ARISTIPPUS
de Cirene (435 - 360 a.C.)
Aristippus was a follower
of Socrates, and the founder of the 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.
Table of Contents
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.
Author Information
Tim O'Keefe
Email: see www.gsu.edu/~phltso/mail-tim.html
Georgia State University
U. S. A.
Email: see www.gsu.edu/~phltso/mail-tim.html
Georgia State University
U. S. A.
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