Human Studies (2005) 28: 41–56

C Springer 2005

From Nature to Culture? Diogenes and Philosophical

Anthropology

CHRISTIAN LOTZ
University of Kansas, Philosophy Department, 1445 Jayhawk Blvd., Wescoe Hall 3090,
Lawrence, KS, U.S.A.
(E-mail: lotz@ku.edu)

Abstract. This essay is concerned with the central issue of philosophical anthropology: the
relation between nature and culture. Although Rousseau was the first thinker to introduce this
topic within the modern discourse of philosophy and the cultural sciences, it has its origin in
Diogenes the Cynic, who was a disciple of Socrates. In my essay I (1) historically introduce
a few aspects of philosophical anthropology, (2) deal with the nature–culture exchange, as
introduced in Kant, then I (3) relate this topic to the Ancient Cynic Diogenes. Surprisingly,
although we usually identify Critical Theory and Freudian psychoanalysis as theories that
have shown that cultural progress should not be comprehended as a development from nature
to culture, and that instead it should be conceived as a development from culture against
(external as well as internal) nature, I show that Cynicism can be conceived as a vivid example
within the history of our culture that reveals a double sense of repression and alienation, which
is part of human civilization and mankind.

Key words: civilization, critical theory, culture, cynicism, Diogenes, Freud, Kant, nature,
philosophical anthropology

Introduction: Anthropology and the Nature–Culture Exchange

Within the Anglo-American tradition of philosophy and the social sciences

philosophical anthropology never found its place within the philosophical
discourse (except in cultural anthropology), although for the Continental
tradition of philosophy it still plays a central role. Kant, during his lectures
on logic, reformulated the three central philosophical questions “What can I
know” “What should I do?” and “What may I hope?” into the fundamental
question “What is man?” (Kant, 1974: 29). He thereby expressed for the first
time the task of philosophical anthropology.1 Within the 19th Century the
first thinker who shifted man into the focus of attention in direct opposition
to Hegel’s philosophy of absolute spirit was Feuerbach, who tried to replace
theology with anthropology. Even today we can still notice the influence
of philosophical anthropology, as I will show below in my remarks on
Habermas and Derrida. Given the fact that philosophical anthropology plays
42 C. LOTZ

an important role within the European perspective, I will [a] offer a more
general historical introduction to philosophical anthropology as well as [b]
treat a specific issue that is related to its ancient predecessor, namely the Cynic
Diogenes.
Philosophical anthropology never entered Anglo-American philosophy
and the social sciences because it was never structured by any broader, non-
scientific and cultural issues within philosophy itself, or by the epistemological
difference between transcendental and empirical knowledge, nor, finally, by
the ontological difference between man and nature. These were central topics
for Kant and for Post-Kantian Anti-Hegelian philosophy of the 19th Century,
as well as for phenomenology and its successors. Because the connection
between Continental philosophy and anthropological questions might not be
self-explanatory I would like first to outline a brief history of philosophical
anthropology. Toward this end, I shall point out (i) the actuality of anthro-
pological thinking within the European discourse in Critical Theory, before
I turn (ii) to a brief explanation of philosophical anthropology in Rousseau,
Marx and Kant, wherein I will introduce (iii) the nature – culture problematic,
especially as it is addressed in Kant.2 After this general introduction, I shall
turn to the more specific topic of my paper, wherein I will (iv) defend the
hypothesis that the colorful stories about the head of the Cynical movement,
Diogenes, can show us central features of the nature – culture exchange, if
only we but adjust our sights to focus on the main question of anthropology,
that is to say, on the nature–culture exchange and the process of civiliza-
tion. I will argue that this question is of central importance for Diogenes,
which explains why certain philosophers such as Nietzsche and Freud re-
fer back to the ancient cynic. I will introduce Diogenes by appealing to the
anecdotes recorded about him and by considering some general hermeneu-
tical problems. I will then (v) proceed by analyzing concrete aspects within
what we may call the “Cynics’ anthropology,” before I (vi) conclude with
a Freudian explanation of these aspects. I will use smell as an exemplary
issue in this regard because, as Freud pointed out in Civilization and its Dis-
contents, smell may be conceived as an exemplary topic for thinking about
the nature – culture exchange. For smell – which in its natural condition is
conceived as bad – is something that, despite its belonging to our nature, we
want to cover up, overcome, or transform through culture. Freud calls this phe-
nomenon “organic repression.” Culture, according to Freud and philosophical
anthropology, is the attempt to overcome nature. Interestingly, Diogenes, as
a “cultivated” thinker, displays features that render the connection between
nature and culture visible, insofar as he exhibits certain unexpected features
of a “philosophical dog,” such as masturbating in the public, peeing, barking,
and disturbing the Athenians by his smell. By doing this as a “cultivated”
philosopher, he points to the anthropological exchange between nature and
culture.
 FROM NATURE TO CULTURE? DIOGENES AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 43
Current Tendencies

According to an early dictum of Adorno and Critical Theory, philosophical

anthropology does not have a legitimate place within the province of phi-
losophy. According to the classical Frankfurt School, anthropology must be
understood as a form of ideology, since (as Adorno pointed out several times
throughout his work) philosophical anthropology constitutes the attempt to
escape social mediation of human reality, insofar as it deals with what man
is, but not with what he becomes through society. Adorno’s harsh critique is
deeply surprising, especially because the invention of ideology critique was it-
self created in the name of man, namely through Marx’s early writings, within
which he called for a concrete, anthropological critique of Hegel’s philosophy
and its idealistic abstractions from our material, social existence. Adorno’s
destructive critique of anthropological philosophy becomes understandable,
though, when one takes into account the development of European discourse
in the 20th Century. The first enemy of the Frankfurt School, while deeply
connected to the school through Marcuse, was a Heideggerian type of philoso-
phy, which Adorno identified as a form of anthropology (Adorno, 1998/20.1:
136, 262; Adorno, 1998/8: 448). Seen from this point of view, it becomes
clear that Critical Theory tried to reject every idea that is based in an onto-
logical description of human reality; instead, it advanced the thesis that man
was made by social relations and the social environment. Every description
of the nature of human reality, therefore, appeared to Critical Theorists as an
abstract description of it and seemed to be itself based in a social ideology
of the ruling class that is opposed to change in general and thus deals with
human nature and human essence as if they are per definition unchangeable.
Surprisingly, anthropological questions reappeared within the Frankfurt
School during the last decade, especially since the work of Arnold Gehlen
(one of the main enemies of Adorno after WWII), as well as of Helmuth
Plessner, have been rediscovered in Germany.3 In this context it is remarkable
that Jürgen Habermas has recently pointed out that a revitalization of the
question of what man is should be seen as the center of current philosophical
issues.4 According to Habermas,

bioethics and the current eugenic challenge presses for the fundamental
ethical question of who we are and of who we want to be on another level,
that is to say, on the level of anthropological generality. Faced with the
possibility of eugenic self-manipulation we must find an answer to the
question of how we want to understand ourselves as species. (2002: 1, my
translation)

This statement can be nicely combined with another contemporary European

voice, namely that of Derrida, who has pointed out that as a consequence
of current revolutions within our scientific discourses and ways of speaking
44 C. LOTZ

about mankind within the humanities, the “sciences of man” should work
out a conceptual framework that ultimately helps re-define man as man. The
attempt to find an answer to the question of what belongs to man as man
is, according to Derrida, the most important philosophical task within con-
temporary thinking (Derrida, 2001: 67). In what follows I shall elucidate the
tradition and background of this perspective.

Rousseau, Marx

Rousseau, after his ancient Cynical predecessors, is the first modern thinker
who shifts the focus back to the distinction between nature and culture. In his
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Rousseau writes: “Of all branches of
human knowledge, the most useful and the least advanced seems to me to be
that of man” (1987: 33). Rousseau differentiates two types of inequality, one
of which has to do with nature, the other one with culture. As is well known,
he founds the modern discourse on civilization by introducing this distinction
within a critical framework, especially because he views the process that takes
place between man’s natural condition and his cultural development as one that
“eventually makes him a tyrant over himself and nature” (Rousseau, 1987: 45).
Rousseau is the first one (after the ancient Cynical movement) who diagnosed
a deep alienation and estrangement within the process of human civilization,
which, according to him, is visible in the form of a general alienation of
man from his own origin, which is nature. Every attempt to overcome this
distinction leads man more and more into his own destruction. This critical
move and its underlying critical motives deeply influenced the whole Kantian
and Post-Kantian philosophy of the 19th Century, including Hegel’s analysis
of “alienated culture” in his Phenomenology of Spirit. Especially in his early
writings, as well as in his Hegel-critique, the anthropological component in
Marx’s thinking becomes visible, because according to him Hegel overlooked
human reality and interpreted the world as a spiritual category. “For Hegel,”
as Marx puts it, “human nature, man, is equivalent to self-consciousness”
(1992: 187), which leads him to make the claim that man cannot see the real
suffering and alienation of mankind that was historically produced through
private property, labor division and the development of social classes. Hegel’s
misconception of human reality as a reflection of the absolute subject is the
central point for Marx, as it misses the fact that we are tied to nature, and
that human beings and their social reproduction are both part and product of
nature. Because Hegel did not realize man’s reality he overlooks human reality
as a whole, and therefore his philosophy must be conceived as ideology. Marx
writes:

sensuous consciousness is not abstractly sensuous consciousness, but hu-

manly sensuous consciousness, religion, wealth, etc., are only the estranged
 FROM NATURE TO CULTURE? DIOGENES AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 45

reality of human objectification, of human essential powers born into work,

and therefore only the way to true human reality. (1992: 385)

Marx invokes human reality as the main issue of philosophy, and, as a successor
of Feuerbach, re-establishes anthropological thinking within the development
of 19th century thought. Marx destroys every reference to the epistemolog-
ical distinction between empirical and transcendental knowledge as well as
between existence and the underlying essential structure of actuality, which
was central for Hegelian philosophy and its absolute metaphysics. In its place
he elaborates only on the ontological distinction between man and nature.
Human reality can no longer be understood by references to spirit or to God;
neither does it relate itself to an eternal nor to a substantial truth. “For man,”
as Marx points out in his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, “the root is
man himself. . .for man the supreme being is man” (1992: 251). Consequently,
philosophy comes to an end as soon as it is realized in practice, because it no
longer expresses and possesses a higher and more substantial form of truth
which is separated from reality. In other words, the nature of human kind in its
development comes to an end through the development of culture. Through
culture, which is the process of history, man returns to himself and realizes
what he is.

Kant

For Kant, as he puts it in his Logic, all philosophical inquiries are finally based
in the question of what man is (see Kant, 1974: 29). In other words, anthro-
pology is the real basis of transcendental philosophy and the identification of
what man is, as opposed to what he is not (= nature), becomes in Kant the
central issue for philosophy. Philosophical anthropology, as Kant takes it over
from Rousseau, deals with the inclination of mankind in respect to its own
nature as well as in respect to its inclusion into nature in general. Accord-
ing to Kant, philosophical anthropology must abstract from any physiological
aspects of human nature. Instead, a properly constructed philosophical an-
thropology is compelled to reveal any knowledge about human beings and
their culture that does not belong to their mere physical constitution. Kant
calls this knowledge “knowledge of the world” (1978: 3), and he claims that
it includes various phenomena within the human realm that are important
for the development of human reality itself. Accordingly, the perfection of
human beings in the course of civilization must be conceived as a process
that can be described as the movement from nature to culture. However, this
conception of anthropology pushes forward an idea that radically changes the
traditional concept of man. Kant writes: anthropological “knowledge of man
aims at what man makes, can, or should make of himself as a freely acting
being” (1978: 3). From this it follows that any cultural progress of mankind
46 C. LOTZ

is founded in essential structures, and that those structures must be both in-
vestigated as well as perfected through man’s self-creation. In other words,
the nature of human beings must be understood as having a hand in creating
itself, which involves the creation of character, arts, education, and political
institutions. Man is what he makes of himself, and therefore he must give
up the idea that progress toward perfection automatically belongs to a human
essence over which he has no control.
It is important to see that this thought leads to or produces the modern
problematic of history and civilization. Furthermore, it invents the philosoph-
ical problem of history itself, since every philosophy of history presupposes
that we cannot base our desire for knowledge and the goal of perfection in
a naturally given tendency toward “the better” and toward progress, which
is a position held by Aristotle. The very first sentence of his Metaphysics,
on which the whole Western tradition is founded, reads: “All men by nature
desire to know” (Aristotle, 1985: 980a). Kant’s new anthropology revolution-
ized this Aristotelian idea and produced the problem of history, progress and
civilization, which was not a problem for ancient philosophy. Kant interprets
the will as the center of human reality, which is a radical modification within
the history of ideas.
In short, the modern invention of man and the invention of the modern
concept of history have two aspects, namely: a future aspect as well as a past
aspect. On the one hand, anthropology that deals with human freedom has to
explain to where human beings move, and on the other hand, it has to discover
from where we come, lest it be unable to explain the development of nature
toward culture, which we typically call “civilization.” As we all know, and as
I shall point out later in my paper, the most popular answer to this problem
was given during the last century by Freud, and his answer is rather skeptical
regarding the progression of human civilization.
Having introduced the concept of philosophical anthropology in general,
I shall now turn to a consideration of Diogenes in particular. Although we
find several concrete anthropological problems in Diogenes’ stories, in this
paper I shall primarily deal with the problem of smell, since not only was it
taken up by Freud as an issue within his theory of civilization, it also provides
an instructive case for considering the important role that sensibility plays
in questioning the distinction between nature and culture. For, according to
Freud, smell is the most central “natural” property that human beings have
tried to overcome throughout the process of civilization. My interpretation
will give us a perspective from which to push the modern anthropological
problematic to the ancient level. Or, to put this in the reverse, my reading
will allow us to bring the ancient Cynics forward in a consideration of mod-
ern questions, since it permits us to attend in a special way to the conflict
between nature, as displayed in Diogenes’ behavior, and culture, as revealed
through Diogenes as a philosopher, a thinker, and a public figure. In brief, the
 FROM NATURE TO CULTURE? DIOGENES AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 47

anthropological conflict between nature and culture shows up as such through

Diogenes’ strange appearance: on the one hand he is a philosopher and sym-
bolizes the highest level of civilization, while on the other hand he behaves
and wants to behave like a dog. Appropriately conceived, we must come to
the conclusion that the ancient Cynic displays in his very being the core issue
of the anthropological conflict, as I have introduced it so far.

Narrative Variation: Diogenes as Imagined Other

The Presocratic text fragments, as well as the anecdotes and stories about
most of the ancient Greek philosophers, present hermeneutical problems.
Most of the stories were handed down to us by the first narrative history of
philosophy, that is to say, through Diogenes Laertius and his Life of the Eminent
Philosophers. Not only are we confronted with the question of the historic
reality of the anecdotes about the Cynics, but we are also confronted with
the fact that most of the anecdotes have already been interpreted throughout
history.5
For instance, German classical philosophy of the 18th century interpreted
the Cynical movement differently than the French 18th century philoso-
phers. Both are different from the inflamed comments that Augustine flings
at Diogenes. Nietzsche’s and Foucault’s references to the Cynics are even
enthusiastic, and for most of the French enlightenment philosophers, such
as Diderot, Diogenes became a champion for their own enlightened attitude.
Thus if we try to look at Diogenes himself, we will in effect be looking through
this history of looking at Diogenes (see Niehues-Pröbsting, 1996: 329–331).6
In this vein, Diogenes became, as Dudley puts it, “like a snowball rolled
downhill, gathering additions to itself as it went along” (1967: 19).
Why are the Cynics in general and Diogenes in particular so popular, and
why do we find throughout the history of philosophy many, different comments
about this peculiar ancient movement? If we take into account that most of the
stories about Diogenes focus on the events as well as the deeds of Diogenes,
we quickly recognize that we are not confronted with a coherent theory and
that we are instead confronted with what I would call a “character.” Diogenes’
stories show us a character, and exactly this is the reason for the fact that the
texts about the leader of the Cynical movement represent philosophical ideas
that are expressed in a narrative form. The stories we can read in Diogenes
Laertius are the best examples of philosophical literature and perhaps even of
anthropological literature. I shall briefly explain this combination.
Typically, we refer to a character by appealing to the identity of a person,
which is usually expressed by the habitual attitude that a person develops
throughout his/her life. The ethos of someone’s life is a result of what one
makes of oneself and therefore of how one is as a unity. Thus the function of
48 C. LOTZ

fictional characters, i.e., the narration and invention of characters, is meant to

provide us with a condensed version of an image through which we can recog-
nize ourselves in alternative forms.7 In this way, narratives show the “other of
oneself.” Such narratives are like mirrors of possibilities that we never devel-
oped, but could have developed throughout our lives. In other words, fictional
characters are imaginative variations of ourselves, especially in the sense that
a character is always based on a normative or ethical fundament. It is based
on an ethos that includes decisions, actions and attitudes, through which the
character shows up as a phenomenon within one’s lifelong formation. In short:
Diogenes does not have a character, he is a character; that is to say, he is an
imaginative variation of a character. He does not face us with the fact of how
someone acted in reality; rather, he gives us the idea of how someone could
possibly act. Because the character that Diogenes represents gives us a radical
version of our own possibilities, as readers of Diogenes, we are confronted with
an imaginative alternative of human possibilities in general. In other words,
Diogenes is so radical that we are unable to understand his stories as variations
of an individual; rather, Diogenes can be interpreted as an anthropological
imagination and thus as playing a role within a philosophical anthropology.

Barking at People: The Birth of the Intellectual

I shall now explain some characteristics of Diogenes. The most famous one
is that he called himself, and was called by others, “Diogenes the dog,” or
“Diogenes the hound” (see Navis, 1998: 47). We can interpret the character-
ization of Diogenes as a dog as similar to the gadfly analogy that Socrates
uses in the Apology. Barking at people can be translated as the task of the
philosopher to disturb the everyday life of people, and to point them toward
the truth. In other words, barking is a direct activity through which a specific
kind of fear is made to appear, namely the fear of facing the truth. By read-
ing the stories about Diogenes, we are confronted with a philosopher who
does not argue, but who reveals the truth by simply showing it. Thus we can
call him a “practitioner” (Navis, 1998: 55).8 Faced with Zeno’s problem of
the impossibility of movement, Diogenes’ answer was simple but striking: he
stood up and walked around! Though Diogenes’ strategy is quite simple, the
message is complex, namely: de-masking the abstract concepts of philosophy.
References to Diogenes as the “dog” underlines my thesis: barking at other
people – for the purpose of protection – is the main characteristic of a dog
and also characterizes philosophers. Consider the following passages in which
these “dog-like” characteristics are given expression:

He described himself as a hound of the sort which all men praise, but no one,
he added, of his admirers dared go out hunting alone with him (Diogenes
Laertius, 1925/VI: 33).
 FROM NATURE TO CULTURE? DIOGENES AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 49

When Plato styled him a dog, ‘Quite true,’ he said, ‘for I come back again
and again to those have sold me’ (Diogenes Laertius, 1925/VI: 40).

When some boys clustered round him and said, ‘Take care he doesn’t bite
us,’ he answered, ‘Never fear, boys, a dog does not eat beetroot.’ (Diogenes
Laertius, 1925/VI: 45).

At a feast certain people kept throwing all the bones to him as they would
have done to a dog. Thereupon he played a dog’s trick and drenched them
(Diogenes Laertius, 1925/VI: 46).

Being asked what he had done to be called a hound, he said, ‘I fawn on

those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse, and I set my teeth
in rascals.’ (Diogenes Laertius, 1925/VI: 60).

Because Diogenes lives a public life, the very sense of his own activities
is not only visible to the public: it is public, and thus it is political. However,
the presentation of one’s ethos in the public has another sense, namely a sense
of universality. Diogenes does not produce esoteric, that is to say, “secret”
knowledge that can only be understood by some people or by a specific group
of people. Rather, he reveals the exoteric function of having knowledge at
all, and in this way he provides us with a first version of a philosopher who
may be called an “intellectual” – that is, if we agree to call a philosopher
who produces universal knowledge for and in the public an intellectual. In
this sense Diogenes is the first cosmopolitan thinker within the history of
philosophy. Only knowledge that can be presented to the public is worthy of
being called universal knowledge or truth, even if the public is not willing to
understand or accept this knowledge, which is often the case. Consequently,
the role of the intellectual is almost always in conflict with the institutional
sense of philosophy. The intrinsic, exoteric value of philosophical knowledge
or public truth does not allow itself to be restricted from the outside, al-
though institutions like academies, groups, movements, and universities tend
to reduce truth and knowledge to ideologies or to mere sophistry. Because
Diogenes performs each of his actions in the light of the public, we can ad-
dress Cynicism as a perfect variation of what intellectualism is supposed to
be, namely, the spokesperson of universal truth, as the following quote inti-
mates: “Asked where he came from, he said, ‘I am a citizen of the world”’
(Diogenes Laertius, 1925/VI: 63). From this quote we are able to see that
the essence of an intellectual, for which the narration of Diogenes stands,
might be called “homelessness.”9 The philosopher, because he or she pro-
duces universal knowledge, is nowhere at home and thus must be called a
public intellectual. Thinking is not meditation; on the contrary, it is expo-
sure of truth. To put it in other words, living in the name of truth forces the
philosopher to address the world in his or her speeches, not a specific com-
munity. Diogenes’ thinking is utopian, his thoughts unreal, inasmuch as they
50 C. LOTZ

have no place, they are an a-topos, within the concrete lifeworld of Athens.
Consequently, the Athenians did not seem to like him.
The primary function of Diogenes’ critique of the Greek way of living
should be conceived as an attempt to show alternatives by an “ex negativo”
technique. Despite what a tendency in the literature suggests, it is not true
that Diogenes shows us a move back to nature. Instead, he presents us with
another model of our own reality and cultural progression. In other words,
culture itself shows up through Diogenes’ references to nature, as this well
known example illustrates: “He lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he
went about, ‘I am looking for a man” (Diogenes Laertius, 1925/VI: 42).
This anecdote has been quoted often within the history of philosophy.10
However, one of the elements of this perfect aphorism is not only that Diogenes
converts or perverts the moral and logical status quo by changing the oppo-
sition of day and night, of right and wrong, but also that he uses a tool that
is provided by his opponents, namely the lamp. Because the lamp as lamp
belongs to the general cultural element of enlightenment by truth, we can
acknowledge that Diogenes uses elements of the culture to show its imper-
fection. We can also see that one of the common interpretations of Diogenes
should be corrected. Diogenes as a fictional variation of a universal intellec-
tual does not shift himself into an opposition to society and culture; rather,
we have to conclude that Diogenes’ critique is – similar to Socrates’ ethos
– immanently motivated.11 Dogs and gadflies are tied to what they attack.
Diogenes himself states that he should be primarily considered as “a Socrates
gone mad” (Diogenes Laertius, 1925/VI: 54).

Adulterating Coinage: Questioning the Nature–Culture Bridge

However this may be, being a dog implies the following characteristics:

1. Dogs eat in public. They have a special relation to instincts.

2. Dogs do their “business” in public. They have a special relation to their
needs.
3. Dogs are animals that we connect to smell. In this way, they have a special
relation to sensibility.

We quickly recognize that traditionally these three characteristics are not

only connected to the framework of anthropology in general, but also to the
progression that takes place between nature and culture.12 It is well known
that Cynicism follows the goal of living in accordance with nature.13 Culture
or civilization was understood as the very process that lets us overcome our
instincts, needs, and sensibility. These considerations about the classification
of the Cynics as “dogs” advance the thesis that the imaginative variation that
 FROM NATURE TO CULTURE? DIOGENES AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 51

is presented through the character of Diogenes includes specific references

to the anthropological thematic of the distinction and relation between nature
and culture. In short, my thesis proposes that Diogenes touches the core of
anthropological knowledge itself.
Through his attempt to criticize civilization, Diogenes reveals human at-
tempts to overcome and envelop the distinction between nature and culture.
For instance, Diogenes shows by his actions that an ethical life can only be
worth living if it follows simple rules according to nature. A famous story
claims that he throws away his cup when he sees a child drinking out of his
own hands. “A child has beaten me in plainness of living” (Diogenes Laertius,
1925/VI: 37), he exclaims. In a Rousseauian manner, Diogenes points to the
fact that culture and civilization forces man to be bound by chains with which
he was not originally born. In other words: culture must be identified as the
very process that destroys and represses our unchained origins. To underline
this thesis I shall interpret the story that is given at the beginning of Diogenes
Laertius’ chapter on Diogenes.

Diogenes was a native of Sinope, son of Hicesius, a banker. Diocles relates

that he went into exile because his father was entrusted with the money
of the state and adulterated the coinage. But Eubulides in his book on
Diogenes says that Diogenes himself did this and was forced to leave home
along with his father. Moreover Diogenes himself actually confesses in his
Pordalus that he adulterated the coinage. One version is that he debased
it, in consequence of which the father was imprisoned and died, while the
son fled, came to Delphi, and inquired, not whether he should falsify the
coinage, but what he should do to gain the greatest reputation; and that then
it was that he received the oracle. (Diogenes Laertius, 1925/VI: 20–21)

This story does not seem to give us anything except for a short reference to
and narration about the origin of Diogenes and the relation to his family, as well
as the reason why the Athenians did not like him, namely, his obvious status as
a criminal.14 However, if we begin to think about the sense of the narration, we
notice that already here, in the very first introduction of Diogenes’ character,
the nature–culture bridge is implicitly thematized through the topic of money.
To be precise, to adulterate the coinage does not only mean to change the value
that is connected to money: it also means to remove the value from the money.
How do we usually identify the value of money? The value of money is the
coinage of the material, in this case of metal. In other words, to adulterate
the coinage implies that someone removes the cultural embossment that was
performed on the metal as a natural resource. A coin is nothing else than a
cultural transformation of a natural resource. As we all know, minting metal
produces money. Consequently, Diogenes – by removing the embossment –
reveals the phenomenon of a cultural transformation of nature, and in so doing,
he highlights the process of civilization as such.15
52 C. LOTZ

Being a Dog: The Rehabilitation of Smell

The function of sensibility in our cognition and knowledge was from the very
start of philosophy a topic for philosophical anthropology. However, at a close
glance we recognize that classical positions point out a hierarchy of the senses,
according to which sense and taste do not play a central role. Whereas vision,
hearing and touch support our cognitions of the objects of our experience,
taste and smell push the subject back to itself. Whereas the “objective” senses
give us information about specific things, we are confronted with ourselves
through our “subjective” senses. In other words, the objective senses can be
characterized as having a closer relation to the higher faculties of reason and
understanding than the subjective senses can. For this reason, smell and taste
were not much appreciated within the history of thinking. According to Kant,
for example, smell is characterized by aversion and not by pleasure; it provides
us with negative things, and as such, “it does not pay us to cultivate it or refine it
to gain enjoyment” (1978: 46). This classical denigration of smell is mirrored
in the anthropological hierarchy of the arts. Vision is related to paintings,
hearing to music, and touch to sculpture, whereas smell cannot be objectified
by aesthetic judgment nor can it be cultivated by taste. In short, smell –
because of its ugly and unhygienic character – is traditionally associated with
the opposite of culture, and therefore is repressed throughout the historical
process of seeking perfection. Smell indicates dirt, dirt indicates illness, and
illness indicates the traditional enemy of civilization: “To one with perfumed
hair he said, ‘Beware lest the sweet scent on your head cause an ill odor in
your life”’ (Diogenes Laertius, 1925/VI: 67).

Repression: From Diogenes to Freud and Back Again

In the final part of my paper, I shall appeal to another author who is well
known for his critical examination of the nature–culture bridge, namely Freud.
Surprisingly, Freud can provide us with an explanation of how Diogenes fits
into the anthropological picture of man.
Freud points in two footnotes in Civilization and its Discontents to the re-
pression of smell that occurred throughout the process of civilization. Accord-
ing to Freud, culture and civilization are not characterized by a transformation
of nature into culture; rather, he thinks that the process of culture should be
conceived as a repression of our physiological and sexual constitution. The
“fateful process of civilization” (2001: 54) is based on a destruction of its
uncivilized natural roots. Accordingly, Freud interprets the development of
vision as an organic repression of the natural function of smell. Whereas orig-
inally olfactory stimuli, especially the menstrual process, “produced an effect
on the male psyche” (2001: 54), cultural development replaced the primacy of
smell with the primacy of vision and the visibility of the genitals. This process
 FROM NATURE TO CULTURE? DIOGENES AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 53

is mirrored throughout the anal phase of early childhood development, during

which hygienic considerations lead us to the repression of smell that is con-
nected to our excrement. Whereas excrement does not arouse disgust in little
children and is conceived as a part of their bodies, we learn throughout our
education that excrement is a part of our body that must be excluded from our
perception of human beings. “[O]rganic repression,” as Freud puts it, “paved
the way to civilization” (2001: 54). In addition, Freud notes that understanding
of this process provides us with an explanation of why we feel offended when
a person does not follow standards of hygiene. Everything that is not clean is
associated with our excrement. Freud writes:

It would be incomprehensible, too, that man should use the name of his
most faithful friend in the animal world – the dog – as a term of abuse
if that creature had not incurred his contempt through two characteristics:
that it is an animal whose dominant sense is that of smell and one which has
no horror of excrement, and that it is not ashamed of its sexual functions.
(2001: 55)

At this point we find the real connection between the Cynics and Diogenes’
characterization as “dog.” By masturbating in public, by eating raw meat in
public, and by peeing and shitting in public, Diogenes, the master of the
Cynics, points to these natural roots of human nature that are repressed
throughout human history and civilization, by exercising them in a complete,
non-repressed manner.
The idea of modernity and history throughout the 20th Century was re-
interpreted and re-examined from different philosophical schools, each of
which threw light on the dialectical, ambiguous entanglement of nature and
culture. In their approaches to that problematic, Critical Theory and Freudian
psychoanalysis combine both aspects of the entanglement, inasmuch as they
have shown that human progress uses human freedom and power to free
human beings from their inclination toward nature, instead of just leading
them toward civilization. Thus, according to these positions, human spirit in
general as well as cultural progress in particular should not be comprehended
as a development from nature to culture; rather, it should be conceived as a
development that can be characterized as a development from culture against
(external as well as internal) nature.
I hope to have shown that Cynicism can be conceived as the first movement
within the history of philosophy that reveals the double sense of repression
and alienation that is part of human civilization and mankind. Through his
public performances, Diogenes presents us with what could be called Greek
Critical Theory: “When someone reminded him that the people of Sinope had
sentenced him to exile, ‘And I them,’ said he, ‘to home-staying”’ (Diogenes
Laertius, 1925/VI: 49).
54 C. LOTZ

Notes
1. Following Kant’s terminology, I will use “man” to designate “human being.”
2. I will not address another aspect of the anthropological movement that played a special role
within the German tradition of the 20th Century, especially within the phenomenological
movement and its “children,” that is to say, through Scheler, Jonas, Fink, Bollnow, Plessner,
Arendt and Gehlen. Not many Anglo-American commentators on Heidegger’s philosophy
are aware of the background against which Heidegger emerged. One of the central terms
of Being and Time, namely the “surrounding world” and “private world” [Umwelt], were
coined by the biologist Jacob von Uexküll, who at the beginning of the century published a
book on the environment of animals entitled Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere (Surrounding
World and Inner World of Animals). The main thesis is that organisms (and therefore human
beings as well) can be understood by analyzing their limitations within their worlds. The
philosophical discourse was well aware of Uexküll’s discovery.
3. For an astonishingly lively interpretation of Plessner, see Krüger (1999, 2000, 2002).
4. One of Habermas’ first publications was an article on philosophical anthropology, which
appeared in an important philosophical dictionary after WWII; see Habermas (1958).
5. The problem arises already in Diogenes Laertius’ text, because the collection of anecdotes
is itself a first interpretation of other sources. For this problematic see Fritz, 1926: 4ff.
Laertius’ intention is to present what is called a “way of life” (bios), even if the coherence
and unity of the anecdotes is a construction of Laertius. However, I am at this point not
interested in the historical problematic, but rather in the narrated version we have to deal
with.
6. Diogenes was also very often depicted throughout art history, especially within the 18th
Century. An impressive interpretation of the way in which philosophy in art works is given
by Brandt (2000: 158–193; for Nietzsche’s reading of Diogenes see Niehues-Pröbsting,
1979: 250–278).
7. For this approach to identity see Ricoeur (1995: 147–154, 182–186), as well as Iser (1993).
8. An interesting view on Diogenes’ rhetoric is presented by Branham, who locates Diogenes
within the chreia tradition. According to Branham, Diogenes’ anecdotes are a “demon-
stration of a modus dicendi, a way of adapting verbally to (usually hostile) circumstances”
(1996: 87). Branham interprets the distinction between theory and practice in terms of
humor (1996: 98 ff.).
9. Moles interprets Diogenes’ homelessness as a form of political cosmopolitanism (1996:
109).
10. For an overview of the modern Diogenes reception, see Niehues-Pröbsting (1996) and
Niehues-Pröbsting (1979: 214–242), and Nietzsche’s transformation of the story in The
Gay Science (see Nietzsche, 2001: Section 125).
11. I follow here Niehues-Pröbsting’s position (1979: 81 ff.). Diogenes tries to operate between
participation and aloofness. A similar position is also held by Dudley (1967: 27).
12. Cynicism is the only ancient movement that has a positive attitude toward animals (Moles,
1996: 112).
13. Being a dog can be interpreted as a symbol for this idea (for other characteristics see Navis,
1998: 48 ff.).
14. According to Fritz, the relation to his father does not make sense, since Diogenes – similar
to Socrates – received the oracle (1926: 19). According to Niehues-Pröbsting, the oracle
story must be interpreted as a parody on Socrates, because Diogenes was anti-religious
(1979: 43–63).
15. The other horizon of understanding the anecdote is a more general one, namely that
Diogenes re-evaluates the values that are common in his society (for this approach see
 FROM NATURE TO CULTURE? DIOGENES AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 55
Fritz, 1926: 20; for a detailed interpretation of this central anecdote see Niehues-Pröbsting
(1979: 43–77). Niehues-Pröbsting interprets the story by implementing the relation be-
tween nomos and physis. My approach follows Brandt (2000: 161–166).

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