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Philosophical Animal Encounters with Cynical Affinities: Variants in Diogenes and Schopenhauer (with Remarks on Montaigne, Derrida, Blumenberg)

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Animal Encounters

Part of the book series: Cultural Animal Studies ((CAS,volume 4))

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Abstract

Philosophy is thought to have commenced with detached wonderment—Animal Studies with an immediate encounter (whether in Derrida or Montaigne). Yet a comparably inductive approach to animals had already initiated Diogenical Cynicism, subtending any discourse with such affinities. Not incidentally, the Ancient variant—deriving its designation from the Greek word for ‘dog’—is likely the most prominent philosophical ‘interest group’ bearing an animal in its very label; and cynical discourses dependably share a down-to-earth, animal-related approach diachronically. Like the inaugurative impact of Diogenes, Schopenhauer’s (and Blumenberg’s) place in a theriophilic ‘genealogy’ is to be maintained.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Plato (54–55, 155D); Aristotle: “It is through wonder [‘tò thaumázein’] that men now begin and originally began to philosophize; wondering [‘thaumásantes’] in the first place at obvious perplexities, and then by gradual progression raising questions about the greater matters too” (12–13, I.ii.9, 982b; cf. 14–15, I.ii.15, 983a).

  2. 2.

    Thereto, see Mayfield (“Talking Canines” 24n.–25n.).

  3. 3.

    He adds: “If I have my time to begin or to refuse, so has she hers” (Essays 331n., II.12; cf. Essais II. 706n.).

  4. 4.

    Cf. Essays 344; “this equality and correspondence”, 354; Montaigne signals seeing similarities as a choice of perspective, when stating that “there is more difference between a given man and a given man than between a given animal and a given man” (Essays 342, II.12). On Montaigne and animals, see Fudge (Brutal 78; 96; 117–122; “Home” 42–45); Enenkel and Smith (11–12; with further references). Shapiro and Copeland note that “[w]e all have some knowledge of the life of a nonhuman animal and […] some ability to empathize with the world-as-experienced by that animal” (345); cf. Boehrer (3).

  5. 5.

    Derrida’s purpose is “to destabilize a whole tradition, to deprive it of its fundamental argument” (407n.).

  6. 6.

    He insists on the alter’s immediate factuality—“that is truly a little cat, this cat I am talking about” (375)—while alluding to the possibility of his actually citing the phrase “really a little cat” (376); hence: “the cat said to be real” (378); see Fudge (“Home” 45; 46). Derrida seems frank as to whose role in the Tradition’s economy of positions he is reallocating (cf. “this deranged theatrics of the wholly other that they call animal, for example, a cat”, 380; “I hear the cat or God ask itself, ask me”, 387). Generally, see Blumenberg on “the age-old theological statement [that] God is the downright Other” (Literatur 79; trans. dsm).

  7. 7.

    Cf. Mayfield (“Talking Canines” 3n.; 5–8).

  8. 8.

    See the following phrases as indicators: “in the first place, me”; “animal narcissism”; “this cat […] my primary mirror” (418). Cf. Fudge, ‘tracing’ in Derrida “an admission of the centrality of animals to the assertion of human status” (“Home” 51). “In a world without animals, humans […] would lose themselves” (Brutal 36). Cuneo notes “how central the study of animals is to our continuing endeavors to understand ourselves and our interconnected world” (4). Cf. Bühler, in epistemological terms (20); similarly in Aquinas (as per Agamben 22).

  9. 9.

    On the Early Modern reception of Ancient Skepticism, see Fudge (Brutal 5; 116–122; 145).

  10. 10.

    Derrida’s dichotomizing ‘animal discourses’ into ‘philosophical’ or ‘poetic’ (382–383; 377) may seem overly unambiguous.

  11. 11.

    For the seminal study on cynicism, see Niehues-Pröbsting (passim; here spec. 210–211).

  12. 12.

    As to alterity in Descartes (“difference in kind”) and Darwin (“difference in degree”), see Boehrer (16)—also on “Aristotle’s notion of the interspecies continuum” (17).

  13. 13.

    The Cynic extends his heuristics to all animate beings: “observing a child drinking out of his hands, he cast away the cup […] with the words, ‘A child has beaten me in plainness of living’. He also threw away his bowl when […] he saw a child who had broken his plate taking up his lentils with the hollow part of a morsel of bread” (D. Laertius 30, VI.37).

  14. 14.

    See his stress on heuristics: “Ich denke an die erste Nacht des Diogenes: alle antike Philosophie war auf Simplicität des Lebens gerichtet […]. In diesem Betracht haben die wenig philosophischen Vegetarianer mehr für die Menschen geleistet als alle neueren Philosophien; und so lange die Philosophen nicht den Muth gewinnen, eine ganz veränderte Lebensordnung zu suchen und durch ihr Beispiel aufzuzeigen, ist es nichts mit ihnen” (Nachgelassene Fragmente 1969–1874 752, 31[10]; cf. 739, 30[18]).

  15. 15.

    As to the so-called “human-animal divide” (Boehrer 3; Raber 30; 45), see Derrida’s referring to “the question called that of the animal and of the limit between the animal and the human” (408; 399). Agamben asserts: “the border between human and animal” is “not just one question among many” (21; 22, 24, 36; passim).

  16. 16.

    Cf. Niehues-Pröbsting (320); Mayfield (Artful 194; 198; 297–298; 390–399; 410; 417; 437).

  17. 17.

    “The radical affirmation of this body, self, life, and of this world is the cynic’s attitude tying together self-sufficiency and adaptation” (Mayfield, Artful 54; 13); cynicism ever “attacks […] the prevalent nómos” (Artful 12).

  18. 18.

    “No one will call into question the Understanding of the […] animals, unless himself devoid [there]of” (“Wurzel” 85, IV, §21; trans. dsm; cf. 86).

  19. 19.

    See Schopenhauer (PP II. 69, III, §50); Mayfield (Artful 90n.; 436n.).

  20. 20.

    Cf. “He lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, ‘I am looking for a man’” (D. Laertius 43, VI.41; see Mayfield, Artful 31; 48; 233n.; 342; 393; 426–427; 439–442).

  21. 21.

    Cf. “Wundern darf es mich nicht, daß manche die Hunde verläumden: / Denn es beschämet zu oft leider den Menschen der Hund” (PP II. 567, “Einige Verse”)—this aphorism closes his published works.

  22. 22.

    Cf. “Ein ganz junger Hund springt nicht vom Tisch herab, weil er die Wirkung anticipirt” (“Wurzel” 85, IV, §21; see WWV I. 56, I, §6).

  23. 23.

    Cf. “Selbst im kleinsten Insekt ist der Wille vollkommen und ganz vorhanden: es will was es will, so entschieden und vollkommen wie der Mensch” (WWV II. 239, II.19; cf. 559, IV.41; PP II. 331, XV, §177; 497–498, XXVI, §305).

  24. 24.

    Cf. “we see something in this action […] because it resembles our own” (Montaigne, Essays 343, II.12).

  25. 25.

    “Montaigne’s […] Apology for Raymond Sebond […] [is] one of the greatest pre- or anti-Cartesian texts on the animal” (Derrida 375). Derrida’s “essay […] is arguably the single most important event in the brief history of animal studies” (Wolfe 570; cf. Bühler-Dietrich and Weingarten 8).

  26. 26.

    Schopenhauer’s approach shows how interspecies encounters, and universal reflections as to their metaphysical nature, are ever interrelated. The perceived immediacy of the literal does not prevent the potential presence of other (textual, notional) planes; nor vice versa, for an appresenting recipient gives a mediated scene vivid immediacy. Contrast Derrida (374); and Fudge, stating that “meditation begins with the animal and then turns to a wider spiritual truth that the material being sets off in the mind of the meditator. […] The dog as dog has disappeared from the meditation” (Brutal 105–106). Later, she revises her stance: “the real and the conceptual are not […] wholly separate spheres” (“Humans” 188). See Borgards: “die Tiere der Literatur […] stehen mit den Tieren der Welt in einem vielfältigen und wechselseitigen Austausch” (229; cf. 228).

  27. 27.

    An emphatic notion of liberty may seem to provide the decisive nexus between an (aesthetically) mediated and a natural approach to encountering animals: in the former case, contemplation entails and effects freedom in the human recipient; in the latter, Schopenhauer’s enumeratively precise qualification (as quoted above) indicates the exceptional significance he gives to the wellbeing of animals.

  28. 28.

    He had cited it as “Tatoumes, richtiger tat twam asi […]: ‘dies bist du’”, giving its source: “Oupnek’hat, vol. I, p. 60f.” (WWV I. 460, IV, §63; 460n.; trans. dsm); see Mayfield (“Talking Canines” 2; 2n.; 6n.).

  29. 29.

    His core tenet: ‘all life is suffering’ (cf. WWV I. 405, IV, §56; 141, I, §16; 265, III, §38; 411, IV, §57; 469, IV, §65; 488, IV, §68; passim); as to Diogenes (WWV II. 671, IV, §46). On Bentham’s “‘Can they suffer?’”, see Derrida (396; 395).

  30. 30.

    Schopenhauer censures any (linguistic) construal of ‘radical alterity’ (cf. “Grundprobleme” 596–597, §19.7; PP II. 329, XV, §177).

  31. 31.

    As to Genesis, cf. Derrida (375–376; 380–386; 390; 392; 398–400; passim).

  32. 32.

    On Nietzsche’s affirmation of animality, see Mayfield (Artful 362–367; 371; 382–383; 391–399; 402; 406n.; 410; 439; 442–443).

  33. 33.

    See Fudge on “Thomism” (Brutal 138). (Quasi) Kantian mindsets persist (cf. Benz-Schwarzburg 248).

  34. 34.

    Waugh’s heroine uses “cynical”, “irreverent”, “unethical” to describe her lover (82; 101).

  35. 35.

    See Blumenberg’s emphasis on the “biological authenticity” of “death” (Literatur 139; trans. dsm). Wolfe (re Bentham, Derrida) notes “the embodied finitude that we share with nonhuman animals” (570; 571). Cf. Raber’s stress on “interanimality, the shared experience of bodily existence” (28; 30).

  36. 36.

    See Raber: “Humans are remarkably consistent in insisting on or reverting to difference, even when those humans call themselves ‘animals’ and agitate for a post-human world” (30).

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    D. S. Mayfield

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    Alexandra Böhm

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    Jessica Ullrich

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Mayfield, D.S. (2019). Philosophical Animal Encounters with Cynical Affinities: Variants in Diogenes and Schopenhauer (with Remarks on Montaigne, Derrida, Blumenberg). In: Böhm, A., Ullrich, J. (eds) Animal Encounters. Cultural Animal Studies, vol 4. J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-04939-1_4

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