algedonics

algedonics noun: the scientific study of pleasure and pain responses.

Noun

algedonics pl (plural only)

(plural, plural-only) The scientific study of pleasure and pain responses.
- Interactions of mental states with one another, or changing relations of the organism and the environment, determine all sorts of changes in the quality of the mental states as regards pleasure and pain. To show how these changes come about is to obtain the laws of "algedonics."1894, The Speaker - Volume 9, page 703
- The conception of algedonics interests the physician, then, as far as it helps him to attempt to distinguish between a psychic or physical origin for the headache.1908, Pennsylvania Medical Journal (1897-1923). - Volume 11, page 185
(plural, plural-only) The handling of critical events in ways that bypass the usual chain of reporting in order to respond more urgently.
- The plant is adaptive to environmental changes (we have discussed how this could be done through algedonics). But the built-in control systems keep going wrong.1994, Roger Harnden, Allenna Leonard, How many grapes went into the wine: Stafford Beer on the art and science of holistic management, →ISBN, page 138
- The final point introduces the idea of 'algedonics' (from the Greek 'aldos', meaning pain, and 'hedos', or pleasure), a signal produced by a statistically recognised event, which is so important that it bypasses the usual channels and gets sent directly to S5.2011, Angela Espinosa, Jon Walker, A Complexity Approach to Sustainability, →ISBN, page 64

Marshall viewed aesthetics as a special branch of introspective psychology dealing with algedonics, the science of pleasure and pain.2005, John R. Shook, Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers - Volume 1, →ISBN, page 1626:
The information is transferred from S3 to S4, in the form of “algedonics” (dashed line between S3 and S4 in Figure 3).2012, Paolo Renna, Production and Manufacturing System Management, →ISBN, page 257:

From Ancient Greek ἄλγος (álgos, “pain”) + ἡδονή (hēdonḗ, “pleasure”) + -ics. Coined by Henry Rutgers Marshall in the late 19th century.

What does algedonics mean?: Algedonics means the scientific study of pleasure and pain responses.
How do you use algedonics in a sentence?: Marshall viewed aesthetics as a special branch of introspective psychology dealing with algedonics, the science of pleasure and pain.
What part of speech is algedonics?: Algedonics is a noun.

Adapted from Wiktionary: algedonics (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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