Cyrenaic school of philosophy. Like other Greek ethical thinkers,
Aristippus' ethics are centered around the question of what the 'end'
is; that is, what goal our actions aim at and what is valuable for its
own sake. Aristippus identified the end as pleasure. This
identification of pleasure as the end makes Aristippus a hedonist.
Most of the pleasures that Aristippus is depicted as pursuing have to
do with sensual gratification, such as sleeping with courtesans and
enjoying fine food and old wines. He taught that we should not defer
pleasures that are ready at hand for the sake of future pleasures. He
was willing to break the social conventions of his day and engage in
behavior that was considered undignified or shocking for the sake of
obtaining pleasurable experiences. His ideal life would be branded by
most Greeks as being enslaved to pleasure.The Cyrenaic school
developed these ideas further and influenced Epicurus and the later
Greek skeptics.
1. Life and Sources
Aristippus was born in Cyrene, a Greek colony in Northern Africa. He
moved to Athens and became one of the young men who followed Socrates
about as Socrates questioned the citizens of Athens and exposed their
ignorance. He was probably the most scandalous of Socrates' followers
because of his advocacy of a life of sensual pleasure and his
willingness to accept money for his instruction, as the sophists did.
He gathered a number of disciples, including his daughter Arete, to
whom he taught philosophy, and these students formed the basis for the
Cyrenaic school.
Beyond these spare facts, it is difficult to ascertain much with great
confidence about Aristippus. This is because our main source for
information on Aristippus is the Lives of the Philosophers by Diogenes
Laertius, who wrote over 500 years after Aristippus died. Diogenes
Laertius simply collated what others had said about various
philosophers, without any regard for the sources' reliability. Because
of the contempt that the hedonism of Aristippus and the Cyrenaics
inspired, Aristippus became a natural focal point for many scandalous
stories that were supposed to provide fitting illustrations of his
thought. Most of these stories are probably false. However, they still
can be used as sources for popular attitudes toward Aristippus and to
reconstruct what features of his thought and life inspired these
stories.
Although Aristippus founded the Cyrenaic school, it is not clear how
much of the developed Cyrenaic position was actually promulgated by
him. This is because Aristippus' grandson, also named Aristippus, is
reported to have systematized much of the Cyrenaic philosophy, and
thus it is difficult to disentangle which parts of the Cyrenaic
philosophy were Aristippus the Elder's, and which parts his
grandson's. For the purposes of this article, therefore, only those
positions that can be confidently ascribed to Aristippus the Elder
himself will be discussed, and the more developed epistemology and
ethics of the school he founded are discussed in the article on the
Cyrenaics.
2. Hedonism and Future Concern
Like other Greek ethical thinkers, Aristippus' ethics are centered
around the question of what the 'end' is; that is, what goal our
actions aim at and what is valuable for its own sake. Aristippus
identified the end as pleasure. This identification of pleasure as the
end makes Aristippus a hedonist. Most of the pleasures that Aristippus
is depicted as pursuing have to do with sensual gratification, such as
sleeping with courtesans and enjoying fine food and old wines.
Xenophon, a hostile contemporary of Aristippus', reports that
Aristippus rejected delaying any gratification. Aristippus advocated
simply deriving pleasure from whatever is present, and not producing
trouble for oneself by toiling to obtain things which may bring one
pleasure in the future.
Both of these features of Aristippus' thought were developed further
by the Cyrenaics.
3. Iconoclasm and Freedom
In his pursuit of sensual gratification, Aristippus showed little
regard for the standards of propriety reigning in Greece at the time.
Although many of the sensationalistic stories about Aristippus are
probably false, they depict a man who is willing to engage in activity
that is shocking, undignified, and callous for the sake of his own
pleasure, and who displays disdain for conventional standards as being
mere societal prejudices.
For instance, when Aristippus was upbraided for sleeping with a
courtesan, he asked whether there was any difference between taking a
house in which many people have lived in before or none, or between
sailing on a ship in which many people have sailed and none. When it
was answered that there is no important difference, he replied that it
likewise makes no difference whether the woman you sleep with has been
with many people or none. Aristippus was also notorious for currying
favor with King Dionysius of Syracuse, and he was called the "king's
poodle" for his willingness to do things like putting on a woman's
robes and dancing when the king demanded it, or falling at the feet of
the king in order to have a request of his fulfilled. And when he was
reproached for exposing his infant son to die as if it were not his
own, he replied that "phlegm and vermin are also of our own begetting,
but we still cast them as far away from us as possible because they
are useless."
Such a life would be branded by most Greeks as being enslaved to
pleasure. Aristippus, however, thought that his willingness to do
anything whatsoever for the sake of pleasure, his total flexibility,
brought him a kind of freedom. Aristippus was able to do whatever the
circumstances demanded of him, and his single-mindedness and disregard
of social conventions made him master of himself. Aristippus said that
he possessed the courtesan Laïs, but was not possessed by her, and
that "what is best is not abstaining from pleasures, but instead
controlling them without being controlled." That is, as long as you
are clear-headed and single-minded in your pursuit of pleasure, it is
not as though pursuing pleasure in this way is making you do anything
unwillingly, or making you lose your self-control.
4. References and Further Reading
There is no recent book-length treatment of Aristippus available in
English. However, recent books that deal with the Cyrenaics in general
also have valuable summaries of information on Aristippus in
particular, as well as extensive bibliographies that include articles
on Aristippus. For those looking for more ancient gossip and witty
banter than included here, Diogenes Laertius' account of Aristippus is
in book two of his Lives of the Philosophers. The Loeb Classical
Library, published by Harvard University Press, has a good translation
by R.D. Hicks, revised by Herbert S. Long (1972). This edition
includes a valuable introduction to Diogenes Laertius, written by
Long, which discusses Diogenes' sources, his methods of composition,
and his limitations.
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