[lukebuehler]

The idea was (and is) that there are higher pleasures of the intellect and lower pleasures of the senses. The ancient philosophers generally argued that we should eschew the latter for the former, that sacrificing sensual pleasures for the life of the mind was ushering us into a the most permanent and stable form of enjoyment.

See Plato’s Philebus, and Aristotle NE VII, and many other treatments on this distinction.

I’m not saying your point is not valid, but I would not say that Western philosophy rejected pleasures as a whole, but that it was quite critical of optimizing one’s life for the pleasures of the senses.