/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.9831684]

>When Plato gave Socrates's definition of man as "featherless bipeds" and was much praised for the definition, Diogenes plucked a chicken and brought it into Plato's Academy, saying, "Behold! I've brought you a man." After this incident, "with broad flat nails" was added to Plato's definition.
Was Diogenes a postmodernist?

[Anonymous No.9831696]

>>9831684
im redpilled white nationalism

[Anonymous No.9831733]

>>9831684
wtf no. He was a cynic, maybe an absurdist by modern definitions, but I can't think of anything remotely post-modern about his philosophy. Post-modernism requires distance, in order to be able to compare your society against another. Even at the height of alexander's empire, i really doubt Diogenes had the ability to adopt a relativist position on his own culture and others.

[Anonymous No.9831739]

>>9831696
im the dog with no neck that isn't cool enuff to hang with diogenes dogs

[Jeff Mangum Died For Your Sins !rAl8Mz2mp2 No.9831780]

>>9831733
Relativism predates Plato and Diogenes. Sophists like Protagoras were promulgating relativism back in the 5th century BC.

[Anonymous No.9831852]

>>9831780
>Protagoras
hadn't read about him before, but his relativism seems restricted to personal feelings between people, and not a relativism between cultures. I'm guessing like most good greek citizens of the era, he considered the rest of the world to be sub-human barbarians.

Post-modernism is a deep skepticism towards modern society and it's technologies, governmental methods, social norms because of the ability to posit a subject outside of one's own culture. I just really doubt this was very possible in Diogenes era.

[Anonymous No.9831859]

Reminder that Plato and his followers were hacks

[Anonymous No.9831870]

>>9831684
>Diogenes
The mot Reddit philosopher, but you gotta love him.

[Jeff Mangum Died For Your Sins !rAl8Mz2mp2 No.9831890]

>>9831852
>hadn't read about him before
If you haven't read about the pre-Socratics, then you can't really make blanket statements about the sort of positions a philosopher was able to espouse at the time. Herodotus (who also predates Plato) wrote about barbarians in an uncharacteristically honest manner, and made a few relativistic observations. Sophists were basically post-modernists.

[Anonymous No.9831938]

>>9831890

So basically, the only line between Sophism and post-modernism is irony? Sophists never appeared to be as tongue-in-cheek as what we have today, insofar as what we have available to read.

[Anonymous No.9831942]

>>9831890
>If you haven't read about the pre-Socratics, then you can't really make blanket statements about the sort of positions a philosopher was able to espouse at the time. Herodotus (who also predates Plato) wrote about barbarians in an uncharacteristically honest manner, and made a few relativistic observations. Sophists were basically post-modernists.

I've read a bit about the pre-socratics, but more importantly I feel I've read enough about Cynicism and Post-Modernism to know they aren't the same thing.

Cynicism doesn't go whole hog in believing that there is no single truth or objective position from which to start philosophy. Both Cynicism and Post-modernism share some similarities in their rejection of social norms and traditions and skepticism towards formalist knowledge, but post-modern relativism requires a globalist consciousness, an ability to see one's culture from the outside. I also don't think you can arrive at the character of post-modern philosophy without technological catastrophes like the atomic bomb and the holocaust. Post-modern skepticism is rooted in the idea that modernist utopianism is dangerous on an existential level. Cynical skepticism is rooted in the idea that formalist and idealist systems are simply foolish and inaccurate.

I know there are plenty of similarities between the ideologies, but there are some pretty huge differences, so I don't think I could agree with

>Sophists were basically post-modernists.

Which is also a confusing statement, because OP was asking if Diogenes is a post-modernist, which I don't think he is either.

[Anonymous No.9832893]

>>9831684
ITT: reddit discusses greek philosophy

[Anonymous No.9832909]

>>9831859
Severely underrated.

[Anonymous No.9832914]

>>9831890

You literally can't be post-modern without modernism. I mean, the post-modernists weren't deconstructing Celtic Britain were they? No, its a Western theory that only applies to the modern West.