1001Philosophers

Aristotle vs Diogenes of Sinope on Knowledge

Aristotle treats knowledge as the patient systematic inquiry that organizes itself into demonstrative sciences across every field. Diogenes of Sinope rejects systematic philosophy as itself a polite distraction from how one should actually live: the only knowing that matters is the practical demonstration of natural virtue against the conventions of civilized life. Where Aristotelian knowing accumulates and clarifies, Cynic knowing strips away what civilization has imposed on the natural human.

About this topic

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature, sources, and limits of knowledge. Philosophers have asked what distinguishes knowledge from mere opinion, whether it requires certainty or can be probabilistic, and how perception, reason, memory, and testimony each contribute. Ancient skeptics challenged the possibility of knowledge altogether, while rationalists located its source in reason and empiricists in experience. Contemporary epistemology investigates justification, reliability, and the social conditions under which beliefs count as knowing.

For a side-by-side overview of the two philosophers more broadly, see the full Aristotle vs Diogenes of Sinope comparison. To browse philosophy more widely on this theme, see the Knowledge quotes hub.

Representative quotes on knowledge

Aristotle on knowledge

  • “All men by nature desire to know.”

    Metaphysics Book I, 980a.21 : Opening paragraph of Metaphysics | Variant: All men by nature desire knowledge. | The first sentence is in the Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2005), 21:10

  • “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”

    Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

  • “Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history, for poetry expresses the universal and history only the particular.”

    διὸ καὶ φιλοσοφώτερον καὶ σπουδαιότερον ποίησις ἱστορίας ἐστίν: ἡ μὲν γὰρ ποίησις μᾶλλον τὰ καθόλου, ἡ δ᾽ ἱστορία τὰ καθ᾽ ἕκαστον λέγει.

  • “My lectures are published and not published; they will be intelligible to those who heard them, and to none beside.”

    Letter to Alexander the Great as quoted by William Whewell , History of the Inductive Sciences (1837), Ch. 2, Sect. 2

  • “Of things said without any combination, each signifies either substance or quantity or qualification or a relative or where or when or being-in-a-position or having or doing or being affected . To give a rough idea, examples of substance are man, horse; of quantity: four-foot, five-foot; of qualification: white, grammatical; of a relative: double, half, larger; of where: in the Lyceum, in the market-place; of when: yesterday, last-year; of being-in-a-position: is-lying, is sitting; of having: has-shoes-on, has-armour-on; of doing: cutting, burning; of being-affected: being-cut, being-burned.”

    1b25-2a10; J. L. Ackrill (tr.), 1984-1995

All 10 Aristotle quotes on knowledge →

Diogenes of Sinope on knowledge

  • “When Alexander the Great addressed him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything, Diogenes replied "Yes, stand a little out of my sunshine .”

    From Plutarch , Alexander , 14. Cf. Diogenes Laërtius , vi. 38, Cicero , Tusculan Disputations , v. 32

  • “From Plutarch , Alexander , 14. Cf. Diogenes Laërtius , vi. 38, Cicero , Tusculan Disputations , v. 32”

    When Alexander the Great addressed him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything, Diogenes replied "Yes, stand a little out of my sunshine .

  • “Plutarch , On Exile , 12 ( Moralia , 604D)”

    Aristotle dines when it seems good to King Philip , but Diogenes when he himself pleases.

  • “Plutarch , Moralia , 74C”

    If you are to be kept right , you must possess either good friends or red-hot enemies . The one will warn you, the other will expose you.

  • “On reaching Athens he fell in with Antisthenes. Being repulsed by him, because he never welcomed pupils, by sheer persistence Diogenes wore him out. Once when he stretched out his staff against him, the pupil offered his head with the words, "Strike, for you will find no wood hard enough to keep me away from you, so long as I think you've something to say.”

    Diogenes Laërtius , vi. 21,

All 10 Diogenes of Sinope quotes on knowledge →

Continue reading