I will argue that Diogenes’ Cynicism can and should be understood as immanent social critique for the sake of the potential transvaluation of our norms. 7 To this end I will focus specifically on what appears to be contradictory and ambiguous about Diogenes, and indeed from Diogenes, and show how these contradictions are in fact instrumental to his Cynicism seen as a social and critical project. While scholarship has emphasized individualism, anti-statism, eudaemonism, or naturalism, including also the importance of parrhēsia and Diogenes’ connection to comedic performance theory, scholarship has yet to fully consider central social and political aspects of Diogenes’ Cynicism. This is particularly true because, at a minimum, he was the philosophical mentor for Crates and Hipparchia, and because Zeno and the early Stoic thinkers were highly influenced by Diogenes. One might be hard pressed to define any strict philosophical doctrine and yet it is also insufficient to merely see him as a comic literary figure. All of this contributes to our understanding of the ‘Socrates gone mad’, as Plato supposedly called him, and yet Diogenes can still appear problematically ambiguous. Some connect Cynic parrhesia to comedic performance theories, while others have emphasized Cynic eudaemonism. 5 ‘Asked what is the most beautiful thing in men, he said “frank speech ( parrhēsia)”’ (Diog. Since Diogenes also challenged the authority of power and the civic social norms, some scholars emphasize how the early Cynics exemplified a new spirit of individualism and even anti-statism, 4 while others emphasize the importance of Cynic frank speech ( parrhēsia).
Seeing Diogenes as doggish likewise is not a model for behavior as such, but a provocation to rethink our normative behaviors. While a mouse exhorts Diogenes to rethink his behavior, the point is not to live mouselike, but to reconsider our choices, which is a task for reflective human minds, not dogs, mice, or animality in general. 3 In this way Diogenes is sometimes seen as a mere naturalist, that is, living in accordance with brute nature or a natural animalistic ethos, but this is controversial because the use of kata phusin can and I believe should be understood here to mean something like ‘in accordance with our nature,’ which includes, for example, reason. The natural superiority of the sun over the political power of Alexander, the example of the mouse that revealed to Diogenes how very little is needed to thrive, and the public performances of natural bodily functions attest to a view that life according to nature, kata phusin, ought to be promoted as true north. 2 Diogenes can easily be mistaken for a moral theorist who promoted the virtues of a life in accord with nature ( phusis) rather than social convention ( nomos). The ancient anecdote tradition about Diogenes known as khreiai can appear at first blush to be rather philosophically thin. It is no wonder that thinkers like Diderot, Nietzsche, and Foucault were powerfully inspired by his legacy and tried to reignite Diogenes’ famous lantern in their own way, in their own time. As a social and political dissident, a proto-anarchist in the sense of challenging political authority, Diogenes provoked seemingly radical views and challenged conformity to customs and social norms (Diog. But he is more than a comic figure, more than a jester or bōmolokhos. There has been another uptick in scholarship on Diogenes, expanding our understanding of various aspects of early Cynicism, especially the forms of comedic and rhetorical communication that he and other cynics employed. He has been a subject of inquiry from Cicero to Foucault, exiled to the margins of intellectual and academic discourse from time to time, but returning when the climate is right for counterculture and philosophical provocation. But as a nonconformist, his heroic frank speech and contrarian actions made him a highly influential figure a true philosophical cause célèbre. A double folded cloak, walking stick and wallet, his striking appearance and way of life was an oddity. Diogenes of Sinope was by all accounts, strange – atopos.
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