Cyrenaicus

Part of speech: adjective, noun

Definitions

1. A member of an ancient Greek philosophical school founded by Aristippus, emphasizing pleasure as the highest good
2. Relating to or characteristic of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, which advocates for hedonism and sensory pleasure
3. Of or pertaining to the region of Cyrenaica in North Africa, noted for its historical and cultural significance in ancient times

Etymology: The Cyrenaics took their name from Cyrene, a Greek colony on the North African coast in what is now Libya, where their founder Aristippus was born around 435 BCE. The name is simply the adjective formed from that place name, "Kyrenaikos," meaning "of Cyrene," and it was applied to the school in Greek and later borrowed into Latin as "Cyrenaicus." Cyrene was itself a city named after the nymph Cyrene, according to Greek myth, so the philosophers' label carries a mythological place name two steps removed. The surprising part is that the Cyrenaics were not really a single organized school in the way Plato's Academy was. Aristippus was a companion of Socrates who reportedly argued that the only things we can know are our immediate sensations, and that pleasure, understood as pleasant motion of the senses, is the good. Later members, such as Hegesias, took a darker turn, and the name became attached to a loose tradition rather than a fixed doctrine. English adopted the adjective for scholarly writing about this group, and it remains almost entirely confined to histories of philosophy.

Synonyms: Cyrenaic, Cyrenean