"The art of life is about seizing the pleasures as they pass you by. But the most intense pleasures are neither spiritual nor always moral," said Aristippus the Cyrenean. "A virtuous man is not he who abstains from pleasures, but he who enjoys them without departing from them."
The ancient philosopher, Aristippus of Cyrene, was the founder of the hedonistic school. He was born in the year 435 in Cyrene, Africa, to a wealthy family. However, he decided to leave his parental home to pursue his studies. At first, he became a disciple of Protagoras but then went to Athens, where he was fascinated by the teachings of Socrates and became his disciple.
By the time Aristotle met Socrates, he had already formed his worldview of pleasure. The fact that he became so close to Socrates does not seem to have changed his mind. Rather the opposite. Aristippus essentially modified the Socratic view and equated pleasure with the good.
In time he differed so much from his teacher that he left him and began to teach his own theory. He is the first pupil of Socrates who, after the death of the great philosopher, appeared as a sophist, that is, as a professional and paid teacher, first in Athens and later in other cities.
For Aristippus, anything and everything served as a "tool" as long as it led him to pleasure. He did what was necessary for him to be able to achieve bliss. The struggle between the "moral" and the "immoral" was unequal.
He was entertained by tyrants whom he flattered and lived in luxury in their courtyards. As a sophist, he received large tuition, the greater part of which he squandered to buy the company of the most famous and beautiful hetaira of ancient times, named Laida.
Apart from the typical incident with Diogenes, Aristippus is said to have been once asked whether it disturbed him that the well-known hetaira did not love him, and he replied (true to his philosophy), "Both fish and wine do not love me, but I enjoy them".
Always eloquent and clever, Aristippos had been called by someone to teach his son. When the ancient philosopher demanded the expensive tuition, his father responded by telling him that that sum could buy an ox. Aristippus then urged him to do so, telling him "Buy it then, and so you will have two oxen together in your house".
What did the hedonistic school stand for?
The gratification of the senses was not wrong for Aristippus. That, after all, was the core of his hedonistic philosophy. What mattered to him, however, was that pleasures should not control man and should not make him their slave. On the contrary, a man should always have the possibility of distancing himself from them without feeling the slightest difficulty in doing so.
The philosophy on which Aristippus based his founding of the hedonistic school was, in fact, in two ways. On the one hand, he was a man who could wear the most expensive clothes but also walk around in rags, who could sleep in the houses of the rich but also in the countryside with equal ease. His aim was to show that the outward image of a man has not the slightest importance before the inner.
On the other hand, he found no reason important enough to not provide himself with the best possible luxuries. His philosophy was purely hedonistic, without caring where these benefits came from.
The danger of this constant pursuit of pleasure getting out of control was the only problem for Aristippus, but he was determined that a man could avoid it by acquiring the proper education and philosophy.
For Aristippus' philosophy, there are only two feelings: pain and pleasure. Thus, by law, good is identified with pleasant feelings(which cause pleasure), while evil is identified with unpleasant feelings(which cause pain). At the same time, however, he considered man's wisdom to be the basic prerequisite for mastering the challenges of life and asserting his own desires, for being master of himself without becoming a slave to his desires and thus for attaining lasting inner freedom.
His philosophical school at Cyrene flourished and prospered until the time of Ptolemy, while his philosophy in general, though pioneering, was not considered as important as others in the course of later centuries.
