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  • The Cynic Enlightenment: Diogenes in the Salon
  • Edward Ousselin
The Cynic Enlightenment: Diogenes in the Salon. By Louisa Shea. (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. xx + 262 pp. Hb £36.50; $70.00.

Louisa Shea's book is an impressive work of comparative literature, encompassing classical Greek philosophy, the Enlightenment in both France and Germany, and the postmodern moment. The first chapter provides a historical overview of 'Diogenes of Sinope and the Cynic tradition'. The next four chapters are devoted to the various attempts by eighteenth-century philosophes to integrate a respectable or bowdlerized form of Cynicism into the Enlightenment project. To use the subtitle's image: the goal was to turn the unkempt, uncouth Diogenes into a polite member of salon society. However, it proved to be nearly impossible to preserve Diogenes's unflinching courage, outspokenness, and concern for truth while simultaneously ridding him of 'two vices commonly attributed to the ancient Cynic, misanthropy and indecency' (p. 30). The last three chapters address the re-evaluation of the Cynic tradition by some postmodernist critics of the Enlightenment. One of Shea's central arguments is that the failure of the attempts by D'Alembert, Diderot, and Rousseau to renew and transform Cynicism contributed to its erasure from respectable philosophical discourse. What had been a school of thought, albeit marginalized, was reduced to the current meaning of the word 'cynical': an attitude of harsh negativity and crass self-interest. The shift was visible at the end of the eighteenth century in Sade's La Philosophie dans le boudoir: 'With a knowing wink, Sade consolidates the modern meaning of cynicism as disillusionment' (p. 126). Shea thus depicts the emergence of the current, wholly negative meaning of cynicism as symptomatic of the larger failure of the Enlightenment project: 'Modern cynicism as it emerges in the late eighteenth century signifies a disillusionment with modernity and a bitter acceptance of history's failure to make good the promises of Enlightenment thought' (p. 198). After suffering a long eclipse (with Nietzsche as one of the rare exceptions), Cynicism was revived as a philosophical tradition, somewhat [End Page 415] ironically, as one facet of the postmodern critique of Enlightenment, particularly by Peter Sloterdijk and Michel Foucault. While some of the philosophes of the eighteenth century had tried to transform or 'tame' the Cynic philosophy inherited from Greek antiquity, Sloterdijk and Foucault sought to redefine radically the philosophical project of the Enlightenment by reintroducing the Cynic tradition, which conceived of philosophy as first and foremost a way of life. Shea's conclusion suggests that this latest updating or reappraisal of Cynic philosophy may play a role in the much-needed revitalization of the role of the public intellectual. Overall, this book provides fascinating, insightful reading on a much maligned or belittled school of thought that nevertheless seems to retain the capacity to invigorate widely divergent philosophers across the centuries. A minor quibble: there are some noticeable typographical errors ('rebuffal', p. 75; 'whig', p. 101; 'one is six', p. 164; 'vie bénifique', p. 183; 'the state at Olympus', p. 185). That said, whether or not readers see any value in the perpetuation of the Cynic tradition, they will find food for thought in Shea's innovative analyses (the chapter on Diderot's Le Neveu de Rameau is particularly perceptive).

Edward Ousselin
Western Washington University
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