In this chapter, we start off by focusing on Cyrenaic metaphysics: a quite unfashionable topic to address because the general view among scholars is that the Cyrenaics had no real interest in metaphysics. The Cyrenaics are traditionally believed to concentrate only on ethics, leaving aside, if not rejecting, the other branches of philosophy. This view rests on a misunderstanding of two passages by Sextus and Seneca (Sext. Emp. Math. VII 11 and 15 [=SSR IV A 168=T 31]; Sen. Ep. ad Lucilium XIV 1, 12 [=SSR IV A 165]). In those passages Sextus and Seneca explain that the Cyrenaics only apparently adopted a moral approach to philosophy. They effectively reintroduced those branches of philosophy (such as logic, the study of nature and of the causes [=metaphysics], and the study of affections [=epistemology]) that they seem to have rejected by dividing their moral philosophy into these sub-branches.

One may add that Aristotle is historically responsible for the invention of metaphysics as a proper branch of philosophy in the middle of the fourth century BCE, that is, at the time when the Cyrenaics were flourishing. The focus on metaphysics as a proper branch of philosophy is something that only Hellenistic philosophers could have witnessed. It would be inappropriate to say that Plato, Protagoras, Democritus and the Socratic schools had no interest in metaphysics and did not elaborate any metaphysical views.

THE CYRENAICS ON LANGUAGE

Among the sources on the Cyrenaics, Sextus is the only one who reports a rather interesting Cyrenaic argument on language. I quote Sextus' passage in full:

I list the sources and testimonies on the Cyrenaics in translation in alphabetical order of the authors. The title of the work from which the passage is quoted is bracketed. The corresponding testimony in Giannantoni's Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae, if available, is indicated at the end of the passage.

THE ANONYMOUS THEAETETUS COMMENTATOR

1. “Something is the agent [to poiēsan], something else is the patient [to paschon]. But, if people undergo affections that are opposed to the thing in itself, they will agree that the intrinsic feature of the agent is not defined [mē einai hōrismenēn tēn tou poiēsantos idiotēta]; if it were so, the same thing at the same time will not produce different affections. Because of this, the Cyrenaics say that only affections are apprehensible [mona ta pathē phasin katalēpta], while external things are not [ta de exōthen akatalēpta]. That I am being burnt – they say – I apprehend; that the fire is such as to burn is obscure. If it were such, all things will be burnt by it” (col. LXV, 19-35=SSR IV A 214).

ARISTOCLES AND EUSEBIUS

From Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel

2. “Aristippus from Cyrene maintains that the end of good things is pleasure, of bad things pain [telos agathōn tēn ēdonēn, kakōn de tēn algēdona]; he rejects all the other sciences of nature, saying that the only useful thing to do is to look for what is good and bad” (Euseb. Praep. evang. 1.8.9=SSR IV A 166).