Skeletal Cyrenaicism

I would like to take a more personal approach, rather than a historical one, and elaborate on the true import of the lessons I have learned from Cyrenaic theory, as one who is also influenced by far later strands of philosophical thought, chief among these being Epicurus’s hedonism, Charles Peirce’s pragmaticism, Ayn Rand’s objectivism, and Walter Pater’s aestheticism. The following basic commitments are, I believe, the fundamental building blocks upon which to erect a full worldview and lifestyle, and agreement on these points constitutes New Cyrenaic alignment.

Skeletal Cyrenaicism:

Cyrenaic epistemology is a commitment to sensational empiricism. Immediate experience is the foundation for all knowledge, providing us with incorrigible awareness of the world around us as it relates to our psycho-physical constitution, within the basic unity of awareness. Our affections are direct, self-evident, personal, and unmistaken. The practical import of limited Cyrenaic skepticism is purgative — eschewing all unfounded abstract speculation or essentialism, and dismissing any alleged alternative sources of information. 

Cyrenaic ethics is a recognition of the feelings as evaluative faculties. Pleasure and pain are automatic motivating reactions to raw sense data, and are the life-guiding origin of all further judgements of value and disvalue. Pleasure is naturally attractive and choice-worthy, pain is naturally repellent and avoidance-worthy, experienced psychosomatically, and teaches that the ultimate goal of life is to live pleasantly and peacefully, an achievement of happiness. To achieve happiness requires cultivating the personal qualities of Satisfaction, Self-Mastery, and Confidence, which describe necessary constituent components of the pleasant life. Perception of the world is made in terms of opportunities for enjoyment, and risks of suffering to the individual — managing these we call hedonic calculus in the economy of pleasure. 

Cyrenaic education and practice holistically transforms belief, attitude, desire, and capacity. This program has the dual benefits of removing impediments to the purest, most immediate reception of pleasurable experiences, while cultivating hedonic appetite and the refinement of its satisfaction. Education consists of philosophical investigation, training self-awareness, exercising presentism, and learning sociability. Respectively, these skills help us control and eliminate excessive desires through temperance, manage current circumstances through adaptability, and succeed in inter-personal relationships with suavity and compassion. Possessing these virtues renders us both competent and comfortable.

Paterian aesthetics applies hedonistic sensationalism to the appreciation of artistic and experiential phenomena, imparting a form of earthly sensitivity, beatific idealism, and connoisseurship. We regard all objects — works of art, the fairer forms of nature and human life, engaging personalities — as powers or forces producing pleasurable sensations, each of a more or less peculiar or unique kind. We shape ourselves in accordance with an aspirational vision of successful living — exemplified by heroic, impassioned, and joyful modes of being and behaving, taking inspiration from living or artistically depicted exemplars.