to L (5), A and the Cynics (6), Z K and the Stoics (7:
possibly down to the 1st c. CE: the end of the book is lost); the Italic Tradition (Books 8–10):
P and his early successors, and E (8), H, the Eleatics,
the Atomists, P, D A, and Pyrrho (9), and finally
E (10).
Diogene ̄s’ book is basically a compilation of excerpts from a large number of sources and
often provides us with the main evidence for the Hellenistic tradition. The qualities and the
structure are very uneven: some lives are nothing but anecdotes and aphorism while others
are primarily doxographies. Some lives have important sections on philosophy (e.g. the Lives
of Ze ̄no ̄n in Book 7 and Pyrrho in Book 9) while others are of no help in reconstructing the
philosophy of a thinker (e.g. Plato in Book 3 and Aristotle in Book 5; in both cases, however,
they exemplify how later generations interpreted their predecessors). For the Pre-Socratics,
Diogene ̄s used a doxographical source of a type also found in other late sources (e.g.
H).
Most of Diogene ̄s’ biographies included a number of items like birth, parents, name,
appearance, relations to other philosophers, travels, life style, and manner of death;
many lives also contain bibliographies and some pieces of documentary evidence. The
comprehensiveness of a life depends on the number of anecdotes available, but the
factual information must always be viewed with skepticism and there are many obvious
mistakes.
Ed.: M. Marcovich, Diogenes Laertius Vitae Philosophorum (1999); M.-O. Goulet-Cazé, Diogène Laërce: Vies et
doctrines des philosophes illustres (1999), with intr. and commentary.
Mejer (1978); Elenchos 7 (1986) and ANRW 2.36.5–6 (1991–1992) contain many articles on Diogene ̄s;
R. Goulet, Études sur les vies de philosophes dans l’antiquité tardive. Diogène Laërce, Porphyre de Tyr, Eunape de
Sardes (2001).
Jørgen Mejer
Diogene ̄s of Apollo ̄nia (ca 445 – 425 BCE)
Followed the long-deceased A in making air the basic reality. Often thought
eclectic, he was influenced both by A and L. He may, however, have
given the first argument for material monism, the view that all things are made up of one
kind of matter (fr.2): if there were not some common principle in different things, they
would not be able to interact. Diogene ̄s held that air is the ultimate reality and the source
of intelligence in living things, as can be seen by the fact that animals must breathe to live.
The intelligence in air, responsible for the orderly nature of the world, controls all things
and is to be identified with God. Diogene ̄s developed a cosmology similar to Anaxagoras’,
with stony bodies carried around the Earth. He gave detailed account of the circulatory
system as a means of distributing air throughout the body, and an account of perception as
resulting from air. His views seem to have been popular among intellectuals and to have
been parodied by Aristophane ̄s in The Clouds of 423 BCE. Some scholars have claimed he
stressed the purposiveness of the world and invented the first argument for the existence of
God from design. But he may have used the orderliness of the world only to argue for the
ascendancy of air.
DK 64; KRS 434–452; A. Laks, Diogène d’Apollonie (1983).
Daniel W. Graham
DIOGENE ̄S OF APOLLO ̄NIA