Ancient · c. 435–356 BC
Who influenced Aristippus?
Influences and legacy
Socrates' hedonist: enjoy the moment, rule your pleasures, never be ruled by them.
Aristippus was influenced by Socrates, and went on to influence Epicurus. That is 2 lines of the 448 documented lines of influence between the 279 thinkers on this map.
Read on Wikipedia Portrait: Gottlieb Friedrich Riegel (1724–1784), Public domain See the whole map
Who was Aristippus?
Aristippus of Cyrene studied with Socrates but took a different path, founding the Cyrenaic school and the view later called ethical hedonism: pleasure is the only good. The aim was to bend circumstances to oneself and stay in control in good times and bad, summed up in his line "I possess, I am not possessed".
His ideas set him at odds with Socrates and many of his fellow pupils. He named his daughter Arete as his intellectual heir, and she and her son, Aristippus the Younger, turned his teaching into a system; ancient sources may sometimes confuse grandfather and grandson.
Summarized from the lead of the Wikipedia article.
Who influenced Aristippus?
1 direct influence on this map, earliest first.
- Socrates c. 470–399 BC
Who did Aristippus influence?
1 thinker on this map draws directly on Aristippus.
- Epicurus 341–270 BC
The line of teachers behind Aristippus
The longest documented line of influence ending at Aristippus runs 4 generations back, to Thales of Miletus.
Two steps away from Aristippus
Indirect influences
- Through Socrates: Anaxagoras, Aspasia, Prodicus
The second generation
Contemporaries of Aristippus
Thinkers on this map born within 25 years of Aristippus, with no direct line between them.
- Xenophon c. 430–354 BC
- Plato c. 428–348 BC
- Antisthenes c. 446–366 BC
- Democritus c. 460–370 BC
Aristippus by the numbers
- Direct influences
- 1
- Direct followers
- 1
- Thinkers upstream
- 6
- Thinkers downstream
- 137
- Wikipedia languages
- 54 — #39 of 54 among ancient philosophers
- Card rarity
- Epic
Questions about Aristippus
- Who influenced Aristippus?
- Socrates.
- Who did Aristippus influence?
- Epicurus.
- When did Aristippus live?
- c. 435–356 BC. The map files Aristippus under the ancient world.
- How rare is the Aristippus card?
- Wikipedia carries an article on Aristippus in 54 languages, which makes it an Epic card. Legendary starts at 100 languages, Epic at 50 and Rare at 25.
More ancient philosophers
- Confucius 551–479 BC
- Aristotle 384–322 BC
- Plato c. 428–348 BC
- Socrates c. 470–399 BC
- Pythagoras c. 570–495 BC
- Laozi c. 6th c. BC
- Cicero 106–43 BC
- Thales of Miletus c. 624–546 BC