First Short Summary of Kurt Lampe’s The Birth of Hedonism: The Cyrenaic Philosophers and Pleasure as a Way of Life
After an introductory chapter, Lampe begins his exploration of the Cyrenaics in chapter 2 with a historical overview of the movement. He explains that the Cyrenaics mostly came from the North African city of Cyrene — hence the name, Cyrenaicism — and that the first Cyrenaic was Aristippus the Elder, who studied with Socrates. Aristippus taught his philosophy to his daughter, Arete, who taught it to her son, known as Aristippus the Younger. Aristippus the Younger — otherwise known as Aristippus the Metrodidact, because he was taught philosophy by his mother — is the philosopher responsible for formalising Cyrenaic doctrines, for his grandfather, like other Socratics, was not a systematic thinker. The chapter also introduces Anniceris, Hegasias, and Theodorus, all later Cyrenaics who all made significant changes to Cyrenaic philosophy.
Chapter 3 focuses on Cyrenaic epistemology (theory of knowledge), which is important to understand because it is foundational for Cyrenaic ethics (way of life). The Cyrenaics argue that while we can know our own experiences unmistakably, we cannot know anything about the external causes of our experiences. For example, I can know that the maple syrup I am eating tastes sweet, but I cannot know whether the maple syrup really is sweet. This idea is backed up by the empirical observation that people have different experiences of apparently the same thing — for example, for some maple syrup is sweet, but for others it isn’t. Likewise, according to the Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus “the person with jaundice sees everything yellowly, the person with ophthalmia sees everything redly, the man who presses his eyeball sees two suns, and Pentheus — driven mad by Dionysus — sees two cities of Thebes.”
However, the Cyrenaics’ epistemology seems to cause them a serious problem. If we cannot apprehend external causes, then we have no reason to seek or avoid anything. Why reach for the apple or avoid the fire if you cannot be sure whether the one is good and other bad? In other words, Cyrenaic epistemology threatens to make us completely idle, just hoping that pleasure will happen upon us. To find a solution to this problem, Lampe explores the answer offered by another Greek school which largely shared the Cyrenaics’ epistemology — the Pyrrhonists. Although the Pyrrhonists believed they could possess no knowledge about the exterior world, nevertheless they believed they could base their actions on the way the world appears.
“For example, sensory perceptions, thoughts, and appetites simply come to Neopyrrhonists unbidden, and they accept all of them without believing that they represent reality. Furthermore, they observe the customs of their upbringing and the techniques of any trade they practice without questioning whether their normative force has any real foundation. In this manner “they submit to life without having beliefs, in order not to be idle” (PH 1.226). But this carefully qualified submission, in which they preserve their doubts about reality, has a vital therapeutic purpose: it weakens the hopes and fears associated with what appears good or bad for them, since it keeps in their minds the possibility that these appearances do not correspond to reality. Thus it diminishes the Neopyrrhonists’ stress and brings them closer to tranquility.”
In short, the Pyrrhonists base their choices and avoidances on how the world appears. Not only does this allow them to avoid the problem of idleness, but it also has the benefit of helping them to achieve tranquillity (ataraxia). The Cyrenaics are not quite as sceptical as the Pyrrhonists, for being hedonists they do believe we can have at least some knowledge — our feelings of pleasure and pain. The Cyrenaics therefore base their choices and avoidances on how the world feels. As Lampe explains: “If they have an impression of an obstacle in their path, for example, they act as if there were an obstacle in their path: they deviate in order to avoid it. If the honey tastes sweet, they act as if the honey were sweet: they eat the honey. If the fire feels caustic, they act as if it were caustic: they move away from it. Like the Neopyrrhonists, however, this does not mean that they have forgotten their principles. They remain aware that they cannot know whether the impressions generated by their experiences correspond to real objects. This is important, since it preserves the unique motivational status accorded to pleasure and pain.”
Outro and reference:
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Kurt Lampe, The Birth of Hedonism: The Cyrenaic Philosophers and Pleasure as a Way of Life, Princeton University Press, 2015