Epikouros out-of Samos

Epikouros off Samos (resided 341 – 270 BC), whoever name’s tend to Latinized because the Epicurus, are an effective Hellenistic Greek philosopher and the eponymous originator of the Greek philosophical college away from Epicureanism. Brand new Epicureans believed that new gods didn’t come with involvement at all inside person factors and was in fact noted for their skepticism away from says out of supernatural phenomena.

You have almost certainly viewed this quote associated with Epikouros. It is the absolute most popular phrasing of the Issue of Worst ever produced:

This may not always suggest things, given that majority of all things Epikouros penned might have been destroyed

“Is actually the guy [i.age. God] willing to stop evil, not in a position? upcoming was the guy impotent. Was he in a position, not willing? following are he malicious. Was he one another able and you may happy? whence then try worst?”

Anything is for certain and that’s that Epikouros certainly never showed the brand new Epicurean trilemma with this text. New trilemma was initially showed with this text of the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume (existed 1711 – 1776) in the publication Dialogues towards Sheer Religion, which was completed in 1776 soon before Hume’s dying and you may penned posthumously during the 1779. Why so it phrasing of the trilemma is usually misattributed so you can Epikouros is basically because Hume credited the dispute in itself so you’re able to Epikouros and people frequently misinterpreted him, convinced he had been truly estimating Epikouros rather than paraphrasing.

ABOVE: Portrait decorated in 1754 of the Allan Ramsay of the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume, the real writer of the fresh sort of the very-named “Epicurean trilemma” that’s usually cited with the misattribution to Epikouros

Hume dependent their malfunction of one’s Dilemma of Worst on the an excellent description on early Christian apologist Lactantius (stayed c. 250 – c. 325 Ad) inside section 13, verses twenty due to twenty-one of is own treatise De Ira Dei (“Towards Wrath off Goodness“). Lactantius writes, just like the interpreted from the William Fletcher:

“But if which account holds true, that the Stoics had been from inside the no trend able to see, one to disagreement in addition to off Epicurus is carried out aside. God, he says, possibly would like to pull away evils, that’s not able; otherwise He or she is able, in fact it is hesitant; or He or she is neither happy nor ready, or He is both willing and ready. In the event the He’s happy which will be incapable, He’s feeble, that isn’t according to the reputation regarding Goodness; in the event that He could be able and you will reluctant, He or she is envious, that’s equally from the variance having Jesus; if the He could be neither ready nor in a position, They are both envious and you will feeble, and this maybe not Goodness; in the event the He is one another happy and able, which alone is suitable to help you God, from what origin then is actually evils? Otherwise how come The guy maybe not remove them? I’m sure a large number of the fresh philosophers, exactly who protect providence, are widely used to getting interrupted through this conflict, and are almost inspired up against its have a tendency to so you’re able to admit one to Goodness requires zero interest in something, which Epicurus specifically aims at.”

No gratis en sus 30 aplicaciones de citas argument anyway along these lines that takes place in any one of new extant site off Epikouros. We have only around three of Epikouros’s characters (i.e. the fresh Page so you can Menoikeus, the fresh new Letter in order to Pythokles, and the Letter so you can Herodotos) and two stuff out of quotations from his today-missing functions (we.elizabeth. the principle Doctrines plus the Vatican Sayings).

Epikouros you may ergo possess hypothetically shown a quarrel along side outlines out-of what Lactantius makes reference to in one of his functions that will be don’t extant, eg their treatise Towards the Gods, that third-100 years Advertising Greek biographer Diogenes Laertios praises as one of Epikouros’s most useful functions, or their treatise To the Characteristics, which is proven to has actually spanned thirty-eight volumes, but and this just survives in fragments. Nevertheless, it does raise uncertainty one Lactantius cannot state which treatise Epicurus is supposed to said this in.