#euthymeme

If, as Mary Douglas argues, a joke is an assertion of freedom, it is precisely the commitment to freedom that gives rise to a rhetorical practice characterized by (1) pragmatism, (2) improvisation, and (3) humor. This conception of Cynic rhetoric as a kind of performance premised on freedom helps to explain some of Cynicism's most curious features when considered as some kind of systematic moral philosophy, such as its lack of doctrinal rigor or a systematic method like logic or dialectic. For example, consider rhetorically Diogenes' way of life may be taken as an assertion of nature, of human nature, in the face of culture; indeed, human nature is the only kind Diogenes shows more than incidental interest in. It is safe to say that 'nature' according to Diogenes is simply human nature as he embodies it. In this sense, we do find it figuring prominently in the chreiai; Diogenes frequently uses his own body as an example of nature and thus as a means of developing his "discourse on nature" by taking advantage of the two principal forms of rhetorical argument, the example and the euthymeme. In this sense, 'nature' is rhetorically central: Diogenes' arguments frequently turn on the body as an example of unaccommodated and unaccommodating man as such it is a fertile source of comic enthymemes that give memorable expression to the most basic tenets—or tendencies—of Cynicism.