Epicurus defined pleasure differently from the way most of us do. We think of pleasure as a presence, what psychologists call positive affect. Epicurus defined pleasure as a lack, an absence. The Greeks called this state ataraxia, literally “lack of disturbance.” It is the absence of anxiety rather than the presence of anything that leads to contentment. Pleasure is not the opposite of pain but its absence. Epicurus was no hedonist. He was a “tranquillist.”
