Why Diogenes?

Why ‘Diogenes’? Why reach for the name of a philosopher from ancient Greece, a larger-than-life figure who lived nearly 2,500 years ago?

James Miller, in his book The Philosophical Life, talks of “a tissue of legends, an improbable palimpsest of anecdotes and maxims”.

What inspiration can we take from a man about whom so little is known for certain?

The stories around Diogenes are certainly interesting. Click to read my short essay on him here.

The truth about where the name Diogenes Communications comes from is a little more prosaic.

As a lifelong Sherlock Holmes fan, I regularly return to my well-thumbed copy of Arthur Conan Doyle’s complete works. At about the time I was first starting up the business and casting round for a name, I was reading the short story The Greek Interpreter from Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, in which we are first introduced to his brother Mycroft and the singular Diogenes Club.

It seemed to me as good a name as any.