Cyrenaic
/ˌsʌɪərɪˈneɪɪk
/adjective
Denoting the hedonistic school of philosophy founded circa 400 bc by Aristippus the Elder of Cyrene, which holds that pleasure is the highest good and that virtue is to be equated with the ability to enjoy.The first of the Cyrenaic school was Aristippus, who came from Cyrene, a Greek city on the north African coast....
- One of the most striking features of Cyrenaic ethics is their assertion that it is pleasure, and not happiness, which is the highest good.
- A member of the society of Pythagoras, Theodorus was one of the main philosophers in the Cyrenaic school of moral philosophy.
noun
A follower of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy.There are important differences between Protagoras' relativism and the Cyrenaics ' subjectivism....
- Because of the contempt that the hedonism of Aristippus and the Cyrenaics inspired, Aristippus became a natural focal point for many scandalous stories that were supposed to provide fitting illustrations of his thought.
- Together with the Megarians, Cyrenaics and Cynics they count among the minor Socratic schools.
Derivatives
Cyrenaicism
- Around the time of Epicurus, a number of offshoot sects of Cyrenaicism sprung up.
- He journeys from Stoicism to Cyrenaicism to Epicureanism, and finally to Christianity.
- When I went to stay with him in the late spring of 1884, when Oxford was looking its loveliest, we had many long talks about Marius and the new Cyrenaicism, and on all implied in what it has become the vogue to call the new Hedonism.