The Essential Philosophy of Aristippus of Cyrene

By David Von Walland

Life and Context

Aristippus was born in Cyrene of Northern Africa. He lived from about 435 to 356 B.C.E. At some time during his life, he migrated to Athens for the Olympic games and later studied Philosophy.

Most intellectuals speculate that he was a disciple of Socrates. Like other intellectuals of his era, his doctrine emphasizes ethics, especially on the purpose of life. For Aristippus of Cyrene, humans ought to seek pleasure as the fundamental human end, or telos.

Sources

We ascertain a lot about Aristippus in The Lives of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius. Additional sources include Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Rhetoric, Plato’s Phaedo and Memorabilia, and Horace’s Epistles.

Aristippus’ grandson, bearing the same name, taught some years later. In several cases, one may have a hard time in deciphering between the grandfather’s and grandson’s works.

Basic Philosophy

As noted above, Aristippus’ philosophy mainly highlights ethical ends, as in, “What is the fundamental purpose of human life?” To Aristippus, pleasure was the fundamental goal of human life.

Since pleasure is a linchpin to his thought, scholars tag his work as “hedonism.” The scholar contended that each and every human ought to act in the present in order to attain pleasure, so as not to make faults, cause distress, or otherwise unsettle anything that might thwart one’s quest for pleasure sometime down the road.

Moreover, Aristippus maintained an ill-famed reputation for sensual activity and additional revelry. While many condemned his tenacious desire for pleasure, he once said, “it is not abstinence from pleasures that is best, but mastery over them without ever being worsted.”

He believed this so far as to ignore almost every societal convention held in his era. He contended that while the usual cause to obtain pleasure was dependent on something else, as in a guy's reaction to a seductive lady, making a clear-minded, conscientious decision to chase please from the beginning achieved oneself an ethical freedom.

Influence

Most intellectuals describe Aristippus as the conceiver of the Cyreanic school of Philosophy. They eventually established in more significant detail a philosophy oriented towards ends of pleasure. Aristippus and his disciples' work had great effect on following skeptics, including Epicurus.

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Five Ways A Psychic Reading Can Help Your Relationship

By Cathy Cox

Over the years of doing psychic readings here at Origin Psychics, talking to thousands of people, and observing relationship problems we have discovered that there are many ways that a psychic reading can help with relationships. In fact, a psychic reading can be so valuable that it can save and strengthen relationships just by revealing things to us that we were missing. Clients come in all the time asking for simple answers to questions like, "Why did she leave", but the psychic reading does more than answer one question. It produces a self-awareness that helps in all aspects of your life.

1. Psychic readings helps you to listen to your inner voice

Many of our relationship problems come from avoidance of listening to our own intuitions - what has been called our 'inner voice' our 'conscience' or our 'gut instinct'. Most often we don't listen to our inner voice because we are frightened of what it is telling us. It may be that your inner voice is telling you that you are repeating a past pattern in relationship. Are you desperately in love with someone, but your inner voice is telling you that situation is destructive?

The best part of this is that when we begin listening to our intuition we begin to confront problems as they should be confronted. When we do that we avoid the things we were so afraid of in the first place. Destructive relationships become positive relationships, we deal with our issues, and we don't gloss over things that are hurting us.

Psychic readings encourage the inner voice to be heard and teach you to trust yourself. You can face your fears when you are confident in your own abilities. The challenges in your relationship can be handled instead of feared.

2. A psychic reading helps you to let go of struggle and control

People who are considered controlling are thought of bossy, domineering, or over-confident. In fact, this is only one type of control issue. It's the overt kind. There are all kinds of ways that people try and succeed to control things everyday. However, a relationship is a two-way street that cannot be successfully controlled by just one person. Fear guides this type of control, and letting go of that fear through the help of a psychic will produce more positive results in your relationships. Instead of being emotional and forcing our partners to respond, we can use our inner-confidence to confront problems without controlling tendencies.

Control, however, is a big illusion. Most people who are controlling don't really end up controlling anything. The energy that is put into this desire to be controlling turns out to be a massive waste of time. Clients will call in and ask, "Why did they leave", but there's no easy way to say this. Controlling tendencies push people away.

A psychic reading will help the client to get tuned in to the flow of their relationship. You should be challenged to stop trying to get people to do everything your way. A psychic will help try to look at relationships through a different lens.

This can sometimes be a frightening process. We sometimes have to let go of deeply held beliefs from our childhood about what makes a happy relationship. But if you are open to the insight of a psychic reading, you can begin to feel much more in charge of you life, not because you are in control, but because you have confidence to cope and respond positively to the inevitable changes that occur within a relationship.

3. A psychic reading helps you to see the signs

Hectic lifestyles of the modern age produce people who have little time to do anything but east, sleep and work. There's no time left for feeling anything, and any time that is left over is spent in contemplation. There's never any true interaction about emotions. There are nuances that go unnoticed, and that can leave relationships unsatisfying. The subtle clues in your relationship can help you to get a better handle on what's going on. This only works if you slow down.

In our psychic readings we make a conscious intention to pick up on these relationship signs and interpret them. We look at the events and interactions and help a client to see what is meaningful and what is not -what requires attention and what needs to be put aside. So often relationships go astray because people focus on the things that reflect their own fears and issues rather than what is required to move forward. We can so easily get caught up in our habitual emotional patterns that we loose a sense of the bigger relationship picture. A good psychic reading helps to read your relationship correctly.

4. A psychic reading helps you to see your blind spots

The role of a psychic reader is to support the client and be empathetic. We'll never shy away from things that you really need to work on, but we don understand how you feel. Everyone has a blind spot or two that they need to be made aware of. Coming to a reading with an open mind and being receptive to the advice given will give you a chance to see your blind spots for the first time. You can see how others perceive you, and you can tackle those perceptions so that they do not hinder any relationship you may have.

5. A psychic reading will cause you to be much calmer and more relaxed

Most clients finish their readings feeling considerably calmer and more peaceful when they started. This is because Origin Psychics don't just do readings, but we see our role as relationship healers. Our tone of voice, our feelings when we are talking to you and our energy vibrations are all aligned to an intention to heal our client's relationships. We all know that when we vibrate stress, anxiety, anger or other negative emotions, then we tend to attract that to you us. Part of our role as a psychic is to help you to vibrate at more harmonious level.

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