Više začuđuje da je Aristip, koji se smatra rodonačelnikom kirenskog hedonizma, sokratovac, nego činjenica da je rodom iz mediteranske Kirene. Grad u kome je rođen, osnovali su nekoliko stoljeća prije grčki koloni, koji su došli s otoka Tere. Po Pindaru, njegova je porodica bila najbogatija i najuzvišenijeg roda u cijeloj Libiji, čime se objašnjava činjenica što je budući hedonist, od malena, bio naviknut na život u raskoši. Nikada ga nisu smatrali sokratovcem u pravom smislu te riječi , što će biti (...) razlogom spora među Sokratovim sljedbenicima. Svijet čulne realnosti kojem je on pripadao, s jedne strane, te Platonov idealni, s druge, implicira pitanje Sokratova izvornog učenja: hedonistički, kirenski ili onaj platonizirani Sokrat, kako sugerira najveći broj istraživača?The fact that Aristippus, considered the founding father of Cyrenaic hedonism, is a Socratic is far more astounding than the fact that he was born in Cyrene on the Mediterranean. His hometown was founded a few centuries earlier by Greek colonists arriving from the Island of Thera. According to Pindar, his family was the richest and of the noblest lineage in the whole of Libya, which says that this future hedonist had been used to a life in luxury ever since he was born. He was never considered a Socratic in the true sense of the word , which was to become the cause of controversy between Socrates’s followers. The world of sensual reality he belonged to on the one hand and Plato’s world of ideas on the other pose the question of Socrates’s original orientation – was he originally a hedonist, a Cyrenaic or a Platonist, which is what most researchers suggest? (shrink)