Diogenes of Sinope (404-323 BC) Cynicism

http://www.iep.utm.edu/cynics/
While Diogenes was relaxing in the sunlight in the morning, Alexander, thrilled to meet the famous philosopher, asked if there was any favour he might do for him. Diogenes replied, "Yes, stand out of my sunlight". Alexander then declared, "If I were not Alexander, then I should wish to be Diogenes."
When Plato is asked what sort of man Diogenes is, he responds, "A Socrates gone mad"
He is labeled mad for acting against convention, but Diogenes points out that it is the conventions which lack reason.
Diogenes is a harsh critic of Plato, regularly disparaging Plato's metaphysical pursuits and thereby signaling a clear break from primarily theoretical ethics.

One guiding principle is that if an act is not shameful in private, that same act is not made shameful by being performed in public. For example, it was contrary to Athenian convention to eat in the marketplace, and yet there he would eat for, as he explained when reproached, it was in the marketplace that he felt hungry. The most scandalous of these sorts of activities involves his indecent behavior in the marketplace (masturbation), to which he responded "he wished it were as easy to relieve hunger by rubbing an empty stomach" iogenes is clearly contentious, but he is so for the sake of promoting reason and virtue. In the end, for a human to be in accord with nature is to be rational, for it is in the nature of a human being to act in accord with reason. Diogenes has trouble finding such humans, and expresses his sentiments regarding his difficulty theatrically. Diogenes is reported to have "lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, 'I am searching for a human being'" (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6, Chapter 41).

As a homeless and penniless exile, Diogenes experienced the greatest misfortunes of which the tragedians write, and yet he insisted that he lived the good life: "He claimed that to fortune he could oppose courage, to convention nature, to passion reason"

"Diogenes, when asked from what country he came, replied, "I am a citizen of the world"

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