Recovering the Cynic Legacy: Divine Friendship in the Cosmopolitan Thought of of Sinope

Patrick Anderson PHIL 611 – Fall 2014 Dr. Scott Austin December 19, 2014

Recovering the Cynic Legacy: Divine Friendship in the Cosmopolitan Thought of Diogenes of Sinope

BUYER: Do you practice any craft? DIOGENES: I’m a liberator of humanity.1

In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel belittles the Cynic movement of antiquity, saying, “There is nothing particular to say about the Cynics, for they possess but little philosophy, and they did not bring what they had into a scientific system.”2 Luckily, his dismissal has not lasted. Recent scholarship on the Cynics has expanded well beyond the scope of Donald A. Dudley’s seminal work A History of . Luis Navia3 and William Desmond4 have led the way with major works on the Cynics, and some recent trends have looked at

Diogenes of Sinope and Cynic movement through the lens of poststructuralism, analyzing their rhetoric as discursive interventions or their actions as performative resistance.5 Others have taken a more historical approach, connecting the Cynics to early Christian Church6 and to early modern

1 Unless otherwise noted, all Diogenes quotes and apophthegms will come from the Robin Hard translation in Diogenes the Cynic: Sayings and, with Other Popular Moralists, trans. Robin Hard (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012) followed by the listed original source. This passage comes from page 4; , Philosophies for Sale 7-12. 2 Hegel qtd. in Louisa Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment: Diogenes in the Salon (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 133. 3 See his The Philosophy of Cynicism: An Annotated Bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995), Classical Cynicism: A Critical Study (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996), and Diogenes of Sinope: The Man in the Tub (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998). 4 See his The Greek Praise of Poverty: Origins of Ancient Cynicism (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006) and Cynics (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2008). 5 R. Bracht Branhan, “Defacing the Currency: Diogenes’ Rhetoric and the Invention of Cynicism,” in The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy, ed. R. Bracht Branham and Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996), 81-104; Kristen Kennedy, “Hipparchia the Cynic: Feminist Rhetoric and the Ethics of Embodiment,” Hypatia 14.2 (1999): 48-71; Kristen Kennedy, “Cynic Rhetoric: The Ethics and Tactics of Resistance,” Rhetoric Review 18.1 (1999): 26-45; Philip Bosman, “Selling Cynicism: The Pragmatics of Diogenes’ Comic Performance,” The Classical Quarterly 56.1 (2006): 93-104; M. D. Usher, “Diogenes’ Doggerel: Chreia and Quotation in Cynic Performance,” The Classical Journal 104.3 (2009): 207-223. 6 Derek Kruger, “Diogenes the Cynic Among the Fourth Century Fathers,” Vigiliae Christianae 47.1 (1993): 29-49.

1 England and France.7 The works of most interest for this essay are those that comment of Cynic political thought, especially the politics of the most famous Cynic, Diogenes of Sinope.

Many accept the traditional view that Cynicism is a Socratic school of ,8 but there is some disagreement regarding the founder of Cynicism, whether it was

Heracles,9 ,10 or Diogenes. However, there is almost no disagreement that Diogenes is the most important Cynic, which is why it is necessary to interrogate his political views in order to render an image of Cynic political thought. As Robin Hard argues, “Diogenes had nothing but contempt for any sort of political engagement,”11 but given the Cynic emphasis on ethics, his thought has clear political implications. The primary question at issue is this: Does Diogenes have a positive political program? And this question requires an answer to another question: Was

Diogenes a cosmopolitan thinker, and if so, in what way? There is disagreement among those who have looked at Diogenes’ political philosophy as to whether he has a positive politics, and here I will defend the view that he does in fact have such views. But even among those who agree that he does have a positive political program, no one has attempted to explain how relations between individuals should work in that aspect of his thought.

In this essay, I will argue that Diogenes’ political philosophy is both negative and positive. On the negative side is his famous critique of society, and on the positive side is a cosmopolitical social order in which individuals relate authentically to nature and to each other through a divine friendship. In the first section of the essay, I offer a doxographical overview of

7 David Mazella, The Making of Modern Cynicism (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2007). 8 See Eduard Zeller, and the Socratic Schools, trans. Oswald J. Reichel, revised 3rd ed. (New York: Russell & Russell, Inc., 1962), 285-337. 9 James Romm, “Dog Heads and Noble Savages: Cynicism Before the Cynics?,” in The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy, ed. R. Bracht Branham and Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996), 121-135. 10 H. D. Rankin, , Socratics, and Cynics (Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble Books, 1983), especially chapter 12. 11 Hard, 212.

2 Diogenes’ philosophy as a whole. In the second section, I demonstrate the existence of his positive political philosophy. In the third section, I explain what I take to be his theory of divine friendship. And in the final section, I examine his views on law and interpersonal interactions.

Diogenes, Cynicism, and Social Critique

As a native of Sinope, Diogenes – his name meaning “of the gods” or “born of Zeus” – is said to have arrived in Athens after having been exiled from his home for defacing the currency of the local ruler. While the details are disputed – some say he left willingly, while other say that his father actually defaced the currency – it remains true that exile constitutes an important aspect of Diogenes’ philosophy, especially his epistemology and ethics (or more precisely, his politics). Because Diogenes inherited the Socratic tradition, knowledge occupies a central role in his philosophy, and while he considered himself epistemologically privileged, he did so only because he believed he had a special understanding of the world based on his status as an exile, an outsider. According to one report, “Someone [once] said that Diogenes was out of his mind.

‘It’s not that I’m not out of my mind,’ he replied. ‘It’s that I don’t have the same mind as you.’”12

His special orientation to the world allowed him to avoid falling into the comfortable trap of agreeable falsehoods, unlike many of his contemporaries who, in his mind, could not handle the discomforts of the harsh truth.13 In fact, the false happiness achieved by turning away from the truth could never compare to the true happiness attained by proper thought. As Anthony A. Long explains, for Diogenes, the “Prime impediments to happiness are false judgments of value, together with the emotional disturbances and vicious character that arise from these false

12 Hard translation, 22; Stobaeus 3.3.51. 13 Hard translation, 65; Excerpts from Manuscripts of Florilegia of John Damascene 2.31, 22.

3 judgments.”14 Those who become caught up in falsehoods become trapped in an endless cycle of emotional and affective distress that makes truth increasingly difficult to access.

The epistemological impediments to happiness are not merely psychological for

Diogenes; materialism also impedes an individual’s self-cultivation. When a person focuses on accumulating wealth, possessing fine objects, obtaining luxuries, or achieving fame, their energy has been diverted away from cultivating virtue and toward false symbols of happiness, which is why, for Diogenes, wealth and virtue are mutually exclusive.15 He found it contradictory for a person to praise those who overcome the desire for wealth but harbor envy for the rich.16 And

Diogenes criticized those who, relying on arguments to access truth or virtue, claiming to be philosophers, because they preferred to avoid the necessity of virtue by maintaining comfortable lifestyles. According to one ancient source, “Diogenes said that poverty aids us to philosophy of its own accord, for what philosophy attempts to persuade us by means of arguments, poverty compels us to in very deed.”17 One must learn virtue through the necessities of life, he thought, rather than from the comfortable reflections of one’s living in ease.

In addition to being an epistemic exile, Diogenes also understood himself to be a political exile, claiming to be a citizen of the world or a citizen of the cosmos (kosmopolites).18 Given his disdain for social conventions, and given that he lived a nomadic lifestyle – his house was a ceramic jar that he carried with him19 – it is easy to understand why he would reject allegiance to a particular polis. However, the exact meaning of Diogenes’ cosmopolitanism has been controversial. Some insist that his cosmopolitanism is purely negative, a rejection of belonging.

14 Anthony. A. Long, “The Socratic Tradition: Diogenes, Crates, and Hellenistic Ethics,” in The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy, ed. R. Bracht Branham and Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996), 30. 15 Hard translation, 36-38. 16 Hard translation, 36; DL 6.28. 17 Hard translation, 13; Stobaeus 4.32.11. 18 Hard translation, 4, 12; Lucian, Philosophies for Sale 7-12, DL 6.63. 19 Hard translation, 10; Jerome, Against Jovinian 2.14.

4 For example, W. W. Tarn argues that Diogenes’ cosmopolitanism “has nothing to do with any belief in the unity of mankind or human brotherhood, but means someone not attached to any community.”20 Others, however, believe that his dismissal of the polis is accompanied by an affirmation of nature. As Robin Hard says, “in addition to indicating that Diogenes regarded himself as belonging to no particular state, this response [that he is a citizen of the world] carries the deeper suggestion that he sought to live in accordance with nature rather than with the laws and customs of any state.”21 While these interpretations seem to be at odds, they in fact rely upon different definitions of “cosmopolitan”: the first defines it as human unity, while the second defines it as individual unity with nature. Because Tarn and Hard define “cosmopolitan” differently, their definitions are actually compatible: Diogenes could negatively oppose attachment to a political community and positively adopt attachment to nature, and this seems to be the traditional understanding of his life and thought, a rendering I hope to problematize below.

Diogenes, and all Cynics more generally, are often thought to have rejected logic and physics in the interest of developing only ethical philosophies, an approach commonly called the

“shortcut to virtue.”22 While it certainly is true that Diogenes never constructed a systematic account of any branch of philosophy, it is also true that he had some ideas about logic and physics. For example, Susan Prince argues that Diogenes likely inherited an anti-realist or anti- representational theory of language from Antisthenes, which would explain why he so often

20 W. W. Tarn, “Alexander, Cynics, and Stoics,” The American Journal of Philology 60.1 (1939), 44. 21 Hard, 184. 22 See also V. Emeljanow, “A Note on the Cynic Short Cut to Happiness,” Mnemosyne 18.2 (1965): 182-184.

5 mocks realist theories such as ’s.23 Furthermore, Diogenes Laertius reports that Diogenes believed that

every substance is to be found in all others and throughout all things; so in bread, for instance, there are particles of meat, and in vegetables, particles of bread, and also particles of every other substance in every other, insofar as they pass through certain invisible pores and enter into combination with it in vaporous form.24

Diogenes Laertius does explain that this could have also been written by one of Diogenes’ followers, but that fact in itself suggests that Diogenes must have had some idea of physics and of the nature with which he sought to live in harmony. Robin Hard connects this view of physics to ;25 however, there is good reason to believe that it is closer to the atomists

Leucippus and . Zeph Stewart has established a connection between Democritus’ ethics and the Cynics, especially on the point of asceticism, so it is not impossible that Diogenes might also accept an atomistic understanding of nature.26 In fact, given that many philosophers, especially ancient philosophers, offered accounts of physics that were structured analogously to their ethics, the individualism of Diogenes’ ethics sets nicely alongside an atomistic physics. In a manner that sounds exactly like Diogenes’ ethics, one ancient commenter described the atomist physics: “By convention [or, ‘custom’], sweet; by convention, bitter; by convention, hot; by convention, cold; by convention, color; but in reality, atoms and void.”27

Like the atomist physics, Diogenes’ social critique is grounded in the rejection of conventions. For Diogenes, social conventions are comfortable falsehoods that produce inauthentic social hierarchies and obscure the proper relationships between individuals. The

23 Susan Prince, “Socrates, Antisthenes, and the Cynics,” in A Companion to Socrates, ed. Sara Ahbel-Rappe and Rachana Kamteker (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2006), 80-86. 24 Hard translation, 48; DL 6.72-3. 25 Hard, 202; Aristotle On Generation and Corruption 324b, 25ff. 26 Zeph Stewart, “Democritus and the Cynics,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 63 (1958): 179-191. 27 Qtd. in Patricia Curd, ed., The Presocratics Reader: Selected Fragments and Testimonia, 2nd ed., trans. Richard D. McKirahan and Patricia Curd (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2011), 123; , Against the Mathematicians 7.135.

6 primary social hierarchy that Diogenes attacks is economic class, since that is the foundation for all other hierarchies. He understood as false any social standing achieved using social customs or institutions because they ultimately relied upon deceptive norms of relation. For example, “When asked what are the most dangerous beasts, he replied, ‘In the mountains, lions and bears, in the cities, tax-collectors and informers.’”28 As Hard explains, in Athens, “direct taxation was imposed only on the resident aliens, while wealthy citizens would contribute by undertaking expensive civic duties, receiving public honor in return.”29 Wealthy aristocrats would give to the city in exchange for honor, while the non-citizens were forced by the state to relinquish money in exchange for nothing. Understanding that social systems ultimately benefit those who establish and control them, Diogenes was quick to call attention to the hypocrisy on the part of the elites. As Diogenes Laertius tells us, “Once [Diogenes] saw the officials of a temple leading away some one who had stolen a bowl belonging to the treasurers, and said, ‘The great thieves are leading away the little thief.’”30 Because the social system justifies an unnatural system of rewards and punishments, Diogenes rejects conventions and all they entail.

Because conventions produce inauthentic social hierarchies, they also produce certain types of people who accept and advance those conventions and hierarchies, especially political and intellectual leaders. Politically speaking, Diogenes had nothing but contempt for the orators and emperors of his day. According to Diogenes Laertius, Diogenes “said that the orators are very earnest about justice in their speeches, but not at all in their actions.”31 He ridiculed

Demosthenes, saying that he was controlled by the masses; he belittled Anaximenes’ speech by crunching seeds loudly, and when the audience became distracted, Diogenes implied that his

28 Hard translation, 69; Maximus 22.20. 29 Hard, 214. 30 Hicks translation, 47; DL 6.45. 31 Hard translation, 51; DL 6.28.

7 eating was more interesting than the speakers words.32 Emperors also received criticism from

Diogenes. He famously felt neither threatened by nor respect for Alexander the Great, and he referred to Dionysios of Syracuse as a coward for abandoning his throne.33 Because the worth of these men could only be measured by convention and not by absolute virtue, they appeared to

Diogenes as mere fodder for ridicule.

Just as the political leaders were targets of Diogenes, so too were the leading philosophers of his day. Diogenes rejected general studies because they distracted from virtue,34 but he felt that Plato’s very existence proved his point. For Diogenes, Plato was a vacuous man with lofty ideals who talked too much and who too readily accepted conventions. One ancient source tells us that when Diogenes heard someone praising Plato, Diogenes asked, “And what’s so wonderful about him, a man who has practiced philosophy all this time and never caused pain to anyone?”35 For Diogenes, philosophy should be confrontational and challenging, but Platonic philosophy was complicit with unacceptable customs, meaning that it could never lead anyone to virtue. He also criticized Plato and Aristotle for being in the favor of emperors, Plato to

Dionysios and Aristotle to Alexander. Unlike most people, who would consider associations with rich and powerful men to be an honor, Diogenes saw it as a curse, since such a person is under the command and at the demand of the powerful. Such unreflective conciliation on the part of the leading thinkers of his time led Diogenes to reject them and their philosophies.

But if leaders and philosophers were formed by custom, so too were the common people of the city. For Diogenes, there was always a crowd to be seen but never any individual humans, which he expressed through the futile activity of searching for a “man” with a lamp in the

32 Hard translation, 51; Aelian, Historical Miscellany 9.19 and DL 6.57. 33 Hard translation, 53-57. 34 Hard translation, 27-28; DL 6.27-8. 35 Hard translation, 33; Plutarch On Moral Virtue 12, 452d.

8 daylight.36 Even those who supposedly want to study philosophy with him could rarely bring themselves to reject social standards. As Diogenes Laertius reports:

When someone expressed a wish to study philosophy with him, Diogenes gave him a fish to carry and told him to follow in his footsteps; the man threw it away out of shame, and when Diogenes ran across him again sometime later, he burst out laughing and said, “Our friendship was brought to an end by a fish!”37

The man, having accepted appearances, feared being seen as a slave and so threw the fish to the ground; Diogenes, having rejected appearances, pointed out the absurdity of conventions by showing how a fish could end an inauthentic human relationship. It was exactly this artificial web of meanings created by and sustained through social institutions and practices that Diogenes lamented because true relations – a man holding a fish – could be twisted and interpreted into meanings that were not really there – the man being a slave. For Diogenes, only natural relations were true relations, which is why he denied belonging to any polis and opted for the kosmos instead.

Diogenes’ Positive Political Philosophy

Diogenes is famous for his critique of society, but whether he has any positive political or ethical view in addition to the negative remains controversial. Of course, if the political work that is attributed to Diogenes, the Republic (sometimes referred to as the Politeia),38 had survived, then it would be easier to determine his views. But anyone who wishes to argue that

Diogenes does in fact have a positive aspect to his politics faces serious challenges because

Cynicism has a reputation for cutting down without building up. As David Mazella says, “Cynics are feared because they threaten the public with a genuinely worrying prospect, a future without

36 Hard translation, 19-20. 37 Hard translation, 17; DL 6. 36. 38 It is rumored that in his Republic, there would be no weapons and no money, because everything would be directly exchanged and there would be no wealth accumulation to protect or seek. Also, all people would have sexual freedom. Hard translation, 49; Philodemus, On the Stoics 13ff.

9 hope of meaningful political change…. Cynicism also subverts our desires for collective action and a better future by attacking human institutions and the entire process of institutionalization.”39 Cynicism seems, therefore to be useful only for critique and not for construction.

The predisposition to view Cynicism as opposing or impeding political action leads some scholars to maintain that Diogenes had no positive political views. Tarn, as mentioned above, argued that Diogenes’ cosmopolitanism was merely negative. But a more recent and systematic look at Diogenes can be found in Megan Mustain’s Overcoming Cynicism: William James and

Metaphysics of Engagement in which she argues against what she perceives as the isolationist disengagement of the Cynic in favor of the relational engagement of James’ pragmatism. “The

Cynic society,” Mustain argues, “if we must use that term to describe it, would be made up of a group of atomized, isolated, and profoundly lonely individuals intent upon avoiding any commonality of value beyond that which necessitated their atomization, isolation, and loneliness.”40 Because Cynics have no positive political approach, they must therefore treat all political systems as equally oppressive, overlooking the actual degrees of oppression among different systems. Drawing on James’ pragmatic metaphysics, from which she borrows the notion that we should find a balance between the conjunctive view of rationalist monism and the disjunctive view of empiricist materialism, Mustain argues that the Cynical temperament results from “a philosophical failure to deal adequately with experiences of conjunction and disjunction,” so strongly rejecting rationalistic conjunction that it posits a much too extreme disjunctive view of the world.41 In other words, Cynics over emphasize separation as the expense

39 Mazella, The Making of Modern Cynicism, 4, 6. 40 Megan Mustain, Overcoming Cynicism: William James and Metaphysics of Engagement (New York: Continuum, 2011), 35-36. 41 Mustain, Overcoming Cynicism, 87, 105.

10 of connection. For Mustain, the Cynic refusal to engage political institutions results in a tacit acquiescence – or “habituation,” as she says – to the existing conditions. Mustain’s argument is representative of those who argue that the Cynics in general and Diogenes in particular have no positive political philosophy to offer.

While Mustain is justified, even correct, to be suspicious of individualist political thought, there are at least two problems with her understanding of political engagement. The first problem is that not all scholars accept this negative reading of Diogenes; in fact, many argue that he does have a positive program, albeit they disagree about the content of his views.42

Establishing the existence of some positivity in Diogenes, Pierre Hadot says, “Like Socrates,

Diogenes thought he had been entrusted with the mission of making people reflect, and denouncing their vices and errors with his caustic attacks and his way of life. His care for himself was, indissolubly, care for others.”43 Long elaborates on this point, urging us to see that voluntary association is still possible within the Cynic worldview: “the Cynic has no interest in procuring his own advantage at other people’s expense. The Cynic is conventionally antisocial in his contempt for what he takes to be irrational convention. Nothing, however, suggests that he is required by his principles to opt out of all forms of cooperative life.”44 Second, Mustain is, like those of whom Mazella speaks, predisposed to reject Cynicism because she is, as Diogenes might say, too willing to compromise with the system through pragmatic action. As Richard

Wright convincingly argues, “The philosophies of William James and John Dewey, and all the pragmatists in between, are but intellectual labors to allay the anxieties of modern man, adjurations to the white men of the West to accept uncertainty as a way of life, to live within the

42 For examples, see John Moles, “‘Honestius Quam Ambitiosius’? An Exploration of the Cynic’s Attitude to Moral Corruption in His Fellow Men,” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 103 (1983), 116; Mazella, The Making of Modern Cynicism, 26. 43 Pierre Hadot, What is ?, trans. Michael Chase (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2002), 111. 44 Long, “The Socratic Tradition,” 40-41.

11 vivid, present moment and let the meaning of that moment suffice as a rationale for life and death.”45 For Wright, pragmatism serves only to make early 20th century capitalism acceptable to the average citizen by naturalizing the alienation one feels in its grasp. Wright’s criticism of pragmatism carries a hint of Cynicism that is lacking in Mustain’s rejection of Diogenes and in her willingness to compromise with the system, just as Plato and Aristotle did.

There are at least two noteworth approaches to articulating Diogenes’ positive politics.

The first is reflected in Peter Sloterdijk’s 1983 book Critique of Cynical Reason and Michel

Foucault’s lecture series in 1982-1983 and 1983-1984.46 Both Sloterdijk and Foucault were responding to both the liberal foundationalism of Habermas and the epistemological chaos threatened by postmodernism, and they each sought to understand Diogenes as a model for free speech and self-creation. As Louisa Shea explains, “For Foucault and Sloterdijk, Cynicism represents…both a model of philosophical agency and a linguistic strategy. They hold that

Cynicism could enable individuals to create themselves as the agents of their actions without reference to abstract universal norms (the Habermas fallacy) and without falling prey to the notion of an overdetermined and impotent subjectivity (the ‘postmodern’ fallacy).”47 While this approach tries to grant greater efficacy to Diogenes and Cynicism than Mustain, Sloterdijk and

Foucault both succumb to the naïve individualism that worries Mustain. Furthermore, it is not clear that self-creation necessarily leads to political engagement, and one risks merely tempering the extremes of postmodernism by supplementing it with individual “agency.”

More convincing, and a better point of beginning for my argument, than Foucault and

Sloterdijk is the work of John Moles, who argues that Diogenes’ offers a teleological politics that

45 Richard Wright, “Introduction,” in Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City, ed. St. Clair Drake and Horace Roscoe Cayton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1945), xxiii. 46 See Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment, chapters 6-8. 47 Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment, 144.

12 aims beyond the polis to the kosmopolis. As Moles puts it, “Diogenes’ cosmopolitanism unites a negative, rejection of the conventional city and ta politika, with a positive, assertion of the primacy of the ‘state of the kosmos.’”48 In “Cynic Cosmopolitanism,” Moles argues that

Diogenes does not say he has no polis; rather, he says that the kosmos is his polis.49 Nature is his state, and others could live there; thus, the kosmopolis is not exclusionary, exclusive, or isolationist. Furthermore, he argues that Cynic ethics has implications for the relations between humans, between humans and gods, and between humans and the species as a whole.50 In his follow up essay “The Cynic and Politics,” Moles expands on his argument, saying that there are potentially three forms of a Cynic state. First, there is a minimalist state based on self- sufficiency, which would likely reflect the type of isolationist system that Mustain opposes.

Second, there is a voluntarist state in which individuals freely associate on terms of their own choosing; such a view is not much different than the standard modern liberal view of political interaction. Third, there is a kinship with humanity under what Moles calls an “elastic” state, so named because it changes whenever new individuals break free of convention and enter in to natural relations with others who have done the same.51 Thus anyone who lives “the Cynic way of life ‘according to nature’” can be a citizen of the kosmopolis.52

Diogenes’ Divine Friendship

Moles’ interpretation of Diogenes seems to be the strongest, and it is the most convincing and attractive account of any positive politics in Diogenes’ thought; however, Moles offers no account of interpersonal interaction in the kosmopolis. If this positive side of Diogenes’

48 John Moles, “The Cynic and Politics,” in Justice and Generosity: Studies in Hellenistic Social and Political Philosophy, Proceedings of the Sixth Symposium Hellenisticum, ed. André Laks and Malcolm Schofield (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 137. 49 John Moles, “Cynic Cosmopolitanism,” in The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy, ed. R. Bracht Branham and Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996), 109-110. 50 Moles, “Cynic Cosmopolitanism,” 111-115. 51 Moles, “The Cynic and Politics,” 141-142. 52 Moles, “The Cynic and Politics,” 135.

13 philosophy is to be found, then we must look for it in an unexpected place: Diogenes’ theory of friendship. As mentioned earlier, Diogenes believed that true friendship is impossible in society because social norms create inauthentic social relations by mediating and filtering natural interactions between individuals. But he also thought it was possible to overcome society. For

Diogenes, we cannot excuse ourselves from the responsibility for overcoming society because we cannot excuse ourselves from having created it in the first place. Society is a human construction, not a divine imposition,53 but many people prefer to blame forces outside of their control rather than take responsibility for their own situation.54 For Diogenes’ part, he thought of himself as leading the crusade against society through example, and he turned the story of

“defacing the currency” into a metaphor for (anti-)social action. As Susan Prince explains:

The Greek word for ‘currency’ takes its root from the word for ‘custom’ and its particular form refers to either coined money or to the ways of culture. The word for ‘deface,’ too, is derived from the word for ‘stamping,’ which could be used literally in reference to misstamping the coinage or metaphorically in reference to restamping public custom in a new direction.55

Each time Diogenes confronted a social norm with brutal wit and unrestrained derision – through a method of free speech known as parrhesia or “unrestrained speech”56 – and every time his actions gave him the opportunity to expose a contradiction in someone else’s life, we can think of him as defacing the currency of social interaction – he takes it, deforms it, stamps it with his own markings, and releases back into society, perhaps hoping the warped customs will become unappealing to others, hoping they will lose their exchange value. It is only by defacing society that Diogenes can clear the way for true friendship in the kosmopolis.

53 As Cicero tells us, “The prosperity and good fortune of the wicked, so Diogenes used to say, provides telling evidence against the power of the gods.” Hard translation, 47; On the Nature of the Gods 3.88. 54 Hard translation, 30, 13, 185; Teles, 8.4-9.2 and DL 6.44. 55 Prince, “Socrates, Antisthenes, and the Cynics,” 89. 56 Hadot, What s Ancient Philosophy?, 109.

14 In reconstructing Diogenes’ notion of true friendship, it is important to understand two basic principles. First, Diogenes believes that friends share everything in common. Upon observing a rich man and a poor man walking through town, he insisted that they could not be friends because they still belonged to different social classes and were hence not properly sharing.57 The principle of sharing was also how Diogenes claimed the world for the wise and the virtuous. As Diogenes Laertius tell us, Diogenes used to say, “Everything belongs to the gods; the wise are friends of the gods; friends hold all things in common; ergo, everything belongs to the wise.”58 A friendship with the gods based on sharing is at least one of Diogenes’ justifications for how the wise individual participates in the kosmopolis. He even referred to good people as images of the gods. Second, Diogenes believes that friendship is more than sharing; it is a unity of souls. As he once put it a friend is “One soul dwelling in two bodies.”59 Thus while he seems to be a radical individualist on the surface, leading some scholars to interpret him as disengaging, he is rather, to use Mustain’s and James’ language, using disjunction only as a means to an even higher conjunction. In the first place, individuals have the responsibility to break free of convention, but they do this only to access an authentic unity with the gods, with others, and with nature. And such an interpretation need not contradict the idea that Diogenes might have accepted an atomist physics because, as one source tells us, “Democritus says that…there can be an atom the size of a kosmos.”60 Diogenes therefore seems to use an atomistic account on the individual level in the service of rediscovering the monist atom that contains gods, humans, and nature.

57 Hard translation, 67; Codex Patmos 263, no. 66. 58 Hard translation, 13; DL 6.37. 59 Hard translation, 69; Stobaeus 2.33.10. 60 Qtd. in Curd, The Presocratics Reader, 117; Aëtius 1.12.6.

15 Even though Diogenes thought that each individual needed to take responsibility for their self, and even though he thought that true friendship was only possible in the kosmopolis, he still believed that he could help others join him in the true state. As several ancient sources tell us,

Diogenes made it a point to help his friends. For example, “Diogenes used to say, other dogs bite their enemies, but I my friends, so as to save them.”61 He also used to say, “I am indeed a dog, but one of noble breed who watches over his friends.”62 It is fair to assume, given the stories that are told about him, that there is probably no one that Diogenes would refrain from “biting,” which would mean that he saw everyone as a potentially true friend. This is also why he continued to live in Athens. As Stobaeus reports, “When an Athenian reproached Diogenes, saying that he was always praising the Spartans and yet did not care to go and live among them, he replied, ‘But a doctor, being a man who is responsible for bringing people to good health, does not carry out his business among those who are healthy.’”63 Diogenes saw it as his mission to edify and help elevate all of those people who might become true friends in the kosmopolis.

Thus, the apparent elitism and misanthropy of Diogenes is really a misinterpretation for an even higher inclusivity and humanism than those who interpret him through the watered-down liberal humanism of today. In the words of Moles, “As kosmopolites (‘citizens of the cosmos’), [the

Cynic] recognizes his potential kinship with others, and he has therefore a certain obligation to help them.”64

If Diogenes believed he had an obligation to help others, then it is necessary to understand that he was not opposed to all hierarchy, as some have argued or implied, but that the virtuous should govern the un-virtuous until they have attained virtue proper. For Diogenes,

61 Hard translation, 24; Stobaeus 3.13.44. 62 Hard translation, 24-25; Gnomologium Vaticanum 194. 63 Hard translation, 20; Stobaeus 3.13.43. 64 Mole, “Cynic Cosmopolitanism,” 119.

16 virtue is teachable,65 and the only individuals who have a right to teach without becoming tyrants are those ascetic sages, since wealth and fancy meals, not poverty and simple eating, leads one to become a tyrant.66 He believed his actions could, formally or informally, stand as an example for others.67 This is why when Diogenes, having been captured by pirates and sold into slavery, was asked by his captors about his skills, he said that he could “Govern men,”68 not as a tyrant but as a teacher. And even though social custom made him appear as a slave, his true status gave him the authority to lead. interprets this story about Diogenes’ actions as meaning that the one who possesses knowledge should preside over those without it.69

But Diogenes did not stop at teaching by example; he also tried to teach by experience, by putting someone the position to display true friendship and live out that true human relation.

As Hard explains, Diogenes made a distinction between begging (aitein), which meant asking for something one did not deserve, and demanding (apaitein), which meant requesting what one was owed.70 An un-virtuous person could only beg because he or she were not wise and thus not friends of the gods, while a virtuous person could demand anything from anyone because they held all things in common with the gods. On the other side, those who gave to Diogenes in the interest of appearing as a generous person acted upon false pretenses, and those who refused to give were no better than statues. It was by demanding friendship from others that Diogenes hoped to help them experience their own status as a potential member of the kosmopolis. Thus, those interpretations that view Diogenes as atomistic or disengaged have missed the very engaged side of his thought, and those interpretations that view him as engaged have missed the

65 DL 6.35; John Moles, “The Woman and the River: Diogenes’ Apophthegm from Herculaneum and Some Popular Misconceptions About Cynicism,” Apeiron 17.2 (1983), 127. 66 Hard translation, 38-39; Stobaeus 4.33.26 and Julian, Oration 9, 199a. 67 Jan Fredrik Kindstrand, “Demetrius the Cynic,” Philologus 124.1 (1980), 96. 68 Hard translation, 58; DL 6.29. 69 Hard translation, 60; Epictetus 4.1.114-18. 70 Hard, 187.

17 essential notion of divine friendship that provides the basis of interpersonal relations in

Diogenes’ kosmopolis. Only when individuals, through a defacing of the currency, have shed the improper, inauthentic relations of human-imposed society can they at last come together in divine friendship through the unity of souls and the sharing of all things.

Diogenes’ Antinomian Cosmos

Armed with an understanding of Diogenes’ claim that proper friendship is possible only between true citizens of the kosmos, it is possible to address one of the most controversial ideas attributed to him: his comments on law. Famously and controversially, Diogenes Laertius offers us, in passing, one remark Diogenes is said to have made concerning law, and his lack of explanation has caused disagreement among scholars regarding what Diogenes might have meant. R. D. Hicks translates the passage as follows: “it is impossible for society to exist without law; for without a city no benefit can be derived from that which is civilized. But the city is civilized, and there is no advantage in law without a city; therefore law is something civilized.”71

In perhaps a clearer manner, Malcolm Schofield offers the following translation:

With regard to the law (nomos), he held that it was impossible for there to be political government (politeuesthai) without it. For he says: Without a city there is no profit in something civilized; and the city is civilized. Without law there is no profit in a city. Therefore law is something civilized.72

In either case, the passage is cryptic. In some interpretations, this is a Stoic view that has been improperly attributed to Diogenes. In another view, Diogenes is explicitly rejecting law and the city, since he would have considered each to be constitutive of inauthentic interpersonal

71 Hicks translation, 73-75; DL 6.72. 72 Malcolm Schofield, The Stoic Idea of the City (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 141-142.

18 relations.73 Insofar as Diogenes rejects social conventions, it seems plausible that he would reject law as an example of such conventions.

Even if it is intuitive that Diogenes would reject law, it is necessary to understand the mode of interaction between individuals who share in divine friendship. William Desmond explains two plausible interpretations of Cynic political philosophy: on the one hand, it is possible to understand Cynics as anarchist antinomians, rejecting all structure and all enforcement of norms or regulations; on the other hand, it is possible to understand them as democratic populists who parody the wealthy and the powerful.74 The democratic reading of the

Cynics requires us to hold that they do not believe that all people can become citizens of the kosmos, a position that contradicts Diogenes’ view that all people could practice divine friendship if they free themselves from conventions. Thus, the antinomian anarchist interpretation is the better of the two, but it still requires some unpacking in order to get at the form of interaction between true friends in the kosmopolis.

In order to gain perspective on Diogenes’ notion of antinomian divine friendship, it is helpful to turn to Walter Benjamin, 20th century cultural critic and associate of the Frankfurt

School. Like Diogenes, Benjamin is suspicious of symbols of civilization because each civilization only exists through the violent imposition of the powerful onto the rest. Benjamin’s assertion that “There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism”75 helpfully illuminates Diogenes’ critique of law and civilization, making explicit the epistemic reversal implied in Diogenes’ comments on the city. But if human interactions will not be managed by law in the kosmopolis, then they must be “governed” by some other principle. In

73 See Moles, “The Cynic and Politics,” 130-131. 74 Desmond, Cynics, 185-192. 75 Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), 256.

19 “Critique of Violence,” Benjamin argues that all human relations that rely upon the state – including the making and enforcement of contracts, sanctions for lying, and any other use of coercive power to shape the actions of others – are violent. However, he does conclude that some forms of nonviolent interaction are possible. As Benjamin says, “Nonviolent agreement is possible wherever a civilized outlook allows the use of unalloyed means of agreement…Courtesy, sympathy, peaceableness, trust, and whatever else might here be mentioned, are their subjective preconditions.”76 For Benjamin, the possibilities for such nonviolent interaction and agreement are determined by the limitations by the state, since he is concerned with how these nonviolent agreements occur in an operational society with a coercive law. But for understanding Diogenes, the notion of non-coercive interactions helpfully illuminates the form of interaction between divine friends. Because there would be no social norms distorting or disrupting the pure, natural interactions between virtuous individuals, all relations would occur under the auspices of free human communication. And there would be no need for law because friends share all things in common and they would never feel the need to deceive or coerce each other in the interest of gaining some false good like honor, wealth, or power. In this context, we might understand Diogenes’ motto “defacing the currency” to mean that every action of divine friendship actually undermines the operation of the law (custom), simultaneously revealing its barbaric nature and destroying its efficacy.

Conclusion

While Diogenes has received the greatest amount of attention for his critique of society, his positive political views have been seriously overlooked. The work of Moles, which reveals to us both the positivity of the Cynic cosmopolitical state and its ability to include many people

76 Walter Benjamin, “Critique of Violence,” in Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings, ed. Peter Demetz, trans. Edmund Jephcott (New York: Schocken Books, 1978), 289.

20 (even the species), points us in the right direction, but he ultimately does not go far enough, for he does not explain the form of personal relationships in the kosmopolis. Understansing

Diogenes’ notion of friendship, particularly divine friendship, as the form of these relations, helps us gain perspective on his political thought as a whole. If friendship is the basis for the

Cynic state, then Diogenes, and perhaps the other Cynics who followed, used individuation only as a means in aiming for a higher unity of humanity. Such a unity does not, however, rely upon messianic notions of the coming Cynic state. Rather, Cynic unity through divine friendship is both a way to challenge inauthentic customs and institutions and way of life those of us who have overcome those customs and institutions. Society need not be dissolved in order to realize divine friendship; all you need is at least two people who recognize their true relationship as human individuals, willing to share in all things, willing to assist others in joining them in the kosmopolis, and hoping that one day, through human action, everyone will join them. And it is through this tradition that we might see Diogenes as he saw himself: as a liberator of humanity.

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24 These Diogenes of Sinope quotes will get you thinking from a different perspective. Diogenes was an ancient philosopher and iscredited with being one of the founders of the cynic philosophy. He believed aperson could experience true happiness by abandoning the traditional means ofhappiness that people pursue such as love, money, and worldly possessions. Diogenes criticized the likes of Socrates, Plato, and Alexander the Great and lived mainly on the streets begging for food. While this was a rather unconventional life, his unique perspective made for some quotes that really get you thinking. S Diogenes of Sinope (or Diogenes the Cynic; c. 412 BC – 323 BC) was the most famous of the Cynic philosophers of ancient Greece. No writings of his survive, but his sayings are recorded by Diogenes Laërtius and others. When Alexander the Great addressed him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything, Diogenes replied "Yes, stand a little out of my sunshine.". From Plutarch, Alexander, 14. Cf. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 38, Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, v. 32. Diogenes was Cynic philosopher Diogenes (412 BC - 323 BC), also known as Diogenes the Cynic Cynic = Κυ νικός - kynikos - from ΚÏÏ​ ‰Î½ - kyon - dog The Cosmopolitan Philosopher Alone Against All An anarchist in thought and in action, a cosmopolitan who... tl;dr: You should try Turing.com. I am Vijay Krishnan, Founder & CTO of Turing.com, based in Palo Alto, California, right in the heart of the Silicon Valley. We match exceptional so (Continue reading). 16 Answers. The most illustrious of the Cynic philosophers, Diogenes of Sinope serves as the template for the Cynic sage in antiquity. An alleged student of Antisthenes, Diogenes maintains his teacher’s asceticism and emphasis on ethics, but brings to these philosophical positions a dynamism and sense of humor unrivaled in the history of philosophy. The exceptional nature of Diogenes’ life generates some difficulty for determining the exact events that comprise it. He was a citizen of Sinope who either fled or was exiled because of a problem involving the defacing of currency. Thanks to numismatic evidence, the adulteration of Sinopean coinage is one event about which there is certainty.