Z.'s new book develops a provocative interpretation of the ‘minor Socratic’ movement of Cyrene. His interpretation arises from a timely reappraisal of Giannantoni's fifty-year-old arguments against the relevance of Platonic dialogues, especially the Theaetetus, for understanding the Cyrenaics (I Cirenaici: Raccolta delle fonti antiche, traduzione e studio introduttivo [1958], esp. pp. 115–69.) The core of Z.'s interpretation is that the Cyrenaics were committed to the metaphysical position that ‘the world … is undifferentiated and indeterminate’ (p. 83). He claims that understanding this position not only gives greater depth to their well-known hedonist ethics and subjectivist epistemology, it also illuminates their hitherto neglected philosophy of language.
The arguments underlying this historical thesis are of uneven merit. First, Z. argues that Aristippus, the notional founder of Cyrenaicism, actually articulated the movement's core doctrines: that pleasure is the end, and each subject only knows her own affections (pp. 26–31). Assessing the plausibility of this ascription requires careful source criticism, which this monograph generally avoids (see K. Lampe, The Birth of Hedonism: Cyrenaic Ethics from Aristippus to Walter Pater [forthcoming], Appendix 1). However, Z. is probably right that Aristippus developed more sophisticated arguments than recent scholars admit (e.g. W.R. Mann, ‘The Life of Aristippus’, AGPh 78 [1996], 97–119). His purpose in ascribing the Cyrenaics' doctrines to Aristippus is to prepare the ground for using Plato's Theaetetus as a source for Cyrenaic thinking. For this he need only have advanced the more defensible hypothesis that some of the arguments Aristippus made before Plato composed his dialogue substantially anticipated later Cyrenaic doctrines.
The question then becomes whether the relevant passage of the Theaetetus coheres with other evidence for the Cyrenaics. At issue is what Plato's Socrates calls a secret theory of Protagoras, revealed only to ‘initiates’, in which he underpins his ‘man is the measure’ epistemology with the metaphysical claim that all things are in constant motion (152c–54d). Later this theory is attributed to some ‘famous men’, who know Protagoras' ‘mysteries’ (155e–56a). These people maintain that knowledge comes about when active and passive motions meet. For example, when passive motions in an eye meet active motions from a stone, then sight and colour occur simultaneously. Because this colour only arises from the interaction of these particular motions, the perceiver can incorrigibly claim that this stone has such-and-such a colour for her. No one else is in a position to share or evaluate her perception. At the same time, nothing can be known about the stone in itself. Its attributes only come into being through encounters with particular perceivers. In fact, what we call a ‘stone’ is nothing more than a bundle of perceptible motions (156a–60d).
Z. makes several arguments in favour of connecting this theory with the Cyrenaics, of which I summarise only the strongest here. First and foremost, the Cyrenaics agree that each person knows incorrigibly how the world affects her, but nothing about the world in itself (pp. 56–7). Second, Cyrenaic neologisms – such as ‘I am whitened’ rather than ‘it is white’ – eliminate reference to objects. This could be because they believe no stable objects exist (pp. 57, 94–8; cf. 111–13). Third, the words ‘move’, ‘motion’ and ‘movement’ recur prominently in Cyrenaic theory (pp. 62–3). In fact, Z. could have done more to gather instances of this vocabulary. Finally, it is plausible that Plato does not name Aristippus and his disciples because it would be anachronistic at the dramatic date of the dialogue, but he hints at their identity by speaking of ‘famous men’ (p. 63).
However, there are decisive objections to this interpretation. First, scholars have long argued that the Cyrenaics cannot have grounded a claim about the unknowability of the world on a thesis about the nature of the world. (See most recently J. Brunschwig, ‘La théorie Cyrénaïque de la connaissance’, in G.R. Dherbey and J.-B. Gourinat [edd.], Socrate et les Socratiques [2001], pp. 473–5.) This is a serious problem for Z., though his suggestion that indeterminacy could be defended as a ‘very special’ foundational position deserves further development (pp. 84–5). More insuperable is the near silence of our sources about this supposedly foundational belief. The most plausible exception is in the anonymous second-century commentary on the Theaetetus: ‘If they're affected in contrary ways by the same thing, they'll agree that the proper quality of the cause isn't defined. Otherwise the same thing wouldn't create opposite affects at the same time. Hence the Cyrenaics said that only affects are apprehensible; externals are inapprehensible. I apprehend, they say, that I'm burning; but it's unclear that fire is caustic’ (G. Bastianini, D.N. Sedley [edd.], Commentarium in Platonis Theaetetum, in Corpus dei papiri filosofici greci et latini, III [1995], col. LXV.20–32). Here the commentator is discussing 152b, where Socrates justifies Protagorean epistemology by observing that the same wind is cold to one person but not to another. At 152d Socrates connects this with the doctrine of universal flux, which is undoubtedly why the commentator infers that ‘the proper quality of the thing isn't defined’. What interests Z. is the commentator's implication that the Cyrenaics make the same connection between epistemic subjectivism and metaphysical indeterminacy (pp. 59–63).
At first sight this is promising evidence. However, it must be noted that this commentary is filled with passing allusions to epistemological doxography like this one. The commentator may be expressing himself inexactly: perhaps he only means to say that the Cyrenaics, like Protagoras in the Theaetetus, infer the subjectivity of knowledge from the diversity of perceptual experience. It is noteworthy that these are the only two sentences about the Cyrenaics in the commentary. If they bore a special relation to this ‘secret doctrine’ we would expect to hear more about them. In fact Pyrrhonism receives far more of the commentator's attention.
Z.'s next strongest evidence, in Philodemus' On Choices and Avoidances column III (G. Indelli, V. Tsouna-McKirahan, edd., [1995]), is substantially weaker. Z. prints the relevant sentence as follows: ‘Others held the view that what our school calls grief or joy are totally empty notions because of the manifest indeterminacy of things’ (p. 93). In fact ‘of things’ is not in the Greek, which says οἰ δὲ διὰ τὴν ἐμϕαινομένην ἀοριστίαν ἅπασαν κενὴν τὴν λύπην καὶ [τὴν χ]αράν, ἣν ἠμεῖς δὴ λέγο[μεν, ἐδογ]μάτισαν. It is unclear whether it is ‘things’ or ‘pleasure and pain’ which are ‘indeterminate’. The first three columns of this papyrus appear to concern criteria for action rejected by the Epicureans. In the highly lacunose sentence following the one just printed, we can only read καὶ τὰς … πράξεις … εὐστάθεια[… Are these unnamed speakers proposing affective ‘stability’ rather than ‘indeterminate pleasure and pain’ as a criterion for action? If so, why? Are they Cyrenaics of some sort, like those earlier in column III, or philosophers of another movement? The answers are too uncertain for us to use this as a source for Cyrenaic metaphysics.
If indeterminacy really did foundational work in Cyrenaic theory, we would expect to find much stronger evidence. However, by way of conclusion I should emphasise that Z.'s hypothesis leads to fascinating discussions. For example, from his discussions of Plato (pp. 63–7), Colotes (pp. 94–8) and Aristocles (pp. 109–13) one accumulates an appreciation of the epistemic and linguistic challenges of a philosophy built on incorrigible perceptual affections such as ‘I am whitened’. On the premise that the Cyrenaics believe in indeterminacy, he then puts them into dialogue with partners as diverse as Gorgias, Wittgenstein and Feyerabend in order to provide them with the rudiments of defensible theories of ontology, ‘loose’ selfhood and a behaviourist philosophy of language (esp. pp. 113–20, 131–47). Thus while specialists may reject Z.'s central argument and some of his exegetical claims, all readers should find this an accessible and enjoyable book and a welcome stimulus to further thinking about this relatively neglected philosophical movement.
