Cyrenaics

A comparative investigation in the metaphysics of material objects and persons in ancient philosophy, this book provides radically new insights into key themes and areas of ancient thought by drawing on Greek and Buddhist philosophies. Ugo Zilioli explicates the neglected tradition of philosophers who in different ways made material objects either redundant or ontologically dispensable in the ancient world. At the same time, while eliminating objects from the material apparatus of the world, some of those philosophers conceived of selves and (...) persons as the only truly existing items. Chapters cover concepts such as nihilism, elusive objects and the emergence of the self, demonstrating how the philosophy of major thinkers Protogoras, Vasubandhu, Gorgias, Nagarjuna, Democritus, Pyrrho, Epicurus and the Cyrenaics advance our understanding of eliminativism. Zilioli's historical and philosophical reconstruction challenges traditional readings of key moments and figures in the history of thought, both Eastern and Western, as well as providing conceptual tools that are of interest not only to historians of philosophy but also to contemporary metaphysicians. (shrink)

Self-knowledge occupies a central place in the thought of the Socratics. As he makes it the characteristic feature of the figure of Socrates and of his search for the good life, Plato develops in his own right Socrates’ views on self-knowledge in a variety of ways, all of which incorporate the intuition that proper awareness of ourselves is determined, at least partly, by factors external to the individual. The aim of the pre­sent paper is to substantiate precisely this claim.The first (...) part outlines an interpretation of certain features of the Apology, where Plato appears convinced that full knowledge of oneself involves ele­ments of objectivity. The second and the third sections are devoted, respecti­vely, to the Charmides and to the first Alcibiades, both of which imply that the individual needs to turn away from himself and towards objective facts and values in order to acquire complete understanding of his own self. The fourth part applies that conclu­sion to a puzzle raised by the metaphor of the Cave in the seventh book of the Republic and proposes a tentative solution to that puzzle. The last part compares Plato’s account to that of another group of Socratics, the Cyrenaics, who hold that self-knowledge is achieved introspec­tively through inner sense. The paper ends with a few remarks concerning the importance of self-knowledge for morality and the pertinence of Plato’s account to contemporary ethics and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The Routledge Handbook of Women and Ancient Greek Philosophy is an essential reference source for cutting-edge scholarship on women, gender, and philosophy in Greek antiquity. The volume features original research that crosses disciplines, offering readers an accessible guide to new methods, new sources, and new questions in the study of ancient Greek philosophy and its multiple afterlives. Comprising 40 chapters from a diverse international group of experts, the Handbook considers questions about women and gender in sources from Greek antiquity spanning (...) the period from 7th c. BCE to 2nd c. BCE, and in receptions of Greek antiquity from the Roman Imperial period, through the European Renaissance to the current day. Chapters are organized into five major sections: I. Early Greek antiquity – including Sappho, Presocratic philosophy, Sophists, and Greek tragedy – 700s–400s BCE II. Classical Greek antiquity – including Aeschines, Plato, and Xenophon – 400s–300s BCE III. Late Classical Greek to Hellenistic antiquity – including Cyrenaics, Cynics, the Hippocratic corpus, and Aristotle – 300s–200s BCE IV. Late Greek antiquity to Roman Imperial period – including Pythagorean women, Stoics, Pyrrhonian Skeptics, and late Platonists – 200s BCE to 700s CE V. Later receptions – including Shakespeare, the European Renaissance, Anna Julia Cooper, W.E.B. DuBois, Jane Harrison, Sarah Kofman, and Toni Morrison The Routledge Handbook of Women and Ancient Greek Philosophy is a vital resource for students and scholars in philosophy, Classics, and gender studies who want to gain a deeper understanding of philosophy’s rich past and explore sources and questions beyond the traditional canon. The volume is a valuable resource, as well, for students and scholars from history, humanities, literature, political science, religious studies, rhetorical studies, theatre, and LGBTQ and sexuality studies. (shrink)

In Book 3 of the Tusculans, Cicero reports that the Cyrenaics practised the premeditation of future evils. This article focuses on the philosophical consistency of this exercise with other Cyrenaic testimonies. It argues for the authenticity of Cicero’s report and provides a critical survey of previous attempts to reconstruct the theory underlying Cyrenaic premeditation, which addresses crucial questions about the management of future pleasures and pains, and the duration of affections. New evidence from Diogenes Laertius 2.94 is then used to (...) support an alternative interpretation of the Cyrenaic praemeditatio malorum. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to assess the evidence on Cyrenaic solipsism and show how and why some views endorsed by the Cyrenaics appear to be committing them to solipsism. After evaluating the fascinating case for Cyrenaic solipsism, the paper shall deal with an (often) underestimated argument on language attributed to the Cyrenaics, whose logic – if I reconstruct it well – implies that after all the Cyrenaics cannot have endorsed a radical solipsism. Yet, by drawing an illuminating parallel (...) with Wittgenstein’s argument on private language and inner sensations, a case is to be made for the Cyrenaics to have subscribed to a sort of ‘residual solipsism’, which in turn helps us to understand the notion of Cyrenaic privacy at a fuller extent. (shrink)

Recent years have seen the publication of a number of significant studies of Plutarch’s Adversus Colotem. The Adv. Col. has always been of interest, of course, as a source for Presocratic philosophers and also the philosophy of the Hellenistic Epicureans, Cyrenaics, and Academics. But in these recent studies it has also been considered as a whole work in its own right, with critics and interpreters becoming increasingly interested not just in looking through Plutarch to access a Hellenistic o...

Peter Adamson offers an accessible, humorous tour through a period of eight hundred years when some of the most influential of all schools of thought were formed: from the third century BC to the sixth century AD. He introduces us to Cynics and Skeptics, Epicureans and Stoics, emperors and slaves, and traces the development of Christian and Jewish philosophy and of ancient science. Chapters are devoted to such major figures as Epicurus, Lucretius, Cicero, Seneca, Plotinus, and Augustine. But in keeping (...) with the motto of the series, the story is told 'without any gaps, ' providing an in-depth look at less familiar topics that remains suitable for the general reader. For instance, there are chapters on the fascinating but relatively obscure Cyrenaic philosophical school, on pagan philosophical figures like Porphyry and Iamblichus, and extensive coverage of the Greek and Latin Christian Fathers who are at best peripheral in most surveys of ancient philosophy. A major theme of the book is in fact the competition between pagan and Christian philosophy in this period, and the Jewish tradition also appears in the shape of Philo of Alexandria. Ancient science is also considered, with chapters on ancient medicine and the interaction between philosophy and astronomy. Considerable attention is paid also to the wider historical context, for instance by looking at the ascetic movement in Christianity and how it drew on ideas from Hellenic philosophy. From the counter-cultural witticisms of Diogenes the Cynic to the subtle skepticism of Sextus Empiricus, from the irreverent atheism of the Epicureans to the ambitious metaphysical speculation of Neoplatonism, from the ethical teachings of Marcus Aurelius to the political philosophy of Augustine, the book gathers together all aspects of later ancient thought in an accessible and entertaining way. (shrink)

Eudaimonia, happiness, is a property of a whole life, not of some portion of it. What can this mean for hedonists? For Epicurus, it is made possible by the mind’s capacity to enjoy one’s whole life from any temporal viewpoint: to relive past pleasures and enjoy future ones in anticipation, importantly including confidence in a serene closure. Enjoying your life is like enjoying a day as a whole, not least its sunset. Although pleasure is increased by greater duration (contrary to (...) a more favoured reading), and premature death therefore better avoided, the finitude of human life as such does not lessen its value, and even a premature death need not prevent a life’s being enjoyed as ‘complete’. In this chapter, the above interpretation is documented, explained, and contextualized in terms of Epicurus’ diametrical opposition to his contemporaries, the Cyrenaics. (shrink)

The theory developed by Leucippus (5th cent. BCE), Democritus (470/460-380 BCE), and later Epicurus (341-271/270 BCE) and his school is commonly defined as atomistic materialism. According to this theory, matter is the fundamental principle of existent and ever-evolving reality, and it is constituted of atoms. But whereas for the first atomists atoms were not so much a substance (ousia) as an ideal form (idea) through which they could explain sensible bodies and their movement, with Epicurus atoms effectively turned into a (...) substance. From a mathematical theory we come to a physical conception. (shrink)

A common reading of the Cyrenaics is that they are a school of extreme hedonist presentists, recognising only the pleasure of the present moment, and advising against turning our attention to past or future pleasure or pain. Yet they have some strange advice which tells followers to anticipate future harms in order to lessen the unexpectedness of them when they occur. It’s a puzzle, then, how they can consistently hold the attitude they do to our concern with our present selves, (...) and yet endorse the practise of dwelling on possible future painful scenarios. To establish that this is a puzzle, though, we must first be convinced that the report is true. Cicero is our only clear source for the Cyrenaic advice, and scholars have noted reasons to be suspicious of the reliability of his report. I discuss these doubts, and why they ultimately fail to undermine Cicero’s testimony as a source. Defending Cicero as a source for Cyrenaic thought removes a barrier to taking seriously an aspect of Cyrenaic psychology which could radically alter our understanding of their views. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is the analysis of the epistemological and practical role played bypathe/affections in Epicurus’ philosophy. Epicurus firstly considered the affections not as emotional/passional conditions, but as firm criteria of truth and more specifically as the third criterion of the canonic (i.e. the epistemological part of his philosophical system). In this article the critical reactions (in particular by the Peripatetic side: Aristocles of Messene) against the Epicurean position about the function of the affections will be investigated too. (...) Finally, two parts of this paper are devoted to the Cyrenaic tripartition ofpathe(in all likelihood, a subject criticized by Epicurus) and to the probable doctrinal relationship between Epicurus’patheand Aristotle’sNicomachean EthicsBook 2. (shrink)

This is not a long book—but it is surprising that it is as long as it is. The Cyrenaics are one of a number of more or less shadowy philosophical schools which emerged in the Greek world in the 4th century BC and later. Well known are Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum; and relatively well served by the tradition are the Stoics and the Epicureans, as well as the various later varieties of sceptic; while the Cynics are remembered at least (...) by reputation and anecdote. The Cyrenaics are altogether murkier. No text composed by a Cyrenaic philosopher of any period survives. Our knowledge of them rests on a handful of sources, almost all of them reports of doctrine rather than genuine fragments, none of them detailed, most of them late, generally from the works of commentators, at best neutral, at worst positively hostile, all with their own axes to grind. The best testimony consists of a mere three pages in Sextus Empiricus’s invaluable doxography of different accounts of the criterion of truth in adversus Mathemticos 7. (shrink)

Cet article s’attache à comprendre si les cyrénaïques étaient susceptibles d’être attaqués moyennant l’objection d’inactivité et, si oui, comment ils auraient pu essayer d’y répondre et quel type de vision morale ils auraient pu essayer de défendre. En traitant de ces questions, j’évaluerai la légitimité de l’interprétation du scepticisme cyrénaïque offerte par Jules Vuillemin. Je confirmerai ainsi la plausibilité de son interprétation et développerai en même temps l’exploration de la nature et de la portée de la philosophie cyrénaïque.

Unlike mainstream Cyrenaics, the Annicereans deny that friendship is chosen only because of its usefulness. Instead, the wise person cares for her friend and endures pains for him because of her goodwill and love. Nonetheless, the Annicereans maintain that your own pleasure is the telos and that a friend’s happiness isn’t intrinsically choiceworthy. Their position appears internally inconsistent or to attribute doublethink to the wise person. But we can avoid these problems. We have good textual grounds to attribute to the (...) Annicereans a doctrine of “non-hedonic habits,” which allows them to abandon psychological hedonism while still maintaining hedonism regarding well-being. (shrink)

The Cyrenaics are hedonists who have difficulty finding a stable place in their theory either for one's life as a whole or for other‐concern. Epicurus tries to avoid their problems by his theories of friendship and of justice, with incomplete success. The Sceptics face problems in trying to claim that the Sceptic will be benevolent to others despite achieving tranquility as his final end.

This chapter challenges the rather common view that Hellenistic-Roman thought shows a shift towards a more subjective and individualistic conception of self. It argues that this period expresses an ‘objective-participant’ conception, like that of Classical Greece. The account of self-knowledge in Plato’s Alcibiades is offered as an illustration of Classical Greek objective-participant thinking about the self. The chapter contests the idea, maintained by some scholars, that we find a shift towards a more subjective conception of self in the Stoic theory (...) of development as appropriation or in Epictetus’ Stoic teachings on practical ethics. It also questions the idea that we can find in ancient thought generally certain themes associated in modern thought with subjective conceptions of selfhood, especially that of the uniquely ‘first-personal’ viewpoint; this point is illustrated by reference to Cyrenaic and Sceptical thought about impressions. (shrink)

The Cyrenaic school was a fourth-century BC philosophical movement, related both to the Socratic tradition and to Greek Scepticism. In ethics, Cyrenaic hedonism can be seen as one of many attempts made by the associates of Socrates and their followers to endorse his ethical outlook and to explore the implications of his method. In epistemology, there are close philosophical links between the Cyrenaics and the Sceptics, both Pyrrhonists and Academics. There are further links with modern philosophy as well, for the (...) Cyrenaics introduced a form of subjectivism which in some ways preannounces Cartesian views, endorsed by Malebranche and Hume and developed by Kant. This 1998 book reconstructs Cyrenaic epistemology, explains how it depends on Cyrenaic hedonism, locates it in the context of ancient debates, and discusses its connections with modern and contemporary epistemological positions. (shrink)

Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae Source presents the transcription of the collection of testimonies about Socrates and Socratics (Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae) originally edited by G. Giannantoni. -/- The site enable users to access texts, exploit resources, and perform queries. Notes, additional information and a legenda for a better access to the texts are also available. -/- The publication is peer-reviewed and aspire to meet the highest quality standards. The content of the site and its internet addresses are stable and can (...) be freely consulted and used for scholarly purposes. -/- The site will be soon open for semantically enrich the data published on the websites. A use of peer-to-peer (p2p) networking will also provide an efficient and engaging collaborative work space. (shrink)

This volume brings together eleven papers written by specialists of ancient philosophy, focusing on philosophical polemics from the Classical to the Roman period, by way of Hellenistic philosophy.

Human lives are full of pleasures and pains. And humans are creatures that are able to think: to learn, understand, remember and recall, plan and anticipate. Ancient philosophers were interested in both of these facts and, what is more, were interested in how these two facts are related to one another. There appear to be, after all, pleasures and pains associated with learning and inquiring, recollecting and anticipating. We enjoy finding something out. We are pained to discover that a belief (...) we hold is false. We can think back and enjoy or be upset by recalling past events. And we can plan for and enjoy imagining pleasures yet to come. This book is about what Plato, Aristotle, the Epicureans and the Cyrenaics had to say about these relationships between pleasure and reason. (shrink)

This dissertation is an investigation of the ethical teachings of Socrates' followers Antisthenes, Aristippus, and Euclides, and the developments of their teachings within the "Minor Socratic" philosophical schools which they are said to have founded. The period I focus on begins within Socrates' lifetime in the late fifth century B.C. and ends with Arcesilaus' tenure at Plato's Academy in the middle of the third century B.C. I make the case that the diverse teachings of the Cyrenaic, Cynic, and Megarian followings (...) must be interpreted as responses to ethical problems confronted by Socrates, such as the relationship between moral excellence and knowledge, the ends and criteria of moral judgement and activity, and the strategies recommended for the attainment of ethical ends. I argue that the strategies prescribed by minor Socratic philosophers, including the hedonism of the Cyrenaics and the asceticism of the Cynics, owe their distinctive characteristics to the skeptical attitudes of the major figures of each school toward the possibility of moral science of the sort usually ascribed to Socrates. I also discuss the place of the minor Socratic schools in the history of Athenian philosophy between the death of Socrates and the formation of the major Hellenistic schools. ;The thesis addresses two separate but complementary problems. The first is the fourth-century and Hellenistic reception of the "Socratic Paradoxes" , which are Socrates' distinguishing features in Plato's early dialogues, by thinkers outside the early Platonic and Aristotelian schools. The second question concerns the Hellenistic claims to the Socratic legacy. Specifically, the tradition on Arcesilaus, who ushered in the Academy's skeptical period, says that he adopted his practice of suspension of judgement from other sources, including the Megarians. I argue for the historical probability that he was influenced by the other Socratics, who preceded his school both in its stance against the possibility of certain knowledge and in its practice of critical dialectic. (shrink)

The preoccupation evinced by Italian scholars for Protagoras and the Sophistic movement is extraordinary and somewhat comparable to the interest which American philosophers have recently shown in Parmenides and the Eleatics. Since the Protagoras revival in the 'Forties' numerous Italian editions of the Sophistic fragments have been published and a constellation of contradictory reconstructions of Protagoras' thought has been offered to a perhaps unduly tolerant public. In the present study Zeppi intends to refute all extant historiography from Gomperz to Capizzi (...) in the name of a unitary interpretation based upon the internal consistency of Protagoras' ethical and epistemological doctrines. Such an interpretation will do justice, Zeppi believes, to the complexity of Protagoras' thinking while revealing the central position he occupies in the philosophical tradition before Plato. Accordingly Zeppi devotes the first part of his essay to Protagoras' doctrines and the second to earlier Presocratics and the Sophists in general. Finally he offers thought-provoking studies on the Anonymus Iamblichi, on the Cyrenaic school, on Democritus' ethics and on its bearing on Protagoras. On the whole Zeppi is more convincing in demolishing the views of his predecessors than in presenting his own ideas. Nevertheless his hypothesis of Protagoras as an ethical emotivist, a sense-datum theorist and a thinker divorcing truth from morality is refreshingly questionable.--L. M. P. (shrink)

Focuses on the theories of the Epicureans and Cyrenaics in light of Plato's and Aristotle's criticisms of hedonism. Closes with a brief discussion of how the Pyrrhonian skeptical conception of the telos compares to the Epicureans'.