Aristippus

Greek philosopher

• Born: c. 435 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Cyrene, Cyrenaica (now in Libya)
• Died: 365 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Athens, Greece

Early Life

Because Aristippus (ar-uh-STIHP-uhs) left no writings for posterity, what is known about him is derived from secondary sources, the most notable of which is Xenophon’s Apomnēmoneumata (c. 381-355; Memorabilia of Socrates, 1712). From these scant and distant sources, it appears that Aristippus was born in North Africa in the city of Cyrene, in what is currently Libya but was then Cyrenaica. His family was reputed to have had considerable influence and to have been sufficiently rich to support the young Aristippus in his travels and studies. Cyrene was at the height of its prosperity and influence during Aristippus’s early life.

From all accounts, Aristippus experienced life with an ebullient enthusiasm. He was affable and had a winning personality and disposition. He was also remarkably intelligent, quick to learn, and eager to share his learning with others. He had a legendary sense of humor and was considered a bon vivant whose chief aim during his early days was to seek pleasure, broadly defined.

The existing sources agree that Aristippus went to Athens and studied under Socrates in the agora and that he also journeyed to Sicily, where he was a part of the court of Dionysius I at Syracuse. Scholars are at odds in suggesting the order in which these two occurrences took place. The Memorabilia suggests that Aristippus went first to Athens and then left to go to Syracuse after Socrates’ death, whereas other sources suggest the opposite sequence.

It is known that Aristippus studied with Socrates, attracted to this pivotal Athenian philosopher by his obvious humanity, his fun-loving qualities, his cordiality, and, most important of all, his indisputable intellectual superiority. Aristippus spent considerable time in Athens during its golden age, its most significant period of intellectual influence.

Because Socrates died in 399 b.c.e., it is known that Aristippus probably spent part of his late twenties and early thirties in Athens. It is also known that he was in Athens in his later life, because he died there thirty-four years after Socrates’ death. Aristippus also went to Syracuse, where he taught rhetoric and was associated with the court of Dionysius, an ill-tempered, often rude tyrant. Once, when Aristippus invoked Dionysius’s wrath, the tyrant spat in his face. Aristippus, demonstrating his ready wit, took this indignity in stride, observing that one who is landing a big fish must expect to be splashed.

After Aristippus had taught for some time in Syracuse, he returned to his native Cyrene to begin a school of philosophy. It seems logical that the correct sequence of events is that he studied first in Athens with Socrates, that he then went to Syracuse, well equipped to teach through his studies in Athens, and that he then returned to Cyrene, where he remained for several years until his ultimate return to Athens, where he spent the remainder of his life.

Life’s Work

In modern philosophical terminology, Aristippus would likely be classified as a relativist. Schooled in Sophism by Socrates, the great master of the Sophist philosophy based on dialogue and structured argument, Aristippus had been exposed continually to the prevailing Socratic theory of innate ideas—to the notion that ideal forms exist, while the objects of the “real” world are mere imitations of the ideal forms (the word “idea” is derived from a Greek word meaning “shape” or “form”). Aristippus early questioned this notion, believing rather that all individuals experience and perceive things around them in unique and individual ways. One cannot, for example, speak of a universal “red.” To begin with, there are many reds; the red of human blood is not the exact red of an apple, of the sun at sunset, or of a red cabbage. Further, what is red to one person might be grey-green to someone who is color-blind but who has been conditioned to the notion that apples, human blood, and some cabbages are red.

Similarly, according to Aristippus, the nominalist concept that words such as “chair,” “wheel,” or “bottle” evoke a universal image is flawed, because all individuals necessarily filter their concepts of words through their own experience and consciousness, each arriving perhaps at a totally different image. In other words, for Aristippus, no physical object (table, chair), quality (blue), or concept (goodness) in the real world possesses generalized qualities detached from the specific object, quality, or concept. To him, perception, which is wholly individual and idiosyncratic, determines what any object or concept communicates to any single individual.

These notions led Aristippus to the conclusion that there exists no explicit, objective, and absolute world identically perceived by all people. He further posited that it is impossible accurately to compare the experiences of different people, because all individuals can know are their own perceptions and reactions. Aristippus further contended that, from birth, all living humans seek pleasure and avoid pain. In Aristippus’s view, therefore, pleasure and pain become polar opposites in the lives of most humans, pleasure being associated with good, pain with evil.

As Socrates’ student, Aristippus surely knew that his teacher explained virtue in terms of the pleasure it brings to the virtuous, as opposed to the pain that vice brings. This was at the heart of Socrates’ moral philosophy, as shown particularly in his death dialogues. Aristippus, on the other hand, contended that life must be lived in pursuit of pleasure.

His one caveat was that pleasure must be defined by all people for themselves, that there is no universal pleasure. Some people, therefore, find the greatest pleasure in leading law-abiding, virtuous lives, whereas others find it in raucous, drunken revelry. Aristippus did not make moral judgments about where individuals sought and found their pleasures.

Using the formal logic that his background in rhetoric had instilled in him, Aristippus denied that there was any universal standard of pleasurableness. Drawing on his conclusion that it is impossible to compare concepts between or among individuals, he argued that it is futile to say that some pleasures are better than others or that they possess a greater good. Aristippus also argued that the source of pleasure is always the body—which, he was quick to point out, includes the mind. For him, pleasures were most fully and satisfactorily experienced in the present. Memories of pleasures past or the contemplation of pleasures promised at some future date are weak semblances of pleasures that are immediately enjoyable.

The school of philosophy that Aristippus founded at Cyrene, based on concepts such as these, was designated the Hedonistic school, “hedonistic” being derived from the Greek word for “pleasure.” Hedonism was closely akin in many ways to the Cynicism of Antisthenes, who, like Aristippus, questioned the existence of universals, claiming that the so-called universals were nothing more than names. Together, Antisthenes and Aristippus formulated the Nominalist theory of universals, which flew in the face of Socrates’ and Plato’s realism.

For Aristippus, the moral good dwells in the immediate, intense pleasures of the moment. These pleasures are experienced through the senses. Aristippus considered them the best and greatest pleasures, the ends toward which all moral activity is directed.

This philosophy, however, proved unworkable over time. The Cyrenaics quickly realized that considerable pain is involved in the attainment of some pleasures and that anyone who would judge the intensity and, ultimately, the moral good of that pleasure must consider as well the pain involved in achieving it.

The Cyrenaics also questioned the absoluteness with which Aristippus linked pain to evil. They came to understand that pain that in the end results in the achievement of pleasure can in itself be viewed as a good. They contended that the truly good person will do nothing evil or antisocial because of the punishments or disapproval that might accompany such actions (the avoidance of pain). Unlike Aristippus, they began to view the mental and bodily pleasures as dichotomous.

Finally, those who sought to refine Aristippus’s theories arrived at the realization that the understanding of pleasure and of the pleasure/pain dichotomy required an outside, objective judge. They found such a judge in reason and wisdom, which led them to the inevitable conclusion that intelligence is a determining and indispensable component of virtue. Without this element, true happiness is impossible. Indeed, this turn in their reasoning took them back into proximity with Socrates’ notions of virtue and of pleasure.

Significance

Perhaps Aristippus’s greatest contribution to Western thought came in his questioning of Socrates’ theory of ideas. In disputing these theories, he focused on individual differences and arrived at a philosophy infinitely more relativistic than the prevailing philosophies of his day.

In a sense, Aristippus took the earliest tentative steps in a march of insurgent ideas that led inevitably to the Reformation of the sixteenth century, in which Martin Luther demanded that all people be their own priests when it came to interpreting Scripture. This movement, along with the invention of the printing press in the preceding century, much stimulated the move toward universal literacy in the Western world.

If the Cynics, under the leadership of Antisthenes, represented the school of apathy in the ancient world, the Cyrenaics, following the lead of Aristippus, represented the school of happiness. These ideas ran counter to the prevailing philosophy emerging from Athens and were considered both exotic and quixotic by the most influential thinkers of the day.

As Athens skulked into defeat and steady decline, however, many of its citizenry found Hedonism—and Epicurus’s refinement of it, Epicureanism—quite to their liking. Among the Cyrenaics who introduced new concepts into Aristippus’s earlier philosophy was Theodorus, who did not accept categorically that pleasure is good and pain is bad. He looked to wisdom as the true source of happiness and contentment, but not as a means of procuring pleasures.

Hegesias was essentially similar to Theodorus in his view that wisdom could not procure pleasure, but he recommended the avoidance of pain as a step toward achieving happiness. He advised people to regard dispassionately such dichotomies as wealth and poverty, slavery and freedom, life and death.

Anniceris reinstituted some of the earlier teachings of Aristippus into his version of the older Hedonist philosophy and was a closer advocate of the founder of the movement than were Theodorus and Hegesias. Ultimately, Epicurus adopted many of the ethical views of the Hedonists into Epicureanism.

Bibliography

Durant, Will. The Story of Philosophy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1967. In this reader-friendly history of philosophy, Durant demonstrates the relationships between Aristippus’s Hedonism and that of his later followers.

Fuller, B. A. G. A History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. Revised by Sterling M. McMurrin. New York: Henry Holt, 1955. This comprehensive history of ancient and medieval philosophy offers extensive treatment of Aristippus. The presentation is clear and easily understandable to the general reader.

Hamlyn, D. W. A History of Western Philosophy. New York: Viking, 1987. Hamlyn deals briefly with the Cyrenaic school of philosophy and with Aristippus’s founding of that school, placing it in its context within the prevalent Sophist philosophy of fifth century Athens.

Kenny, Anthony, ed. The Oxford History of Western Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Although the presentation on Aristippus is brief, it covers the high points of his philosophy well and accurately. Places Aristippus’s philosophy in sharp contrast to the philosophical outlooks that prevailed in Athens during his lifetime.

Renault, Mary. The Last of the Wine. New York: Random House, 1975. Renault captures better than any contemporary writer the essence of Sophism and the atmosphere of ancient Greece.