Quotation
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“When Plato defined the human being as a featherless biped and was applauded, Diogenes plucked a cock and brought it into the school, saying, 'Here is Plato's human being.'”
Diogenes of Sinope · Cynicism · Ancient · anecdote written in the 3rd century CE about a 4th-century BCE figure
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is a lesson about definitions. A formula that sounds precise, featherless and two-footed, still lets a plucked chicken into the class, so the definition has not caught what it named. A competing reading thinks the joke unfair, because Plato's definition in the reported scene was a classroom exercise, and a chicken does not refute a serious account of human nature. The story is Lives 6.40. Its value is the demand that a definition survive a counterexample, which is a real logical point whoever plucked the bird. The badge stays Questionable because the scene is late biography. Diogenes is pictured as doing philosophy with a prop, which fits the Cynic habit of arguing in the street rather than in a treatise.
Did Diogenes of Sinope really say this?
The library’s label is Questionable. Diogenes Laertius 6.40. A famous joke at Plato's definition, told centuries later. The story is Cynic legend. It is not a quotation from a dialogue, and Plato's definition is itself a report.
Where it comes from
Diogenes Laertius, Lives 6.40
Approximate date: anecdote written in the 3rd century CE about a 4th-century BCE figure.
How to use it
A policy that defines a 'resident' so tightly that it also fits someone it was meant to exclude, or excludes someone it was meant to include, has met the chicken. Bring the awkward case into the room. The anecdote does not say every definition is a trick. It says applause is not a test.
A mindset reading
Counterexamples are allowed to be rude. They still have to be cases of the thing the definition claimed to capture. The habit is to state the definition in a sentence someone else can try to break. If it cannot be stated, the chicken has nothing to refute.
Understand the philosophy
Lives 6.40 is the plucked-fowl story. The key target is a definition of the human being as a featherless biped, a formula also mocked in Plato's own dialogues by a different route. The Cynic version makes the criticism a public joke. It sits with the other biographical cards, not with a book of Diogenes's own. Further anecdotes in the life repeat the same stance. They were not copied in to inflate a count.
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- self
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is a lesson about definitions. A formula that sounds precise, featherless and two-footed, still lets a plucked chicken into the class, so the definition has not caught what it named. A competing reading thinks the joke unfair, because Plato's definition in the reported scene was a classroom exercise, and a chicken does not refute a serious account of human nature. The story is Lives 6.40. Its value is the demand that a definition survive a counterexample, which is a real logical point whoever plucked the bird. The badge stays Questionable because the scene is late biography. Diogenes is pictured as doing philosophy with a prop, which fits the Cynic habit of arguing in the street rather than in a treatise.
Did Diogenes of Sinope really say this?
Questionable. Diogenes Laertius 6.40. A famous joke at Plato's definition, told centuries later. The story is Cynic legend. It is not a quotation from a dialogue, and Plato's definition is itself a report.
Which work is it in?
Diogenes Laertius, Lives 6.40 Approximate date: anecdote written in the 3rd century CE about a 4th-century BCE figure.