"I now wish that I had spent somewhat more of my life with verse. This is not because I fear having missed out on truths that are incapable of statement in prose. There are no such truths; there is nothing about death that Swinburne and Landor knew but Epicurus and Heidegger failed to grasp. Rather, it is because I would have lived more fully if I had been able to rattle off more old chestnuts—just as I would have if I had made more close friends."
--Richard Rorty, "The Fire of Life," 2007
Showing posts with label Epicurus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Epicurus. Show all posts
Friday, December 12, 2008
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Thursday, January 04, 2007
The Epicurean Paradox
"God either wants to eliminate bad things and cannot, or can but does not want to, or neither wishes to nor can, or both wants to and can. If he wants to and cannot, he is weak -- and this does not apply to god. If he can but does not want to, then he is spiteful -- which is equally foreign to god's nature. If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and spiteful and so not a god. If he wants to and can, which is the only thing fitting for a god, where then do bad things come from? Or why does he not eliminate them?"
--Epicurus, 341-270 BCE, Greek, in The Epicurus Reader, translated and edited by Brad Inwood and Lloyd P. Gerson
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