Explore Science-first Philosophy

Dichotomy of Pleasure

~ < 1 of audio

Dichotomy of Pleasure

Prefer long term pleasures over short.

30 Phil, Chapter 11, Epicurus, Touchstone 31: Dichotomy of Pleasure.

Epicurus defined two types of pleasure: short-term and long-term. Too frequently people put short term pleasures over long-term ones causing deeper harm than warranted.
A short-term pleasure is kinetic as in the active enjoyment of fulfilling a desire, such as eating a delicious meal or engaging in a pleasurable activity. Longer or deeper pleasures are katastematic and include the relief of quenching one’s thirst or the contentment of a good night’s sleep. Put simply, for each pair of kinetic-katastematic pleasures, Epicurus wants you to prioritize the katastematic pleasure to live a better life.


That History Story, 

was first published on TST 2 years ago.
All story is part of the broader TST project.
Good thinking needs anchors. Tidbits provide them: concise, sourced, reusable pieces of evidence that help the larger TouchstoneTruth project stay grounded.

The end!

Scroll to Top