Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

I consider [this courtly philosophy] to be compounded from the lives of many philosophers, namely Aristippus Aristippus of Cyrene (c. 435–356 BCE) was a pupil of Socrates but founded a school that prioritized pleasure; he was famous for his ability to adapt to the luxurious life of royal courts. (who certainly was a truly courtly philosopher), Diogenes, Crates, and Epicurus; for you, on the contrary, and for those like you, I judge the Socratic Socrates was often contrasted with the more "courtly" or "pleasurable" philosophers because of his unwavering commitment to truth and virtue, even unto death. life to be a better fit. But let me have joked enough so far. For everyone knows that from this work of Diogenes, we should seek not what makes us better, but what makes us more learned. I would have said "wiser," had I not remembered that "wise" is coupled with "good" by Horace himself—just as when he writes in Epistles, Book I:

And Cicero himself complains that the "wise" are separated from the "good," and says that this brings great ruin. "This then is that ruin," he says, "that they consider some to be good, and others to be wise." Cicero often argued that true wisdom (sapientia) could not exist without moral goodness (bonitas). And yet, when I say that from these books of Diogenes we should seek things that make us more learned rather than better, I would not want this to be taken as if nothing were read here that might teach us what the duty of a good man is (a good man, I say, judged not by a Christian but by a philosophical standard); but since others...