435 - 360 B.C.), a pupil of Socrates, who emphasized one side only of Socratic teaching (that happiness is one of the ends of moral action) to the exclusion of all else.
As a movement, it was founded by Aristippus of Cyrene (c. The earliest manifestation of Hedonism was Cyrenaicism (which was popular in the 4th and 3rd Centuries B.C.), although arguably, Democritus had propounded a very similar philosophy even earlier. Hedonism is a school of philosophy from the Socratic and Hellenistic periods of ancient Greece, which holds that pleasure is the most important pursuit of mankind, and that we should always act so as to maximize our own pleasure.
By Movement / School > Ancient > Hedonism
