'." To Plato, who had given him more than he asked, Diogenes said, "So, it seems, you neither give as you are asked nor answer as you are questioned." "As Plato was conversing about Ideas using the nouns 'tablehood' and 'cuphood,' he said, 'Table and cup I see; but your tablehood and cuphood, Plato, I can nowise see.' 'That's readily accounted for,' said Plato, 'for you have the eyes to see the visible table and cup; but not the understanding by which ideal tablehood and cuphood are discerned'." So we see that Diogenes is not ready to follow Plato into his Ideal world. Diogenes questions, as he did obliquely in our first quote above, the 'honesty' of Plato. It seems that Plato is 'purposefully' unclear. And keep in mind that it isn't only Diogenes who thinks so. Ep

We know but very little, if not almost nothing about Diogenes Laertius. However, this book, written, compilated by him is of tremendous, by far even underestimated IMPORTANCE FOR OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. The shortage of biographical data is rather remarquable while he wrote no less than 82 biographies of the antique thinkers and their theories. In his work one can easily distinct an inexhaustive passion for "COMPLETENESS", which turns out quite HUMORISTIC ... This tune makes it a real delight to read this superb collection of his "memories", the result of the tremendous MEMORY (and work, research) he must have had. He wrote down EVERYTHING HE KNEW and almost didn't note any differentiation in his own "communications". LAERTIUS STANDS FOR THE ENCYCLOPAEDIC AUTODIDACT, a man who always excells in zeal ... and lack of being fastidious and scepsis towards his subject. His so IMPORTANT, MARVELOUS LIFEWORK contains - in 10 books - the description of the lives of about 80 philosophers, from the "SEVEN WIZARDS" until Epicure. While the vast majority of the sources out of which Diogenes Laertius collected his knowledge have definitely dried up, are destroyed, HIS COMPILATION about the life and the doctrines and theories of all the famous Greek thinkers that were known to him, IS OF INVALUABLE IMPORTANCE up until today for life itself, for history and of course for philosophy. We very probably would never have known now about "his protagonists", about Greek philosophy. What is more, thanks to the many anecdotes, epigrams, letters, citations, testaments, etc... THIS OEUVRE IS EASILY READABLE ... WITH A LOT OF HUMOR !! However this is a book of REFERENCE (for philosophy), I RECOMMEND IT WARMLY TO ALL READERS: AN OUTSTANDING OEUVRE that is very RARE in its genre. YOU DO NOT AT ALL HAVE TO BE A PHILOSOPHER TO READ THIS: IT IS AS IF YOU READ A NOVEL ABOUT WHO DID WHAT. A BOOK THAT YOU WILL ENJOY (sic!) AND NEVER EVER IN YOUR LIFE WILL FORGET ABOUT!

This opening line from Diogenes Laertius (as translatedby Robert Drew Hicks) neatly sums up the approach ofDiogenes in compiling this amazing amount of materialabout the ancient philosophers. Some of the materialis valuable, some is stuff...but even the "stuff" ispretty interesting coming from such an "ancient"compilier (one dating for Diogenes is (ca. A.D. 225-250). According to Herbert S. Long in his "Introduction"to Vol. 1 (there are 2 volumes in the complete set ofthe Loeb Classical Library Diogenes published by HarvardUniv. Press -- Vol. 1: ISBN 0-674-99203-2 and Vol. 2:ISBN 0-674-99204-0) -- Diogenes ranges from being asource of valuable information about the lives of theancient philosophers to a source of highly readable,even entertaining, but sometimes unreliable thoughtbites. A few things Long has to say are: "His account of Plato,one of his longest, clearly shows how superficial andunreliable he was [sigh...]." "The tone of his work asa whole suits better a man of the world who happened tobe interested in philosophers, but more as men and writersthan as philosophers in a technical sense." Which meansthat Diogenes can appeal to the general reader who isinterested in anecdotes and fascinating out-of-the-waypuns and "gossip" about the philosophers (as compiledfrom tomes of secondary and tertiary sources)-- as wellas to the scholar interested in seeing the effect ofa compiler/synthesizer as a source of information.According to Long, again, "Diogenes has acquired animportance out of all proportion to his merits becausethe loss of many primary sources and of the earliersecondary compilations has accidentally left him thechief continuous source for the history of Greekphilosophy." Volume I of the 2-volume set includes Books I throughV, containing a "Prologue" and going from the beginningwith Thales in Book I to Aristotle at the beginning ofBook V. Volume II begins with Book VI and goes throughBook X, with Antisthenes at the beginning of Book VIand ending with the entire Book X devoted to Epicurus. Diogenes starts out his work by taking to task thosewho claim that philosophy arose among the barbarians,who rest their claims with the Persians and their Magi,the Babylonians and Assyrians with their Chaldaeans,the Indians with their Gymnosophists, and the Celtsand Gauls with their Druids. But Diogenes assertively states: "These authors forgetthat the achievements which they attribute to thebarbarians belong to the Greeks, with whom not merelyphilosophy but the human race itself began." [!!!] One example of his interesting material concernsthe ancient figure of "Linus": "Linus again was (soit is said) the son of Hermes and the Muse Urania. Hecomposed a poem describing the creation of the world,the courses of the sun and moon, and the growth ofanimals and plants. * * * Linus died in Euboea, slainby the arrow of Apollo, and this is his epitaph: Here Theban Linus, whom Urania bore,/ The fair-crowned Muse, sleeps on a foreign shore." Very provo

Volume 2 of this edition of Diogenes Laertius' work is invaluable to students of Epicureanism who want to access Epicurus' thoughts in the original Greek. Diogenes Laertius has faithfully copied three of his letters and a collection of maxims: the sum Athenian philospher's intact works. Hicks' translation provides an excellent gloss of the Greek, but not a very good crib because he resolves Epicurus' compact and tortured Greek into smoother English. This is a first-rate edition from the excellent Loeb collection. A great companion to the Loeb edition of Lucretius!

Diogenes Lartius' 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. The organization of Diogenes' work into successions of philosophers and schools of thought provided the foundation for the subsequent organization of the history of ancient philosophy. Interspersed throughout his fascinating book, full of legends and tidbits about the lives of individual philosophers, Diogenes Laertius has preserved entire bibliographies, reports of raging philosophical controversies, as well as poetry (including his own very mediocre compositions). This work is a must-read for the serious student of ancient western thought.