The Epistemology of the Cyrenaic School

by Voula Tsouna

• ISBN13: 9780521622073
• ISBN10: 0521622077
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-01-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The Cyrenaic school was a fourth-century BC philosophical movement, related both to the Socratic tradition and to Greek Scepticism. In ethics, Cyrenaic hedonism can be seen as one of many attempts made by the associates of Socrates and their followers to endorse his ethical outlook and to explore the implications of his method. In epistemology, there are close philosophical links between the Cyrenaics and the Sceptics, both Pyrrhonists and Academics. There are further links with modern philosophy as well, for the Cyrenaics introduced a form of subjectivism which in some ways preannounces Cartesian views, endorsed by Malebranche and Hume and developed by Kant. This book reconstructs Cyrenaic epistemology, explains how it depends on Cyrenaic hedonism, locates it in the context of ancient debates, and discusses its connections with modern and contemporary epistemological positions.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix	(8)
Abbreviations	xvii
1 Knowledge and the good life: the ethical motivation of the Cyrenaic views on knowledge	1	(8)
PART I SUBJECTIVISM	9	(66)
2 The nature of the pathe	9	(17)
I Physiology	9	(12)
II Ontology	21	(5)
3 The vocabulary of the pathe	26	(5)
4 The apprehension of the pathe	31	(31)
I The pathe as objects of katalepsis and as criteria of truth	31	(7)
II Varieties of privileged access	38	(4)
III Self-evident states and self-evident propositions	42	(3)
IV Two ways of interpreting the Cyrenaic position: the objectal and the adverbial models of sensory perception	45	(8)
V The restriction of the criterion	53	(9)
5 The criticism of Aristocles of Messene	62	(13)
I Pathe and logoi	63	(2)
II Awareness of the pathe and awareness of oneself	65	(3)
III Awareness of pathe and apprehension of objects: the pathe as guides to conduct	68	(7)
PART II SCEPTICISM	75	(40)
6 The causes of the pathe: objects in the world	75	(14)
I The assumption of the existence of the external world	75	(3)
II Some counter-evidence	78	(4)
III The testimony of Plutarch against Colotes	82	(7)
7 Our ignorance of other minds	89	(16)
8 Some remarks on language	105	(10)
PART III SUBJECTIVISM, EMPIRICISM, RELATIVISM: CYRENAICS, EPICUREANS, PROTAGOREANS	115	(28)
9 Cyrenaic subjectivism and the Epicurean doctrine that all perceptions are true: Plutarch, Adv. Col. 1120f-1121e	115	(9)
10 Cyrenaic epistemology and Protagorean relativism: some considerations	124	(14)
11 The Socratic connection	138	(5)
Appendix: Sources and testimonies	143	(18)
References	161	(9)
Index of names	170	(4)
Index locorum	174	(3)
Subject index	177