Comparison Between Cyrenaic and Epicurean Epistemology

A reader at the Facebook group has asked:

I'd be interested in a comparison between the Epicurean and the Cyrenaic epistemology (not ethics):

What would be the similarities and differences?

Probably a topic worth tracking here, with Diogenes Laertius the place to start.

Does not look like there is an awful lot in Diogenes Laertius but i extracted this:

Lives of the Eminent Philosophers/Book II - Wikisource, the free online library

- They affirm that mental affections can be known, but not the objects from which they come; and they abandoned the study of nature because of its apparent uncertainty, but fastened on logical inquiries because of their utility. But Meleager in his second book On Philosophical Opinions, and Clitomachus in his first book On the Sects, affirm that they maintain Dialectic as well as Physics to be useless, since, when one has learnt the theory of good and evil, it is possible to speak with propriety, to be free from superstition, and to escape the fear of death. 93. They also held that nothing is just or honourable or base by nature, but only by convention and custom. Nevertheless the good man will be deterred from wrong-doing by the penalties imposed and the prejudices that it would arouse. Further that the wise man really exists. They allow progress to be attainable in philosophy as well as in other matters. They maintain that the pain of one man exceeds that of another, and that the senses are not always true and trustworthy.

- [ Hegesians] They also disallow the claims of the senses, because they do not lead to accurate knowledge. Whatever appears rational should be done. They affirmed that allowance should be made for errors, for no man errs voluntarily, but under constraint of some suffering;

Sounds like Voula Tsouna is the place to go on this.

Thanks for those comments.

So it appears that the Cyreniacs like Democritus were stuck in skepticism.

It would also be interesting to know if the Cyreniacs were stuck in determinism, and if so that would make them twins with Democritus in having both of those major flaws which Epicurus rejected.

Every time we go back into the Cyreniacs it impresses me that we can learn from them to fill in likely gaps in our knowledge of Epicurus, after we adjust for Epicurean reasoning. I see no reason, for example, that Epicurus would not have embraced the "smooth motion" perspective as the ultimate basis of pleasure, even though I don't think that is explicitly stated in the texts we have today. (Or is it - is something like that in Lucretius?)

It is as if Epicurus studied both the Cyreniacs and Democritus and explicitly went about purging them of skepticism and determinism, placing the final result on a much more sound logical footing. The glue that sticks it all together seems to be the epistemology of placing priority on what our faculties reveal to us, as just as real (more real) than speculation without evidence. Epicurus always traces out logical conclusions tied to observations, and never letts rationalism (speculation without real-world evidence) contradict and spoil the result.