Philosophical Dictionary

The second part of the "Philosophy Carol" series in which you are visited by the Spirit of Philosophy Past, glimpsing the history of philosophy while receiving bonks on the head from an ancient tome.

Diogenes of Sinope lived in a storage jar, carried a lamp at noon and told the young Alexander the Great to stand out of his light. The memes are funny, and most of the stories survive only in a compilation written five centuries later. What did the Cynic actually stand for, and why did Alexander envy him?

Philosophy started in the marketplace: Socrates talked to anyone who would answer and Diogenes ate in the agora. Plato’s Academy gave us the word “academic”, the Stoics named a school after a public porch, and philosophy cafés pulled it back onto the street. So who does it better, and is the degree worth the money?