Aristippe de Cyrène

Aristippe de Cyrène (in Greek old Ἀρίστιππος/ Aristippos ), born towards 435 av. J. - C., died in 356, is a Greek philosopher . Disciple of Socrate to Athens, he is the founder of the school known as of the Cyrénaïsme, whose essential doctrines were the Hédonisme.

Biography

Aristippe came to Athens and was a disciple of Socrate, but to believe Xénophon of it, he would have been also regarded as a Sophiste since he agreed to be paid for his lesson.

Like Plato, which seems to have carried it in poor regard, it served the tyrant Denys Old the, at the point to represent the philosopher courtier in the polemics of the Cyniques. One allots many stories to him illustrating his lack of respect of conventions in the name of a life of pleasures.

It had a girl, Arété, which was also a disciple of its school and succeeded to him. Its grandson, Aristippe the Young person (or Matrodidacte because his/her mother was its teaching), was another leading school of Cyrénaïques.

Work

The catalogs old allotted many lost works to him all. He would have written a Histoire of the Libya . Diogène Laërce enumerates the titles of the following dialogs:

“ Artabaze, For the shipwrecked men, exiled, the beggar, Alluvium, Poros, Alluvium on its mirror, Erméias, the Dream, For the president of the Banquet, Philomèle, For the servants, those which reproach him for having bought of the old wine and the courtesans, For those which reproach him of good banqueter, Lettre with his/her Arété daughter, For that which was exerted with the Olympic Games, Question, Another question, Prière with Denys, Prière on a statue, the girl of Denys, For that which believed dishonoured being, the donor of councils (...) Of Education, Of the Virtue, the Donor of the Councils . ”

Doctrines

Aristippe defined the goal and the end of the lifetime like “ a soft movement accompanied by feeling ”. It is the definition of the pleasure and it thus defends a Hédonisme. He does not even admit the thesis that happiness would be higher than the pleasure and sees only one sum of particular pleasures there (what differentiates it from the Greek tradition which defends a Eudémonisme).

They are different from the definition of Épicure by taking the pleasure like a movement with feeling and not a Ataraxie. Cyrénaïques reproach the ataraxie or apathy not to be a pleasure but an anesthesia and a simple deprivation of pain.

Any being seeks its pleasure and the pleasure is always in oneself a good, even if its cause is bad. The pleasures of the body are more important than those of the heart and the virtue is not one although as it supports the pleasures.

Contrary to the Epicureans and many hedonists (like later Jeremy Bentham), Aristippe would have gone until denying the superiority of a future pleasure in the name of the current pleasure and denying any interest to differ the immediate gratification.

It seems that it also defended some skepticism, thinking that the feelings themselves are misleading or at least relative and subjective but that we can nothing know without them.

References

Xénophon, Memorable (II, 1; III, 6);
(II, “Life of Aristippe”);
Eusèbe de Césarée, Praeparatio evangelica (XIV, 18);
Michel Onfray, the Invention of the pleasure .
Michel Onfray, ancient wisdoms .

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