The various anecdotes[0] about Diogenes are almost nothing but jokes[1]; he used humanity as his straight man.

— Not the Diogenes? I have been looking for you... I am Alexander, king of Macedon, called by some "the Great"; do you have any boon you wish to ask of me?

— Yes: please move a little to the left. You're standing in my sun.

[0] https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/gr...

[1] compare Moore's The Comedian? "It came true. You're lookin' at it."

Here are two more for you.

Sartre is sitting at a cafe and orders coffee with no cream. The waiter says, "I'm sorry, Monsieur Sartre, we are all out of cream -- how about with no milk?"

man goes to bertrand russell. says he hates his beard but will not shave it. russell says "treatment is simple. great barber pagliacci is in town. he will shave all men (and only those men) who will not shave themselves." man bursts into tears. "but bertrand,"

Descartes sits down in his seat on an airplane and the steward asks, "would you like some tea?", to which Descartes replies, "I think not" and poof!, he disappears out of existence.

I could use an explanation of the last one.

It’s a combination of Russel’s paradox, and the joke about a clown named pagliacci.

Russel’s paradox is: there’s a barber in town who only shaves men who don’t shave themselves. Does he shave himself?

"but bertrand... I am pagliacci"

Induction: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/

Do you expect someone to read all that or is there a particular passages that would explain the joke?

You could read the whole thing but it would be quicker to infer that if I need to explain the joke,

Assuming the converse is really putting Descartes in front of the horse.

This is a good occasion to pitch the sublime https://existentialcomics.com/comic/1

This may have been why Descartes preferred the French formulation of the cogito Je Suis, Je Exist.