CYRENAIC PHILOSOPHY

In this book I have tried to amplify the field of interests of the Cyrenaics by adding metaphysics and philosophy of language to ethics and epistemology. In so doing, I have also offered an ambitious interpretation of the Cyrenaic school by showing that, in addition to the school, there is a Cyrenaic philosophy for us to account for. By Cyrenaic philosophy I mean a coherent set of philosophical views (ethical, epistemological, metaphysical and semantic). I say that the set of philosophical views I see as representing Cyrenaic philosophy is coherent because I take Cyrenaic ethics to be perfectly organic with the epistemology and metaphysics of the school, as much as epistemology and metaphysics are in perfect accordance with the semantic approached adopted by the Cyrenaics.

The cardinal concept for Cyrenaic ethics and epistemology is that of affection (pathos). The two ethical key affections for the Cyrenaics are pleasure and pain, while they admit of an (epistemological) affection that is neutral from the ethical point of view and is purely representational. Cyrenaic pathē – both affective and representational – are best interpreted as originating from movements and alterations in us. In Cyrenaic philosophy, affections are wholly subjective. If I see a table as white, on the basis of Cyrenaic epistemology, I can be said to be whitened.