A NATURALISTIC GESTURE IN ANCIENT CYNICISM

Annotation

The article is devoted to the analysis of historical- philosophical premises and explication of the philosophical meaning of the naturalistic gesture in ancient Cynicism. A naturalistic gesture is understood as a gesture complex, the content of which is determined by one of the natural functions of the human body: from sexual to nutritive. The decisive prerequisite for the introduction of such argument into philosophical discourse is the Socratic turn: the shift of problematic interest from purely theoretical issues to the formation of a behavioral attitude corresponding to the lifestyle of a philosophical preacher. It is in the person of Socrates that the philosophical meaning of the method, outlined by Parmenides in his famous poem, is most fully revealed: the method is not only the path of knowledge, but also — first of all — the path of life. This kind of attitude presupposes a reversible capture by thought of the registers of human existence that are not directly involved in cognition. Thus, it opens up the possibility for the natural functions of the body to become a “logical argument”, i. e., a full–fledged way of revealing the logos of being. This possibility is realized by the Cynic philosophers. The naturalistic gesture becomes a necessary moment of the cynical method of “re-minting a coin”. It is the public satisfaction of physiological needs that allows the cynic, in a concrete experience, to distinguish the primordial natural order of a truly existing one from the conventions and distortions of the “too human” inherent in the polis Greek layered on it. Actualizing the borderline forms of being a “demon” and a “dog” in a naturalistic gesture, the cynical preacher in his existence asserts a flat ontology of cosmopolis with its principle of equality of gods, people and animals.

Keywords

ancient cynicism, Socrates, naturalistic gesture, natural/cultural, borderline being, flat ontology

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