Learning about a philosophy entails learning about the philosophers from which their ideas were constructed. One of my professor James Porter, in the context of discussing Lucian critique on the passing of Peregrinus, said “look at how philosophers die it’s very important”. Lucian critique of Peregrinus was that his death was in service of fame not praxis (the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, realized, applied, or put into practice).

In a sense Peregrinus “turning into fire”, while intended to immortalise himself, because it was a spectacle of vanity, made him the laughing stock of history. His essence was not in service of knowledge or wisdom, but the appearance of knowledge of wisdom. Lucian argues Peregrinus was trying to emulate the great Socrates. Seeing Socrates universal admiration and immortalisation he preformed the same actions in order to gain the same social and historical value. While Socrates drank the Hemlock and did not escape (Apology and Crito) in order to serve virtue, or so he could pester more people in the underworld, Peregrinus jumped into the fire as a performance of his philosophy not as a practice. Socrates was executed the day after his trial, while Peregrinus waited days for people to amass before his “ritualistic” suicide. Lucian is targeting Peregrinus’ theatrical self-immolation as an attention-seeking spectacle rather than a genuine philosophical act. ‘The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images,’ Peregrinus’ death wasn’t about the philosophical meaning of self-sacrifice but about how that sacrifice would be perceived, discussed, and remembered—it was about the image of philosophy rather than philosophy itself.

Lucian communicated his satire through epideictic oratory, praising and blaming people in theatrical displays. His accusation of “hollow philosophy” in Peregrinus could be reflected on to him. Lucian’s philosophy (if he even had one) and livelihood was spectacular, rather than lived/embodied. A counter to that would be understanding Lucian as a cynic, the theatrical harassing/embarrassment could be seen as a concentrated and systematised version of Diogenes.

Diogenes’ provocative public acts—masturbating in the marketplace, urinating on passersby, living in a pithos (large jar), and telling Alexander the Great to ‘stand out of my sunlight’—were fundamentally different from Peregrinus’ self-immolation. Where Peregrinus sought to create spectacle that would elevate his image, Diogenes created spectacle precisely to demolish the value of image itself. His performances weren’t designed to garner admiration but to expose the hollowness of social conventions and the artificial nature of societal values.

Lucian’s “Dead Come to Life” can be seen as an instance of that same subversive approach, using the spectacle of dialogue with the dead to expose the vanity and hypocrisy of the living. By having figures from the underworld critique the pretensions of philosophers and other elites, Lucian employs the same cynical strategy as Diogenes—creating a theatrical scenario not to elevate himself but to demolish the false images cultivated by those in power. His satirical dialogues function as philosophical performances that strip away social conventions through deliberate provocation, much like Diogenes’ public acts. Where Diogenes physically demonstrated the absurdity of social norms, Lucian literarily enacts this subversion by using the dead to speak uncomfortable truths, painting Philosophy as a whore and followers of philosophers as fraudulent hypocrites who make philosophy into a marketplace commodity. Both used spectacle not as self-aggrandizement but as a weapon to expose the emptiness behind societal pretensions.

In Debordian terms, Diogenes and Lucian were practising what might be called ‘detournement’ two millennia before the Situationists formalized the concept—he appropriated the mechanisms of spectacle to subvert the spectacle itself. When he walked through the Athenian marketplace with a lamp in daylight ‘looking for an honest man,’ he wasn’t seeking fame but exposing the dishonesty of those who did.

The irony, of course, is that both Diogenes’ and Lucian’s anti-spectacular philosophies have themselves become spectacle. Diogenes’ provocations are now among philosophy’s most memorable anecdotes, carefully preserved and repeated precisely because of their shocking, spectacular nature. Similarly, Lucian’s satirical dialogues, intended to puncture philosophical pretension, are now studied as literary masterpieces—the very act of canonization transforming his subversive attacks into cultural commodities. This pattern followed among the followers of the dog, cynics (in greek kynikos or dog like), like my favourite story of courtship: when Hipparchia insisted on following Crates and marrying Crates, he stood up, removed all his clothes in front of her, and said something to the effect of: “This is your bridegroom, this is all he possesses. Make your choice accordingly.” He deliberately displayed his hunched back, poverty and general diseased and ulcered form, essentially saying “this is what you’re getting.” They then ended up marrying.

This apparent “paradox” is perfectly explained by Debord who saw resistance to the spectacle as constantly in danger of being recuperated by the spectacular society. Just as Lucian’s mockery of philosophical celebrity has itself made him a celebrated figure, the very attempts to escape the logic of spectacle inevitably become new forms of spectacle—a dialectic that neither Diogenes nor Lucian could fully escape.

Yet this spectacle of philosophical lives and deaths—whether performed by the philosophers themselves or reconstructed by later commentators—raises a more fundamental question: Does how a philosopher lives or dies actually matter to the validity of their ideas? While Lucian’s critique of Peregrinus has merit in exposing hypocrisy, his general satirization of philosophical/intellectual action extends beyond mere critique of vanity into more problematic territory:

Firstly, philosophical identity exists in dialectical opposition with intellectual honesty. When one declares “I am a Kantian” or “I am a Christian,” they socially trap themselves in a prison of doctrinal consistency (or the interlocutor’s conception of the ideology). This identification fundamentally restricts intellectual freedom, meaning limits their choice of action. The gravitational pull toward orthodox thinking in ideology, whether created by the self or enforced by others conception of the ideology bind behaviour and interaction. For example, those who treat astrology as unquestionable doctrine allow themselves to be controlled by it—especially in its modern, commercialized form where an app effectively dictates emotions and shapes reality. The ideological cannon being so accessible creates an attack vector for sophists who want to create a reality for their victim. If the moon say you should be angry, their rhetoric can bend to direct that anger. Similar dynamics can emerge with any system of thought, from libertarianism to virtue ethics to nationalism. While ideology shifts over time the semantic power of it persists as an definite force. Hypocrisy as a system of judgment thus enforces this dogmatism, by implying dignity or raising adherence as an venerable and dutiful act. The pursuit of knowledge needs this negative freedom (freedom from constraint).

Secondly, you can make a statement that does not agree with your identity and the statement can still be true. An example of this is the smoking doctor argument (a la Richie Kim). Imagine smoking a cigarette with your doctor, your doctor could say to you “cigarettes contain numerous harmful chemicals, including tar and nicotine, which damage your lungs, heart, and other organs by causing cancer, constricting blood vessels, and impairing your body’s ability to absorb oxygen. You should probably stop smoking”. The fact that your doctor is also smoking does not invalidate his claim, he still right smoking is bad despite his contradictory action.

Appealing to identity or history as a method for invalidating claims is stupid, yet it happens all the time now with cancel culture. Kanye, saying the things he does and doing the things he does, does not mean that his music is bad. Heidegger was a bonafide nazi, does that make phenomenology false. Interweaving the individual with their ideas is a direct barrier to knowledge, judging the validity of a statement is up to reason and that reason should not include the identity of the individual.

Historical narratives can be useful for understanding the motivations of people. Kant was aspergers af thus his systematic, inductive examination of reason to derive moral principles makes particular sense when he preferred solitude but needed to develop explicit logical frameworks to navigate social interactions. Calling Kant a “tismo” tho does not invalidate the categorical imperative, as a rhetorical tool it can admonish his character and dissuade people from taking him seriously, but is not a logical negation.

Rhetoricians, pundits and other such sophists love to do this as it manipulates the emotional levers of the audience. You can appear to completely invalidate an argument by using ad hominem attacks, but that is itself a vain act. Ad hominem arguments are attempts of degrading the sophists opponent, usually out of insecurity because they cannot tackle the ideas themselves (looking at you Emerson).

So looking at the death of philosophers is not really important in the question gaining knowledge. It is attempts by sophists, who are too lazy to do philosophy, to show their superiority and not a critique of their ideas. I do recognise the beauty of a complete narrative, like a Socrates or a Cicero or a Benthem or a Huxley as it appeals to our need for narrative closure. This is a weakness in the human mind, not a weakness of argument. For mythologised figures it does become important, or any school or -ism named after the thinker themselves, thus many ancient philosophers do embody their philosophies. As we move into the modern age that doesn’t seem to happen as much. Below I have included a list of all the thinkers I love and how they died, some are narratively congruent to their ideas, others seemingly random or contradictory. Regardless I had a lot of fun putting this together with my friend Anika Yadav.

• Socrates (470-399 BCE, aged 71), forced to drink hemlock after being convicted of corrupting the youth of Athens and impiety. Most famous case of praxis till the end.
• Confucius (551-479 BCE, aged 71-72), died naturally of old age.
• Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) (c. 563-483 BCE, aged around 80), died after accepting a meal from a blacksmith, possibly containing spoiled food. He reportedly knew the food would cause his death but accepted it anyway. Ensured his teachings would live on after, by waiting to die and letting people come and visit him before passing.
• Plato (428/427-348/347 BCE, aged 80), died peacefully in his sleep after attending a wedding feast, like the pussy he was.
• Diogenes (412-323 BCE, aged 89), held his breath or ate a raw squid. This does have importance but Diogenes is a theatrical figure. His entire life was a performance to look at how absurd and heardish people were. So it checks out.
• Aristotle (384-322 BCE, aged 62), died of stomach issue. Although he did flee from Athens after the death of Alexander after being charged with impiety saying “I won’t let Athens sin twice against philosophy”. He died the following year but his fleeing from Athens and not accepting justice does show he served knowledge rather than the polus or the social contract. Also being Macedonian he didn’t have the same loyalty as Socrates did.
• Epicurus (341-270 BCE, aged 71), died from kidney stones after enduring tremendous pain.
• Cicero (106-43 BCE, aged 63), brutally assassinated on Mark Antony’s orders after opposing him politically. His hands and head were cut off and displayed in the Roman Forum. His death symbolised the violent end of the Roman Republic he had tried to defend, with his severed hands that wrote against tyranny and his tongue that spoke for liberty being particularly targeted.
• Seneca (4 BCE-65 CE, aged 68), forced to commit suicide by Nero, slitting his wrists and taking poison, did it with dignity. Good stoic.
• Hypatia (c.370-415 CE, aged c.45), brutally murdered by a Christian mob in Alexandria, torn to pieces with pottery shards.
• Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (980-1037, aged 56), died of colic after attempting to treat himself with extreme methods, ironically succumbing despite being one of history’s greatest physicians and medical philosophers.
• Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527, aged 58), died after receiving the last rites of the Catholic Church, a conventional Christian death that means nothing if not contradicts his philosophy. Though it wasn’t really his he wrote The Prince for the the prince to gain favour. Maybe a Protean figure.
• Thomas More (1478-1535, aged 57), beheaded for refusing to accept King Henry VIII as head of the Church, reportedly saying “I die the king’s good servant, but God’s first”. Good man.
• Giordano Bruno (1548-1600, aged 51), burned at the stake by the Roman Inquisition for heresy, refusing to recant his cosmological theories and philosophical views, becoming a martyr for intellectual freedom. He was also a dickhead (meaning insulting to those in power) tho and much like Galileo was probably the reason for their punishment not necessarily Heliocentric views.
• Francis Bacon (1561-1626, aged 65), died of pneumonia contracted while experimenting with snow preservation, literally sacrificing his life in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679, aged 91), died from a stroke, pretty unremarkable.
• Spinoza (1632-1677, aged 44), died of lung disease (likely tuberculosis) exacerbated by inhaling glass dust from his lens-grinding work.
• John Locke (1632-1704, aged 72), died peacefully of natural causes, with his death having little symbolic connection.
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716, aged 70), died largely alone and unrecognized, with his funeral reportedly attended only by his secretary.
• Voltaire (1694-1778, aged 83), died after returning to Paris in triumph after 28 years of exile, with his final months seeing him celebrated by admirers. On his deathbed, when asked to renounce Satan, he reportedly replied, “This is no time to be making new enemies,” pretty legendary. The man would also have like 50 espressos a day, he liked it with chocolate.
• Adam Smith (1723-1776, aged 67), died after a painful illness, having instructed his friends to destroy most of his unpublished manuscripts.
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778, aged 66), died of cerebral hemorrhage after a walk.
• Immanuel Kant (1724-1804, aged 79), died quietly of old age after a life of legendary routine and regularity.
• G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831, aged 61), died during a cholera epidemic, being seemingly random and having no meaning and purpose, the irony!
• Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832, aged 84), per his instructions, was dissected in public, and his preserved body (with wax head) remains on display at University College London. Although the head on the body is a fake one because the it would get stolen so much. Rumour has it that the Imperial boys would steal it and rape it. It was replaced with a wax head as the head was discoloured and stretched.
• John Stuart Mill (1806-1873, aged 66), died in Avignon, France, with his stepdaughter by his side. Why was he in France?
• Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860, aged 72), died in his apartment after suffering a heart attack.
• Karl Marx (1818-1883, aged 64), died of pleurisy sitting in his armchair, a rather ordinary end for someone whose ideas would dramatically transform world politics.
• Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881, aged 59), died from a pulmonary hemorrhage caused by emphysema, having faced a mock execution earlier in life.
• Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900, aged 55), died after a decade of mental illness and physical deterioration, with his philosophical warnings about nihilism ironically preceding his own mental collapse. He famously witnessed a coachman beating a horse in the street, overcome with emotion, Nietzsche ran to the horse, threw his arms around its neck to protect it, and then collapsed.
• Oscar Wilde (1854-1900, aged 46), died in exile in Paris from cerebral meningitis, destitute and disgraced after his imprisonment for homosexuality, his last words were about the wallpaper: “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.”
• Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910, aged 82), died at a remote railway station after fleeing his home in his final days.
• Franz Kafka (1883-1924, aged 40), died from tuberculosis after requesting that his friend Max Brod burn all his unpublished manuscripts—a request Brod famously ignored giving us some of the greatest fiction in history.
• James Joyce (1882-1941, aged 58), died after surgery for a perforated ulcer.
• Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924, aged 53), died after multiple strokes left him severely disabled, with his body subsequently embalmed and displayed in a mausoleum.
• H.G. Wells (1866-1946, aged 79), died of an unspecified sickness.
• George Orwell (1903-1950, aged 46), died of tuberculosis shortly after publishing “1984,” marrying Sonia Brownell on his deathbed. Too good for him to not die alone.
• Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951, aged 62), died of cancer, with the manner of his death being unremarkable compared to his revolutionary approach to language and philosophy.
• Alan Turing (1912-1954, aged 41), died from cyanide poisoning, widely considered suicide following his chemical castration by the British government as punishment for homosexuality.
• Albert Camus (1913-1960, aged 46), died suddenly in a car accident, a random, absurd death.
• Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961, aged 61), died by suicide with his shotgun. There is so much more to say about this man but legendary. Please read into him.
• Sylvia Plath (1932-1963, aged 30), died by suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning by putting her head in an over!!! She left bread and milk for her children in another room. What a legend.
• Aldous Huxley (1894-1963, aged 69), died on the same day as JFK’s assassination, after requesting and receiving LSD on his deathbed, still tripping while he died. Again Legendary.
• Che Guevara (1928-1967, aged 39), executed by Bolivian forces after being captured, with his final words being “I know you’ve come to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.” Another legend.
• John Steinbeck (1902-1968, aged 66), died of heart disease in New York City, far from California.
• Theodor Adorno (1903-1969, aged 65), died of a heart attack in the Swiss Alps, shortly after an incident where female students exposed their breasts to him during a lecture, causing him significant distress in his final months.
• Bertrand Russell (1872-1970, aged 97), died of influenza.
• Hannah Arendt (1906-1975, aged 69), died of heart attack.
• Michel Foucault (1926-1984, aged 57), died of AIDS, very on topic.
• Guy Debord (1931-1994, aged 62), died by suicide, shooting himself in the heart after years of alcoholism and depression, a final gesture of refusal
• Robert Nozick (1938-2002, aged 63), died of stomach cancer.
• David Foster Wallace (1962-2008, aged 46), died by suicide after struggling with depression and attempting to wean himself from antidepressant medication