![]() When Hegesias asked to read some of his writing, he reportedly replied, “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.” The lack of surviving texts may be down to Diogenes himself, at least partly. ![]() As we don’t have the original works of Diogenes, we can’t be sure which of these stories might be true and which are apocryphal as they reflect how others saw him, not necessarily how he presented himself. ![]() The Cynic is infamous for masturbating in public, going naked, eating in the market, and carrying a lamp around in the middle of the day. It may be that Plato was simply such a great writer that his works were preserved while the works of others were not, or perhaps other factors played a role in which works were saved and which were lost.Īccording to the biographer of philosophers, Diogenes Laertius, the Cynical philosopher Diogenes of Sinope (no relationship to the biographer), also wrote a number of books.* If he actually did, none survives today. Of course, Bertrand Russell found it ludicrous to praise Plato’s ideas based on the quality of his writing, saying, “That Plato’s Republic should have been admired, on its political side, by decent people, is perhaps the most astonishing example of literary snobbery in all history.” Other famous thinkers of the ancient world weren’t as lucky as Plato although their reputations survive somewhat through the words of others, we often have no copies of their original works or just a few remaining fragments. He was a superstar of the ancient world, and the fact that his dialogs have endured for millennia attests to the fact of his beautiful writing. No one can question Plato’s writing and rhetorical abilities. ![]()
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