This chapter focuses on comparisons between some of the strands within Epicurean thinking, most notably ideas underlying the nature of human beings (secular individualism) and those of Norbert Elias, particularly his thinking on habitus and figurations informing his notion of homines aperti, or "open people." An exploration of these threads within Epicurean thinking in relation to Elias's sociological theory may help toward a better understanding of Elias's intellectual debt.