Hedonism holds that pleasure is the good and pain is the bad, and asks: which kind of pleasure is worth pursuing? For some it is the intense pleasure of the present moment. For Epicureanism it is above all tranquility: a body free of pain and a mind free of fear. That calls for a simple life, solid friendships and freedom from fears such as those of death and the gods.
Aristippus of Cyrene, a pupil of Socrates, defended immediate pleasure in the fourth century BC. Soon after, Epicurus founded the Garden in Athens, a community of friends that sought moderate pleasures and explained the world through atoms. In Rome, Lucretius set out these ideas in the poem On the Nature of Things. In modern times Oscar Wilde made aesthetic pleasure a way of life, and Michel Onfray revived hedonism as an atheist and libertarian philosophy.
Core ideas
Pleasure is the good, and pain is the evil to avoid
The greatest pleasure is a calm body and mind
Death is not to be feared, since we will not feel it
Where to start reading
Each thinker's starter book, picked for beginners.
