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Aristippus: The Philosopher Who Mastered Pleasure (Episode 167)
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Meet ancient Greece's original hedonist.
Unlike later philosophers who preached asceticism, Aristippus embraced luxury, courted kings, and still kept his freedom. A student of Socrates who chose pleasure over asceticism, he founded a school of thought that spread through generations of his family. This conversation explores how Aristippus balanced the pursuit of pleasure with self-mastery, challenging both the austerity of his critics and our modern assumptions about ancient philosophy.
(05:11) Wining And Dining
(15:29) Desire and Risk
(21:49) You Need Philosophy
(25:42) The Cyrenaics
(36:38) Respect Aristippus's Consistency
(41:54) His Daughter and Rejecting Social Convention
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Transcript
Introduction to Aristippus and His Philosophy
00:00:07
Speaker
today we're going to be talking about Aristippus, who was a ancient Greek philosopher. And one could say is the hedonist philosopher. So if you think about hedonists in ancient Greece. If you are at all familiar, you'll probably think about the Epicureans, but Aristippus actually came came before Epicurus and in some ways fits the caricature of the hedonist better than the Epicureans. If you think about lavish lifestyle
00:00:43
Speaker
you know, fine foods, parties, women and such. Aristippus is a little bit closer to that to that description. So we thought it'd be fun to and to talk about him as he's one of the influential ancient Greek philosophers, thinkers, you see many others interact with him at at his school as well.
Comparison of Hedonism: Aristippus vs. Epicureanism
00:01:01
Speaker
So that's what we'll do today.
00:01:03
Speaker
Yeah, there's this reoccurring, I think there's this reoccurring adjectivization. I don't know if that's a word, but you you get skeptics, cynics, stoic, we use those adjectives in modern language. And then there's this thing when you learn about Epicureanism, you say, well, they're hedonists and that they think pleasure is the good, but they're not the hedonist, the way we talk about hedonism. ah In modern language, they're kind of, you know, they they want their uh, carrots and potatoes and they want the garden. That's the Epicureans where Aristophus he's maybe more of that, as you said, more of that traditional hedonist as we would think about today or modern hedonist, I guess, really going, going all in on the pleasure or not letting, uh, things stop the pursuit of pleasure.
The Cyrenaic School and Aristippus' Legacy
00:01:47
Speaker
um And he'll critique other philosophers as we'll see for their inability to achieve the pleasure really point to that as as ah as weakness on their part, not not a ah not a quality or a strength. Another reason that he's a fun person to talk about is he's kind of a I would say a bit of a deep cut, at least so when I talk about um Hellenistic philosophy, always kind of put the big three schools as the skeptics, the Stoics, and the Epicureans, and then maybe the cynics get in there. And he was the founder of the Cyrenaic School of Philosophy, which I don't know if we've talked ah talked about at all.
00:02:26
Speaker
on this podcast killed maybe a little bit, but more of a kind of more of a deep cut, um which is which is fun and interesting and a nice new contrast to those other established schools. Yes, that's a good point. I don't think I don't think we've ever talked about this year next school before, though I do know of a handful of guests have mentioned it mentioned the school.
00:02:50
Speaker
So we'll talk about his maybe start with some biographical details and we then we'll jump into some anecdotes from his life and his philosophy.
Anecdotes and Philosophical Debates
00:02:59
Speaker
I think he's one of the characters who is best understood perhaps through anecdote, aphorisms, short interactions and such. Just some basic biographical facts then.
00:03:13
Speaker
Aristippus was a student of Socrates, though he had serious disagreements with Socrates. He lived from 435 to 356 BCE. As you said, he was the founder of the Cyrenaic school philosophy, and we'll go into detail what that was. And one of the main sources we have about him is Diogenes Laertius.
00:03:38
Speaker
So we've talked about Diogenes before. This is not Diogenes the Cynic, but a rather a third century writer philosopher and philosopher in type. And his most well-known work is the Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. And that's that's one of the main sources for Greek philosophy, Greek philosophers, um especially when it comes to sort of these catalogs of different ah different philosophers. So for example, he has many of the ancient Stoics and in this book, such as such as Zeno. It goes through a biography of many philosophers as well as well as their life. So that that's one of the main sources we have for Aristophus, though he's mentioned by ah name, by a number of other sources, oft often critical.
00:04:22
Speaker
Yeah. um Major Diogenes, as you were saying, major source for the... Because we don't really have much from Zeno, Clanthes, Chrysippus, but we we get this view of their life and their thinking and the books that they wrote that we lost from Diogenes. So he's a cool source of that. And then that other part, you're probably picking up just that a real contemporary of Plato's then, right? Plato was a student of Socrates, very important and philosopher.
00:04:51
Speaker
And ah Aristopus would have then been a contemporary around the same age, you know maybe but maybe a bit older, but younger, not exactly. I'm not exactly sure of Plato's birthday off the top of my head, but a real contemporary of Plato, not somebody kind of looking up to him. And we'll see that in in these anecdotes um when they kind of debate and engage with each other.
00:05:11
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So I think like i some other philosophers, it's best to get a sense of who Erasippus was through a handful of anecdotes. So we'll we'll go through a few of those. Let's start with a ah
00:05:27
Speaker
the following. So I'll i'll just read from Dodgene's Lariches. I'll read a handful of these quips. When Dionysus inquired what was the reason that philosophers go to rich men's houses, while rich men no longer visit philosophers, his reply was, and here his is Aristippus, the one know what they need while the other do not. And crucially there Dionysus is Dionysus the tyrant from Syracuse. He comes up again and again because Aristippus ended up at his court after he was a follower of Socrates. Another one. When he was repoached by Plato for his extravagance, he inquired, do you think Dionysus a good man? And the reply being in the affirmative, and yet, said he, he lives more extravagantly than I do. So there's nothing to hinder a man living extravagantly and well.
00:06:19
Speaker
Through the question of how the educated differ from the uneducated, he replied, exactly as horses that have been trained differ from untrained horses. And one day, as he entered the house of a courtesian, one of the lads with him blushed, whereupon he remarked, it is not the going in that is dangerous, but being unable to go out. so they're Great. Yeah, yeah, there's there's a handful. What's what's your take?
00:06:44
Speaker
I mean, they're all this, i mean except for the training horses one, they're all these really justifications. People are, so Aristopis is living extravagantly. He's doing all these kinds of fancy, you know, he's going and whining and dining with rich people. He's hanging out with the, with the socially elites. um And he's getting kind of criticized for this. There's this almost I would say reading this bi biography from Diogenes, there's almost this perception that this is not appropriate for a philosopher. Maybe a philosopher needs to have the leisure time, needs to be upper middle class, something like this. But to be really rich, to be really extravagant, it wasn't appropriate for a philosopher. Maybe it showed that you were valuing not the life of the mind, but the life of the material goods.
00:07:31
Speaker
And Aristobus is basically being like, it's OK if I want nice things. um And there's nothing wrong with with living extravagantly as long as you ah you know don't become a bad person, really they almost taking this stoic preferred indifferent line. I mean, it's not a preferred indifferent line because he thinks these things are just good. But he's saying, look, as long as you as long as it doesn't corrupt you, why can't I go and live extravagantly?
00:07:57
Speaker
um And same kind of thing with, with um you know, being promiscuous and sleeping with women, which is to say, you know, this is fine. It's it's just don't let it corrupt you, right? Like, let don't let it go too far. So there's almost this position of throwing the baby out with the bathwater is almost the risk of this position around pleasure and extravagance.
Hedonism and Moral Philosophy: Aristippus vs. Cynicism
00:08:16
Speaker
You say, well, you've got something good here. You've got something corrupting. and you're all You're all getting, can't handle the good thing because you're letting it corrupt you. But if you just like stay a good person, I'm going to go and I'm going to hang out with rich people. I'm going to sleep with women. I'm going to live extravagantly and that's, you know, I'm better off for it. Yeah, I think so. I think you're right that there's this, uh,
00:08:41
Speaker
Most philosophers did not orient their philosophy of life around the pursuit of pleasure and whether that meant in food, drink, women, riches, and such.
00:08:56
Speaker
you think about, you know, Plato, Plato certainly doesn't, doesn't do that. Whereas Aristippus sort of honestly, in a obvious way, pursues such things, and has no problems say receiving money for his teachings, going to be the advisor of a tyrant and such. So that's a I think that's generally what generally what he's about really. So another another
00:09:32
Speaker
equip or interaction from another famous philosopher is he bumps into Diogenes the cynic this time. Diogenes watch washing the dirt from his vegetables saw him passing and jeered at him in these terms. If you had learned to make these your diet, you would not have paid court to kings to which his rejoinder was. And if you knew how to associate with men, you would not be washing vegetables.
00:09:59
Speaker
I mean, this is one of my favorites. I mean, it's not often people get a one up on Diogenes, the cynic, but that's just, he's just saying, I really do respect the position, at least when it's consistent and it's clear, Aristopis is saying, look, if I can stay a good person and have nice things, it's clearly better than you Diogenes, who claims to be a good person and eats vegetables.
00:10:24
Speaker
Like, that seems to me to be, you know, you're eating vegetables and maintaining your virtue because you don't know how to maintain your virtue and associate with men, how to hang out with kings at the same time. I could do that. So, like, sucks to suck, basically, is his counter argument. And, you know, it's obviously not a stoic position fully. I mean, maybe that that quip might be um not necessarily contradictory to stoicism, but it's I respect the consistency of it um because i think a lot of the times you know a lot of the times what upsets people is the kind of hypocrisy you know even if you think of a sophist like what but what's annoying about a sophist is
00:11:07
Speaker
I think the hypocrisy and sophism where it seems like they're selling wisdom, but they're really selling persuasion or the appearance of wisdom. They're not explicit about like, I'm just selling the appearance of wisdom and I'm just making money from that and that's my job. um Whereas, so people think that they they want to catch the philosopher in this kind of hypocrisy, which is like you claim to be committed to the life of of the mind. I would think that would look like somebody like a Diogenes.
00:11:34
Speaker
Diogenes is the honest man who says the life of the mind involves eating vegetables and, you know, sleeping in a barrel. You're all, you know, Plato, you're living pretty well. You're a hypocrite. Aristopis, you're living well. You're a hypocrite. And Aristopis is like, well, ah no, like this is not, this is not against my philosophy. I like nice things. I'm going to enjoy nice things and I'm going to not let them corrupt me. Uh, not going to let that, because Aristopis is not blind to the fact Because any sort of intelligent hedonist position has to acknowledge the fact that sometimes the pursuit of material wealth leads to unhappy lives. No coherent hedonist is going to say, pursue wealth and pleasure at all costs. They're going to say, obviously, in some cases, the pursuit of wealth and pleasure leads to unhappiness. And that's a bad life, even for the gluttonist, the hedonist that we criticize. They say, well, I don't want that life, because that's one of more suffering.
00:12:33
Speaker
So this is this kind of intelligent hedonism, which is to say, well, you don't pursue these things in a way that makes you unhappy. You don't pursue these things in a way that I'm presuming makes you a bad person such that you become unhappy, you become hated, you become a pariah, you become filled with her regret.
Self-Mastery and Hedonistic Balance
00:12:49
Speaker
But pursue these things as much as possible, insofar as you're able to and insofar as they don't make you unhappy, which is saying is a lot more than eating vegetables, right? Yeah, absolutely. I think that's captured nicely with the
00:13:04
Speaker
quip that you had with ah the lad entering the house of a Cartesian, right? It's not the entering that's dangerous, but being unable to leave, unable to go out. That's the risk, which which shows that basic point about self mastery. It's important to, as you were saying, any intelligent e-ness is going to say it's important to master yourself so that you can experience the positive of pleasure without succumbing to its downside.
00:13:33
Speaker
I think one one thing that's that's ah that I also love about this encounter with Diogenes is that it brings out their the two men's value, of ah the value they place on autonomy, but how it's cashes out very differently for the two of them. So Diogenes says, you wouldn't have to pay court to kings you know if you had learned how to eat vegetables. if you learned Basically, if you had learned to reject nonsense pleasures, you wouldn't have to
00:14:06
Speaker
get on your hands and knees and grovel in these high courts to make money to sustain your lifestyle. right And that's coming from the man who ah snubbed his nose at Alexander, who has no problem he has no interest in paying court to kings. He's purely interested in living autonomously, living what he sees as the free life, free from useless social convention.
00:14:32
Speaker
Whereas, of course, Aristippus replies just that, look, if you knew how to associate well with men, you wouldn't find yourself enslaved by all these kinds of social interactions. You know, I simply need money to sustain my lifestyle, so I'm going to do what's required to to get it. And um
00:14:54
Speaker
And that's that. that's ah That's all there is to it. There's another another line he has about being asked what he had gained from philosophy. So the the line goes as follows. Being asked what he had gained from philosophy, he replied, the ability to feel at ease in any society, which brings out a kind of.
00:15:13
Speaker
little ideas around self-mastery and the importance of being able to experience pleasure in a range of different circumstances, in a range of different groups of people and such.
00:15:29
Speaker
Yeah, we've done an episode on risk aversion in stoicism. We've done an episode on diogenes as well. But it's making me think of this idea that the diogenes position, which is essentially the stoic position, is better to never want to eat lobster and cake than to have one moment where you want those things and you can't have them and you suffer because of that.
00:15:54
Speaker
It's almost like this, like never fail, never air. And I almost take a risk to piss his position to be like, you know, what better to eat cake and lobster 99 times and have one time, you know, where i maybe I can't, like I'll accept that risk. If it means I get to do these things that you know, Diogenes, you don't have the social skills to be able to do. Um, so I mean, I think that's what you were saying with, but that's what I was taking you to say about cashing out the autonomy. It's like,
00:16:22
Speaker
Uh, Dodgeneys protects his autonomy by never, you know, feeling unable to do something he wants to do. That's the stoic position, right? Never placing desire in something outside of what's up to you. And. Aristopis exerts his autonomy basically by gaining power, by having the ability to do yeah impressive, successful things, by being socially adept, by making powerful friends, by having money.
00:16:50
Speaker
You know, the Stoics have these arguments against this kind of autonomy or against this, uh, I guess placing too much weight in this or placing, you know, the ultimate ends in that kind of pursuit on the dangers there. But it is, uh, it is nice to see someone so unabashedly take that position and, you know,
00:17:10
Speaker
not admire Diogenes and not seem like a sucker or not seem like they're missing the point. I think when a lot of people criticize Diogenes, they go, ew, or they go, that's weird. And and i don't I don't really listen to those criticisms, but that's, I feel like, you know, this is a follower of Socrates looking at Diogenes and it's like, yeah, I'm just choosing not to be you. Like, I think you've picked the worst life Diogenes, which is, I don't know, it's it's like a really anti-stoic position. I think it's kind of, it's kind of cool.
00:17:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I think i think that's right. Their ship is challenging the Stoics and saying, when you think of people who are invested in the external, maybe you think of like the obsessive person or the person who you know burns the ship so that they can force themselves to achieve all the success they want and you know we it puts in hours and hours of attempting to you know mold the world in accordance with their will or what have you.
00:18:03
Speaker
And maybe even many societies that worship, you know, approve of that kind of life. People who have those kinds of profiles sometimes seem to get get a lot done and such. um And so I strongly point out that those people are in some ways just enslaved by the external world. They've tied themselves up, their own well-being to wanting a certain kind of outcome where that's business success, artistic success,
00:18:29
Speaker
um simply the desires, strong desires, for powerful desires for pleasure. And Aristippus challenges that and says, look, you don't need to go like completely the direction of the cynics or the stoics. You can be the kind of person who rushes after pleasure without experiencing the pain of losing it, just a simple pragmatic ah life where you pursue pleasure in a disciplined and playful way. um There's a nice story of here where there's this he has a slave who feels like they have too many too much stuff and they're on a trip or something like this. And Aristippus says, so just toss out some of the money basically, just toss out a bunch of the coins, which it perhaps illustrates this point that Aristippus is really after pleasure,
00:19:22
Speaker
not not money, not other social convention ideas of convention and many things like money. They're purely instrumental and he's not not and investing himself in a certain outcome like perhaps many obsessive types are. So and that's, I think, that that that's one of the key challenges I see that he's offering offering the Stoics. Yeah, that's cool. That's a really great point. Well, I mean, it almost becomes,
00:19:52
Speaker
Like what traps you, as you said, is is that that focus on, it almost becomes obstacles the way, is what I'm thinking, right? is like It's like what traps you is if you associate pleasure with a specific external outcome, like acquiring wealth, that's what traps you. That's what makes you go, you know, if Dionysius turns out to be not a good guy, that's what traps you in the court. But if you're the kind of person who's able to go to that court and then also throw out all your money,
00:20:19
Speaker
Uh, because you know, that becomes the path of the least amount of suffering and the most pleasure. I don't know. That's, that's, it's, um, It gets around a lot of those concerns around externals we were talking about. It seems like you are focusing on something up to you. It's not virtue, but it is something up to you, which is you know how do I maximize my pleasure in each situation, which might involve, in this case, not wanting things that are not up to me, or you know getting getting rid of my money if that's what the situation calls for. That's really
Education and Discipline in Pleasure
00:20:51
Speaker
interesting.
00:20:52
Speaker
Yeah. yeah it's it's In some ways, it's not it's not that far away from Seneca. It's almost a ah version of Seneca with without the social duties, perhaps. yeah or you know yeah if use Seneca has different different lines to the effect of. It's not owning silver spoons that does you in. It's ah the fact that they own you. and also I think you get the duty to get the sense that Seneca enjoyed many of the fine experience of experiences in life. And, you know, he loves to quote Epicurus, perhaps for some non-Stirk reasons, but that's, a in a way, Aristippus isn't too far away from that. Yeah. Seneca had a lot of silver spoons. He was writing this silver spoon line while looking at all of his silver spoons. Trying to justify them. Cool. Are there any um quips or lines you wanted to call out?
00:21:49
Speaker
Um, let me take a second. Yeah. So the, I mean, so here's another quip from Aristopis that I want to call out because, you know, you lay all these things out and then it can kind of sound like, well, this guy is just the kind of funny rich guy. You know, he's kind of a, I don't know. I haven't read a lot of Oscar Wilde, but you know, some, some rich guy making quips, where's the philosophy to this?
00:22:13
Speaker
um there's the story here which is when someone brought his son as a pupil, Aristopis asked the fee of 500 drachmae, the father objected for that sum, I can buy a slave, then do so was the reply and you will have two and that is um that is just pure Socrates right without philosophy you are a slave so there is almost this I guess I don't want to give him too much of a hard time as a hedonist. There's almost this sense of hedonism is this state you can achieve after the pursuit of philosophy, right? Going back to his, there was another one, there was another passage in Dodgenez which was like, you know, why did you spend the first half of your life with Socrates and the second half of your life with Dionysius? And he, you know, he's basically saying, well, you know,
00:23:00
Speaker
One was for philosophy and the other was for pleasure. They're for different purposes. I basically achieved my education and I was able to move on to the next stage. So there is this kind of conception of, you know, young men need an education. Young people need education. They need philosophy. They need to study. They need to understand these things. As you talked about, self-mastery. And then once you have self-mastery, you can go and you can do these things he does.
00:23:24
Speaker
um Because he has this ah ah degree of self control. It's not a kind of position. He's advocating for 18 year olds. He thinks the 18 year old is a slave. And again, that's a very stoic kind of metaphor. That's something impetus would use. He's calling the son of ah a rich man a slave.
00:23:41
Speaker
That's a very provocative thing. It's like, well, it's obviously it's metaphorical and it's metaphorical that the the boy is a slave to his desires, presumably he's a slave to his ignorance. And so it's, it's that same kind of Socratic role of first you acquire your education. Um, then you, uh, only then you become self-mastered and then you can do that to pursue the life of hedonism. It's not just this like, you know, wake up and you know, you're 18 year old, do whatever you want kind of thing.
00:24:09
Speaker
Yeah, you do see that common emphasis on education throughout the Greek schools. And yeah the Cyrenaics are no exception, perhaps, you know, that's fundamentally important to practice philosophy, and that's something that one needs to develop over time, um as as well as that focus on not being a slave. You know, Stoics have that picture of what's required for freedom.
00:24:34
Speaker
Socrates oh does as well, of course, Stylogenes as we spoke. Dodgies a cynic. So um I'll just read a few more quips and then we can get into um some of the doctrines, if you will. So just I think this is a it's a really a fun chapter. If you get a chance to go through this this chapter on Aristippus, there's just the the beginning is a whole list of these, but just to get more of a sense of the man.
00:25:00
Speaker
It happened once that he set for Corinth and being overtaken by a storm, he was in great consternation. Someone said, we plain men are not alarmed. And are you philosophers turned to cowards? To this you replied, the lives at stake in the two cases are not comparable. When someone gave himself errors for wide learning, this is what he said, as those who eat most and take the most exercise are not better in health than those who are restrict themselves to what they require. So too is not wide reading, but useful reading that tends to excellence.
00:25:31
Speaker
An advocate having pleaded for him and won the case thereupon but the question, what good did Socrates do you? Thus much was the reply that what you said of me in your speech was true.
00:25:43
Speaker
Oh, right. So that's just a handful of other quips stories. Let's get into the doctrine, I suppose, of the Cyrenaics. So Aristotle himself ah did write some works. We don't have access to any of these. um One gets a sense that I think like a few other philosopher types, the doctrines of the school were really developed by his followers from his, from his teachings. So some of the key points in the school is that of course only pleasure and pain are good.
00:26:19
Speaker
And in particular, it is this focus on bodily pleasure and pain that are most the most and these are the most intense goods or bad, not mental, not this focus on sort of the absence of pain or tranquility that that the Epicureans had. um So that that set them apart from the other hedonist schools. And in particular, it was pleasure in the moment, you know, pleasure accurately
00:26:48
Speaker
pursued. And ah you can almost think of it as a kind of disciplined, egoistic, bodily hedonism is a bit of a clunky phrase. But that's I think how I would try to capture the doctrines of the school in one go.
00:27:03
Speaker
So a discipline to because to pursue it, undisciplined would naturally lead to poor results, right? You have to kind of strategically pick your battles, decide what you're pursuing. Egoistic because it doesn't have the social obligations that stoicism comes to have. It's about maximizing your personal pleasure and then bodily because of that focus, as you said, on the body. Is that is that what you have in mind by that phrase?
00:27:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I have in mind because ah there are you know deaf different hedonists from the Epicureans to later Utilitarian still often focus on one could say more sophisticated pleasures. They'll say, you know, people think of a hedonist, they think of wine, women, and nice things, but really what matters are the pleasures of Socrates, of the mind or absence of pain and kind of tranquility. That's what matters. ah Whereas Aristepius says, no, what matters is wine, women, and nice things. hu
Cyrenaic Hedonism vs. Epicureanism
00:27:58
Speaker
that's that's That's what I had in mind.
00:28:01
Speaker
Yeah, cool. There's some more nitty-gritty. they That all makes sense to me. There's some more nitty-gritty differences of Epicureanism I want to call out. I mean, you called out this focus on bodily pleasure. That's really important because the the Epicurean picture is going to be that there's going to be a lot of reliance on memories, a lot of reliance on um you know reflections on positive experiences and bringing those up. and the Cyrenaics are saying no. Obviously thinking about hanging out with friends is not the same thing as hanging out with friends. Obviously thinking about a good meal is not the same thing as having a good meal. So there's that focus on um you know kind of this in the moment action, which requires you to get out of the Epicureans. We've we've done a couple episodes on them, but they have this idea of this kind of garden, this removal from society. Well, that's not really going to cut it to be a good Cyrenaic. You're going to have to you be in some city
00:28:54
Speaker
around these like ah premium experiences. You're going to have to be engaging with people. You can't really isolate yourself in the same way. Another interesting thing is that the the actual definitions of pleasure and pain are different. so you know The Epicureans had this argument of the ideal pleasure as actually this absence of pain or this removal of pain.
00:29:17
Speaker
Which sounds strange, but you know, you just think of you know, you're sitting at home You've got a you're in a comfy environment. You're with people you like you feel comfortable. That's kind of the Epicurean ideal um But pleasure as a state of motion is actually you know, I'm experiencing I'm actively eating the food I'm actively, you know Drinking or partying or you know whatever they whatever they were doing having a good it can still be intellectual having a good debate with a friend but it's that kind of in the moment um excitement and action I think that that's just gonna require more risk-taking and epicurean of approach entails
00:29:56
Speaker
Um, so that, that was another thing. And then, um, one other thing I wanted to call out that I thought was that I really liked about this was that external things, you gave that example of throwing the money overboard, but external things like status, freedom, wealth, you know, they don't matter except in terms of how they facilitate facilitate or prevent pleasure.
00:30:20
Speaker
And so you see Aristophus actually being kind of radical in a couple of his positions. um So we we shouldn't deny pleasure because it's against social convention. So one way to read that criticism of Diogenes is like, oh, you've got a person who's kind of successful and they're a non-radical person making fun of the the Diogenes washing vegetables, right? He's just kind of sticking his nose up at it.
00:30:42
Speaker
But this is a person who is also willing to do controversial things. um there's There's a part in Dodgeneys where he talks about you know taking as a lover, a woman who's had many partners, and he's like, well, you know does it matter if a ship has been rode in before, or somebody has used a ah horse, or makes these kind of metaphors, which is like, no. like um we were i Obviously, dont I shouldn't care if this person's had previous partners. That doesn't affect my experience at all, unless I allow it to. um There's another scene where they're kind of partying. and He's partying with Plato, and Plato refuses to put on a dress because it's ah you know it's too feminine. Aristopis is like, I don't care. i I'll put on the dress and you know be silly, um and and break these break these social conventions about what men are supposed to wear.
00:31:34
Speaker
And so i that was I think another thing too is it's not, it is willing to be, I guess it's saying the life of most pleasure is one where you're able to socially get along most of the time, but don't allow these social conventions either to kind of limit you or restrict you. So you don't sit you don't sit yourself outside the city in this epicure and commune. You make yourself a part of the city.
00:31:57
Speaker
But you know if you're having a good time and the the party's getting crazy and somebody makes a joke about putting on a dress, you're not like, oh, I can't do that because that's not what I'm supposed to do ah with these social conventions. like it's It's more, you use the phrase playful, not just one specific example, but it's more just being playful within society at the same time and pushing back on it when it needs to be pushed back on um instead of something like Dodgenease, which is a full rejection.
00:32:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's a, that's a great point. A great thing to bring out. I am where I, the Aristippus does, he sort of lives almost like the stoics, you know, he lives within social conventions, but it doesn't really respect it except as a pragmatic guideline. Uh, it doesn't, it, one doesn't get the sense that he, he really cares about it any, any more deeply than that as a,
00:32:55
Speaker
I think to navigate around or play with and such. so um And that you have many different examples of that from violating the conception of a philosopher living a wealthy lifestyle to several of the ones you mentioned as well.
00:33:11
Speaker
So the Cyrenaic school, hedonist, but with this focus on bodily pleasure, this focus on pleasure is a state of emotion. So something that actually dissipates over time. So you can't have the one good meal and sit and think about it like the Epicureans think you've got to go and you've got to keep having good meals every week.
00:33:31
Speaker
Uh, to, to enjoy that. So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a bit more risk taking a bit more playful, a bit more, um, colloquially hedonist than the Epicureans. You know, we always kind of have to caveat the Epicurean life with the Cyrenaics. I, I say, I don't think we have to caveat it. I think we have to caveat it would say it's not necessarily an insult, which is to say they're not going to make the short sighted or is the piss is not going to make the short sighted mistake of.
00:33:56
Speaker
you know, overeating and then getting sick. Because obviously that doesn't, that doesn't result in more pleasure. You know, he's got, he's has a mastery, he's able to enter, but also leave these pleasure situations. So he has this philosophical education, which allows self mastery, which allows maximization of pleasure in a way that's not available to non-philosophers. Is that
Social Competence and Philosophical Education
00:34:22
Speaker
a, yeah, does that match your conception of the school?
00:34:25
Speaker
No, yeah, absolutely. I think that's well put. I think that's well put. And I think one other interesting difference the Cyrenaics have that I wanted to mention here, because I think it is interesting, is that they didn't also, unlike many other ancient Greek philosophers, did not see happiness as the ultimate end of life.
00:34:48
Speaker
It was simply just pleasure and and happiness, this state that sort of exists through time. What philosophers would call a dispositional property, which is just a fancy way of saying maybe a trait of a life, is just an outgrowth of many pleasurable moments. For them, it really is pleasure in each moment, you know moment by moment. They're presentists, if you will.
00:35:14
Speaker
and What matters is being able to practically obtain pleasure in each moment, not say something like Aristotle, you know, this view where happiness, that's a property of a life and something you can truly only say at the end of one's life, whether someone lived a good life or that they were happy. And that's what ultimately matters for humans. Aristotepists, they didn't think that. It was more of a matter of moment by moment, are you able to obtain pleasure?
00:35:43
Speaker
Yeah, I find that I find there, I was going to say metaphor of motion, but I think, you know, they probably didn't mean it metaphorically, but pleasure is motion. No, it's like, is there, is there momentum? Is it moving? Like, I don't know what the physical physical example would be, but it's like, is a certain, you know, is a certain chemical being released in your body? Are you feeling a certain, like, is there a certain release of dopamine or whatever that would be? But there's gotta be some sort of sensation going on currently.
00:36:12
Speaker
And you're trying to maximize that as much as possible through your experience. And so if you stop moving, you know, even if you're not experiencing pain, you you're you've stopped pleasure as motion. You've lost that momentum and you've got to go back and get it and get it back. And so that that's the presentism is like, because it's, you know, it's evaluated moment by moment, right? It's not evaluated reflectively at the end by people at your funeral. Yeah, absolutely. So what if you're, what are your some of your,
00:36:41
Speaker
overall impressions of this philosophy or the chapter, what are some of the... Yeah, I think I'm impressed. yeah I think that like i think I have a lot of respect for anybody who is internally consistent. That's something that Seneca rails about. And I think that like I'm not i not usually inclined towards hedonism, but I am... like they I do like somebody who's consistent. There's always this concern with Epicureanism that it's like the hedonism of losers, that might be too hard to say, but it's like, Oh, you know what is the best way to get pleasure is like to be virtuous and to, you know, live a calm life. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Have good bread and soup. Yeah. Do labor on your farm. And it's just like, it seems a bit like, you know, it just seems a bit inconsistent. It seems like, is that really your position? If you really think pleasure is the highest good, it seems to me the position would almost be.
00:37:41
Speaker
Yeah, there's a risk to this position, which is like, look, you've got to be successful. You've got to have powerful friends. You've got to have the social skills to navigate the situations well. And you've got to have 30 to 40 years of philosophical education so you can do all this without ruining it in a sustainable, playful, self-mastering way. But if you can do that, that's where it's at. And I feel bad for you, Diogenes, that you don't have all those cards. But I've clearly got the better life than you.
00:38:11
Speaker
um so i yeah I really respect it. I don't agree with it. I think I'm still a stoic. I'm not pulled over, but it's a much more compelling version of hedonism than I've found epicureanism to be.
00:38:26
Speaker
ah least at least that at least had this first run of it you know it's not systematized in the same way and the quips are always like powerful and motivating i'm sure epicurus had some good ones but that's my that's my first impression um i really like that consistency and i took i took a quote here um another quip which was being once asked so this was aristophist was asked what advantage philosophers have he replied should all laws be repealed we shall go on living as we do now And that's that idea of consistency, which is that like I live the way I live because I have a personal philosophy. I have a set of things that matter to me, and I'm going to structure my life in pursuit of those things. And whether or not there is a law in place, um you know this isa like this is an exaggeration to an extent, but like social conventions or laws are not the determining factor for my behavior or my decision-making process or my value system.
00:39:21
Speaker
um It's my own internal system. That's what I've gained from philosophy. And so, yeah, I really admire that consistency. I think it's a very genuine, authentic portrayal of hedonism.
Legacy of Aristippus: Arete and Beyond
00:39:30
Speaker
And I think once you add some playfulness to it and you add some willingness to throw your money overboard, it counters a lot of the criticisms of hedonism as well. Yeah, that's's that's really cool. I think ah it's ah it's consistent in that consistency. One could say,
00:39:48
Speaker
Paraphrasing others lies ah freedom. So that that idea that Aristepus is free because he's not bound by these pleasures. It's just something he chooses to pursue them as he can. And that ah ah honestly requires a kind of competence that is cool to see in the chapter because you don't often think of a hedonist as especially socially competent or skilled but what you see in Aristippus is like oh he needs to be not just sort of philosophically skilled in a sense that he can enjoy the pleasures of
00:40:29
Speaker
or Cartesian without being harmed, but also socially skilled, probably like financially savvy in order to really bring his life together and live the life he wants to lead. So I think i think that's interesting, this this idea of actually in a sense, hedonism becomes practically demanding. Yeah, skilled it's like a skilled hedonism.
00:40:52
Speaker
Yeah, like you have what's required to be really successful in this kind of life. It's, whereas perhaps other kinds of hedonism might be more egalitarian or say, look, anyone can work on their desires or snippets. And I think some of that the Cyrenaics say that the the wise man, most likely he's going to experience pleasure, but it's not guaranteed, which just does seem consistent, that their wisdom on this account doesn't isn't going to guarantee happiness.
00:41:23
Speaker
ah you you know Personally, I don't find heenism sort of as a philosophy is that the idea of the end of life is pleasure, very plausible. But I do like to see yeah these ideas of self mastery. I think the aristocracy himself is just hilarious in a way that's difficult difficult to capture. So would I would encourage anyone if they're able to to so read the chapter and ah see see what they get you get from it and yeah let us know if you find it ah find it useful or entertaining. Yeah. Another historical part I wanted to call out um was that he passed his teachings on to his daughter Arate, which is' I'm always looking for these examples of like historical philosophers. we don't We don't have a lot of her writings, but
00:42:08
Speaker
So she was almost the head of the school for a period of time, if you could call it that. It wasn't formalized into a school, but you had, you know, he was just a goofy guy, you know, like he had as his ideas. Uh, and then he passed those ideas down to his daughter, Arute. And then she passed it down to her son. And then he was kind of the next formal head of the school. And then I think, system and then systematized, well, did systematize the philosophy, according to Diogenes.
00:42:36
Speaker
um and kind of write down these ideas and formalize these concepts. But I think it's it's it's cool yeah i just that as a historical fact to have that lineage that includes a woman um as a head of the school in a sense, which is another way of breaking convention, right which is probably just thought she was the child most adapted philosophy or the one most inclined towards it. So it's like, why would I not choose her? That's like a social convention, which ah I thought was cool too. And so it speaks to that consistency. Yeah, I think so. You also don't see so many philosophies being a family affair unless I can. Yeah, that's true too. Family business. Yeah, family business. Nice. All right. Well, I think one of my favorite lines from him is what would you gain from philosophy?
00:43:26
Speaker
He replied, the ability to feel at ease in any society. Do you want to end on any other quips of his or should we ah just leave it there? I think that's great. Awesome. Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Gil.
00:43:43
Speaker
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00:44:01
Speaker
more stoic. And I'd also like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. You can find more of his work at ancientlyre.com. And finally, please get in touch with us. Send a message to stoa at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback, questions, or recommendations. Until next time.