Cyrenaics and Epicureans on Pleasure and the Good Life: the Original Debate and Its Later Revivals

Cyrenaics and Epicureans on Pleasure and the Good Life: The Original Debate and Its Later Revivals

Voula Tsouna

Both ancient and modern historians of philosophy contrast the ethics of the Cyrenaics and the Epicureans with each other. And although this opposition often derives from doxographical interventions, there is no doubt that it reflects a historical fact, namely a longstanding and persistent rivalry between the two schools. Philosophical as well as chronological factors appear to have favored its development: both schools posit pleasure as the supreme good and pain as the supreme evil. And they temporally overlap: Epicurus was a near contem- porary of the later Cyrenaic sects, whose leaders were Paraebates, Theodorus, Anniceris, and Hegesias. As for the last known representatives of these sects, they coincide in time with Epicurus’s immediate successors. The purpose of this paper is to lay out the initial controversy and examine its revivals in the late Hellenistic and Roman eras. Part One offers some necessary background about the earlier stages of interaction between the two schools. Part Two explains how the Academics Cicero and Plutarch appeal to the Cyrenaic doctrine in order to pursue their own anti-Epicurean agendas. Parts Three and Four examine the ways in which two late Epicurean authors, Philodemus (first century BCE) and Diogenes of Oinoanda (second century CE), target the Cyrenaics for their own philosophical and dialectical purposes. Part Five argues that both the original debate and its reenactments qualify as cases of philosophical polemics. Also, it speculates on the reasons why the Epicureans and their critics resurrect the Cyrenaics to advance their own aims.

According to Carneades’s classification of the philosophical schools (divisio Carneadia), Aristippus of Cyrene is the representative of hedonism. Whether or not he explicitly posited pleasure as the moral end, it is claimed that he lived “as easily and pleasantly as possible,”1 indulging in refined food, drink, scents,

1 All translations are mine, unless I indicate otherwise. However, I have also consulted Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, and the translations of Diogenes’ fragments by Hammerstaedt and Smith.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi ��.��63/9789004323049_008 114 Tsouna and clothing and availing himself of the services of the famous Lais. He urged people to keep their thoughts focused on the present (Aelian, VH 14.6) and not to pain themselves by thinking pointlessly about the past or the future. Hence his critics took him to advocate the heedless pursuit of present pleasures and reduce eudaemonia, happiness, to the mere aggregate of them (Aristocles ap. Euseb. Praep. evang. 14.18.31). Aristippus’s hedonic presentism2 received a more technical formulation by his grandson, Aristippus the Younger, who apparently invented the term monochronos, ‘unitemporal’ (Athenaeus, Deipn. 12.544a–b), to designate the fact that pleasure lasts and has value only as long as we are experiencing it.3 He defended the primacy of bodily pleasure over mental pleasure, possibly on the analogical grounds that bodily pain is considered worse than its psy- chic counterpart (Diog. Laert. 2.87).4 He conceived of all pleasures and pains as kinetic—that is, as consisting, respectively, in smooth or rough motions of the flesh or of the soul (Diog. Laert. 2.86). And, probably, he was the first Cyrenaic to argue that unitemporal present pleasure ought to replace eudaemonia, happiness, as the moral end. That is, physically, past and future pleasures cannot be enjoyed because “the movement of the soul disappears with time” (Diog. Laert. 2.89). Metaphysically, only present pleasure has value, since past pleasures do not exist anymore and future pleasures are not certain to occur. Prudentially, we should concentrate on present pleasure and not strive after happiness, because our hedonic calculations often prove unsuccessful and unable to secure us a happy life (Diog. Laert. 2.91).5 Of course, this sort of presentism does not preclude future planning: assum- ing that our identity remains stable over time,6 there is no reason why we should not try to secure future pleasures or avoid future pains.7 However, even

2 I borrow “hedonic presentism” from Sedley, “Epicurean versus Cyrenaic Happiness.” 3 See Tsouna, The Epistemology of the Cyrenaic School, 16–21. 4 Alternatively, this argument may have been advanced by later followers of Aristippus the Younger or by the Annicerians, in response to the fact that Epicurus privileges mental pleasures over bodily ones. 5 See Warren, The Pleasures of Reason in Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic Hedonists, 190–91. 6 Contra Irwin, “Aristippus against Happiness,” and Zilioli, The Cyrenaics, 162–65, see Tsouna, The Epistemology of the Cyrenaic School, 130–37, and Tsouna-McKirahan, “Is There an Exception to Greek Eudaemonism?”; Sedley, “Epicurean versus Cyrenaic Happiness”; and Warren, “Epicurus and the Pleasures of the Future” and The Pleasures of Reason in Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic Hedonists, 201–209. 7 On various aspects of Cyrenaic future planning, see Graver, “Managing Mental Pain: Epicurus vs. Aristippus on the Prerehearsal of Future Ills”; O’Keefe, “The Cyrenaics on Pleasure, Happiness, and Future-Concern”; Sedley, “Epicurean versus Cyrenaic Happiness”; and Warren,