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. These basic commitments are, I believe, the fundamental building blocks upon which to erect a full worldview and lifestyle, and agreement on these points constitutes 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. Our affections are direct, self-evident, personal, and unmistaken. The practical import of restricted Cyrenaic skepticism is purgative — eschewing all unfounded abstract speculation or essentialism, and dismissing alternative sources of alleged 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, this is true for both body and mind, and therefore the ultimate goal of life is to live pleasantly and peacefully, which is happiness. Perception of the world is made in terms of opportunities for enjoyment, and risks of suffering to the individual — hedonic calculus in the economy of pleasure.

Cyrenaic education and practice has the dual benefits of removing impediments to the purest/most immediate reception of pleasurable experiences, and cultivating hedonic appetite plus the refinement of its satisfaction. This program consists of training self-possession, exercising presentism, and learning social-mastery. Respectively, these skills help us control and eliminate excessive desires through temperance, manage ourselves within current circumstances through adaptability, and succeed sociably with suavity. Possessing these virtues renders us confident and comfortable.

Paterian aesthetics applies hedonistic sensationalism to the appreciation of artistic and experiential phenomena, a form of sensitivity, 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 a beatific vision of successful living — exemplified by heroic, impassioned, and joyful modes of being and behaving, taken from living or artistically depicted examples.