institution
the Cyrenaics
also: the Cyrenaics, Cyrenaici
The hedonist philosophical school founded by Aristippus of Cyrene, which held that bodily pleasure is the highest good. Cicero treats them, with the Epicureans, as the chief opponents of the doctrine that the honourable alone is good.
Reading notes
- On the Ends of Good and Evil §1.23 Aristippus and the Cyrenaics
Aristippus of Cyrene founded the Cyrenaic school, which made bodily pleasure the chief good. Cicero treats them as the more consistent hedonists, against whom (rather than Epicurus) the Stoic hand-argument tells.
- On the Ends of Good and Evil §2.114 The Cyrenaics make no scruple of wishing it
The Cyrenaics, the hedonist school founded by Aristippus, openly held that the immediate bodily pleasure of the moment is the good. Cicero notes they at least embrace the consequence (a whole life of sensual pleasure) more consistently than the Epicureans.
- On Duties §3.116 the Cyrenaics and those named Annicereans
Hedonist schools descending from Aristippus of Cyrene, who placed all good in pleasure. Cicero ranks them, with Epicurus, among the chief enemies of the doctrine that the honourable alone is good.
- Tusculan Disputations §3.28 The Cyrenaics think that distress is produced not by every evil
The hedonist school founded by Aristippus of Cyrene. Their distinctive thesis, accepted in part by Cicero, is that distress arises chiefly from the unexpected (necopinatum); foreseeing evils blunts their force.