Casualism

Not to be confused with Causalism.

Casualism is the philosophical view that the universe, its creation and development is solely based on randomness.[1]

The concept can be traced back to Epicurus (341 BC-270 BC).[2] It has to be noted that most of the original sources dealing with the concept have been lost and most material today is based on Diogenes Laërtius (c. 3. century CE) work Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, and copies plus developments by Titus Lucretius Carus (circa 99 BC – c. 55 BC) and Marcus Tullius Cicero (3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC).[3]

Casualism assumes the universe came into existence as a random event, and was not created by any omnipotent entity. Followers have therefore often been accused of atheism. Casualism has certain atheistic traits, but none of the ancient philosophers denied the existence of gods.[4] Epicurus postulates that the gods simply stay out of the day-to-day running of the universe and do not even sense the existence of man.[3][4] The philosophy is based on observations of well known natural phenomena, like the ocean waves or the falling of rain drops.[5] Casualism is the concept of randomness as a philosophy.

Related subjects

Citations

  1. ↑ http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/casualism
  2. ↑ http://www.textlog.de/1533.html
  3. 1 2 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/
  4. 1 2 http://www.iep.utm.edu/epicur/
  5. ↑ http://www.gutenberg.org/files/785/785.txt
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