Aristippus

fl. 350 BCE, Greek

Philosopher. He lived in Athens, but was born in Cyrene in North Africa. Hence his philosophy was referred to as Cyrenaicism and his followers as Cyreniacs. Unlike his master Socrates, Aristippus unashamedly charged his pupils whatever the traffic would bear and by his own profession lived as extravagantly as he could.

Although no work of his survives, Cyrenaicism taught an unalloyed and unrepentant hedonism, with immediate pleasure (very much including physical pleasure) to be pursued, pain avoided, and other objects and ends of little account. But one should approach the pursuit of pleasure with a rational mind and a degree of self-control or pleasure will too easily turn to pain. As Aristippus said of an expensive female companion, "I have Lais, not she me."

It will be apparent that Aristippus's advice to give free rein to desires, to pursue pleasure without remorse, but not to fret over much when desires are thwarted, is actually quite difficult to follow, which ultimately limited its appeal.

Cyrenaicism was sometimes confused with Epicureanism, but in the latter pleasure is defined very differently as a calm, undisturbed mind supported by good physical health, not by physical enjoyment or luxuries.

Clarence Darrow

1857–1938, American

Trial lawyer. A powerful speaker, he defended radical ideas and unpopular clients with zeal. In the famous Scopes case, he ridiculed presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan's belief that every word in the Bible was literally true. His client was convicted of teaching Darwinian ideas of evolution in opposition to Tennessee state law, but Darrow and Scopes were thought to have won the battle for public opinion. In addition to his work in court, Darrow was an interesting writer and radical social thinker.

Rachel Carson

1907–1964, American

Environmentalist. She raised a battle cry against the use of farm pesticides in her 1962 book, Silent Spring. An earlier book, The Sea Around Us, had described the danger of contaminating the oceans.

Dorothy Day

1897–1980, American

Writer and social reformer. Founder, Catholic Worker Movement. She worked tirelessly for her vision of what the Catholic Church should be, for the poor and homeless, for others in need, for social justice, peace, and political reform.

Aristotle

384–322 BCE, Greek

Philosopher, pupil of Plato, and tutor to Alexander the Great. His work ranged widely over logic, metaphysics, physics, biology, zoology, natural history, history, politics, rhetoric, moral philosophy, psychology, and poetry.

Although his most important works perished, enough survived, principally through Arab sources, that he became the greatest secular authority of the late Medieval and Renaissance world, so much so that for a time his commanding presence stifled further investigation and free thought. This was especially ironic because his surviving work expressed the value of free study and thought above all, both in the form of logic and especially of empiricism, of careful observation of the world around us, of a primary reliance on the evidence of our own senses and our own mind rather than on an external authority, no matter how masterful and prestigious that authority may be.

Aristotle's moral philosophy suggested that happiness should be our goal (Eudamonism), that virtue was a reliable means to this end, and that virtue usually represented a "golden mean" between opposite extremes. This approach to a happy life did not seem to require religion, especially the quasi-mystical religion of Plato, but it did require philosophical contemplation which in turn depended on financial independence or subsidy and the leisure that such independence or subsidy made possible. Supreme happiness was therefore reserved for the few.

Aristotle also emphasized the importance of friendship for happiness, all the more so since women and children were subordinate in classical Greece and thus less suitable for intellectual intimacy. (Montaigne felt the same way in Renaissance France, that psychic, as opposed to physical, intimacy should be reserved for close male friends.)

Other Aristotelian positions are equally rooted in the circumstances of his time, including his positive valuation of political autocracy and slavery. Although he probably regarded both as natural and inescapable, any opposition to autocracy during his lifetime would have been extremely dangerous and futile.