The Cyrenaics

The Cyrenaics, founded by Aristippus of Cyrene, a companion of Socrates, held that the goal of life is pleasure — specifically the smooth motion of present bodily pleasure, not Epicurus’s tranquil absence of pain.

Sceptical about knowledge of the world beyond our own sensations, they taught that we know only how things affect us, and counselled mastering pleasure rather than being mastered by it.