fatalism
As fatalism (from Latin fatalis , the fate concerning ') refers to a worldview , according to which the events in nature and society by a higher power or due to logically predestined necessity. From the point of view of fatalists, the coincidences of fate are inevitable, the will of man cannot oppose them. However, this does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that human decisions and actions are meaningless. With the conviction of being at the mercy of oneself, fatalism is linked to an emotional state and attitude to life that is shaped by it, the “devotion to fate”.
Characteristic of fatalism is the assumption of a universally acting authority or a logical inevitability that has determined the course of history as well as the individual fate from the start. The determining authority can be the providence of a deity, who planned and arranged the course of events from the beginning, or an impersonal power that ensures a certain fixed process within the framework of a cosmic order. An alternative justification postulates the equation of the possible with the actual as a requirement of logic. The approach of “causal determinism ” differs from these fatalistic concepts, which explains all events as necessary consequences of their causes within the framework of a seamless natural law causality.
In general terms, fatalism is primarily understood as the readiness to accept the assumed inevitability of fateful processes. The spectrum of fatalistic attitudes ranges from a resigned acceptance of the unchangeable to the enthusiastic glorification of the existing circumstances and the individual who heroically asserts himself within them. For the emphatic affirmation of fate, the Latin term amor fati ('love of fate') coined by Friedrich Nietzsche has become established.
In philosophy and theology, fatalistic and deterministic doctrines have been discussed controversially since ancient times . Philosophically, the fixation of the future is often justified with the general validity of the principle of duality , according to which statements about the future are either true or untrue regardless of time. This approach is called logical fatalism. Religious fatalism has a different starting point. It is based on the concept of predestination , divine predestination, which is derived from revelations or prophecies. Historically particularly powerful manifestations are the predestination teachings of the Stoics , Calvinism and Islam. Astrological fatalism, which connects the power of fate with constellations of the stars, is a special case.
As a cross-cultural phenomenon, fatalism shows itself in the mostly female fate gods of myths and traditions of popular belief . In the legends and customs of numerous European peoples, the belief in the three "women of fate" has been anchored since antiquity, who determine the fate of a child after the birth, in particular its lifespan.
Both fatalism and determinism meet with widespread rejection because of its ethical consequences . Critics claim that it paralyzes action, denies human autonomy and undermines moral responsibility.
Definition and conceptual history
The belief in fate is one of the oldest and most widespread phenomena in cultural history, but in ancient times there was no separate word for the corresponding attitude to life. Various terms were used to denote the relevant concepts; they spoke of necessity ( Greek ἀνάγκη ANANKE , Latin necessitas ), Providence (Greek πρόνοια pronoia , Latin providentia ), fate (Greek εἱμαρμένη within the meaning of predestination Heimarmene , Latin fatum ) and destiny in the sense of happy or unhappy events (Greek τύχη Tyche , Latin fortuna ).
The terms fatalist and - derived from them - fatalism only became common in the early modern period . Although the Mozarabic theologian and critic of Islam, Pedro Pascual, Bishop of Jaén , wrote a treatise “against the Mohammedan fatalists” as early as the 13th century , this word creation found hardly any response. It was not until the late 17th century that the Cambridge philosopher Ralph Cudworth introduced the term fatalism into philosophical terminology. In his treatise The True Intellectual System of the Universe , published in 1678 , he opposed three “fatalisms” which are false hypotheses about the universe. Fatalisme has been documented in French since 1724 . The term was adopted into German around the middle of the 18th century.
The terminology used by Cudworth and like-minded people was by no means consistent with the self-conception of those to whose ideas it was related. Fatalist and fatalism were originally just pejorative fighting terms that were introduced and spread to discredit unpopular views. They served the polemics of conservative circles against the then controversial philosophical and theological models, which endangered established ideas about human autonomy and thus had a revolutionary and threatening effect. The systems of Johannes Calvin , Thomas Hobbes and Baruch de Spinoza were among the doctrines that were contested as "fatalistic" .
The starting point for the creation of words and terms was the Latin noun fatum ('fate') and the English and French adjective fatal , which goes back to the Latin fatalis ('concerning fate', 'fateful'). The etymology claimed is fatum which (of a god) applies (and thus Specified) '. Even in classical Latin of antiquity, fatalis also had the meanings fatal and fatal . With this negative meaning, the adjective was adopted in the Romance languages and fatally found its way into German as a foreign word . The aspect of inevitable calamity traditionally resonates in all words derived from the Latin word stem. This effect is reinforced by the fact that the term fatalism comes from the arsenal of polemical criticism and therefore had negative connotations from the start. The derogatory connotation is still present today: In everyday language, the word is associated with the ideas of powerlessness and being at the mercy of people. Fatalism is seen as pessimism and expectation of a bad outcome.
However, a counter-movement to the widespread pejorative understanding of the term of the critics has arisen in the modern age . Friedrich Nietzsche emphatically professed fatalism. This turned the expression into a positive. A value-neutral use of terminology is desirable in academic discourse.
The definition of fatalism includes the demarcation from the related term determinism , which describes the thesis of the determinism of all events and is only documented in the late 18th century. In the early modern period, no distinction was made between fatalistic and deterministic ideas. Defenders of free will used to brand and oppose all doctrines that contain an already established future as fatalistic. In modern philosophical discourse, however, the differentiation between fatalism and determinism has established itself. However, the two terms are often used colloquially as synonyms , and the separation is not always carried out consistently in scientific texts.
When we talk about determinism, we mean in the broadest sense all systems that assume that the future is not open, but "determined", that is, has always been fixed. According to this usage, determinism is the generic term for all models that assume the fixation of successive states, and fatalistic belief in fate is a variant of it or - as a conviction in life - a consequence of it. Hence, religious fatalism is sometimes referred to as theological or metaphysical determinism. In the narrower and more common sense, determinism only refers to “causal determinism”, which is based on a deterministic interpretation of natural law causality. This approach is based on a purely mechanical understanding of causality and necessity. One therefore speaks of mechanistic or physical determinism. Causal determinists believe that the state of the world at any given point in time inevitably determines any state at a later point in time. They have been polemically attacked as fatalists since the early modern period, although their worldview does not imply any concept of fate.
The starting point of fatalism is the assumption that future events and conditions are determined by an ever-present necessity from which no one can escape. No current or future decisions and actions can change that. The opinion that it is in the power of man to bring about a different outcome through a free will is therefore an illusion. Fatalists share this basic assumption with determinists. In contrast to determinism, however, fatalism manages without the assumption that all causal chains can be traced back to a purely mechanical causation that determines all processes including the human act of will in every detail. In a fatalistic worldview, non-mechanical - including metaphysical - causes are possible in principle. In addition, not all forms of fatalism require a strict determination of each individual process; In some models, only central events, such as the cornerstones of the biography, are specified. In many variants of the belief in fate, no absolute human influence is not assumed; rather, one can try to influence the power of fate, for example through magical practices or religious rites. Such concepts can only be called fatalistic to a limited extent, not in the strict sense, as they allow a certain openness to the future.
Requirements and main features of fatalistic models
A distinction is made between two approaches within fatalism. One assumes a metaphysical or religious worldview in which a deity or an impersonal cosmic regulating power has the role of directing authority. These include the theories that serve to justify astrology. A widely spread variant of the metaphysical-religious approach is the theological assumption that the course of history and the fate of individual people are more or less precisely determined by God's providence and foreknowledge - predestination . This is called "theological fatalism". The other approach is based on the idea that the correct statements about the future have a timeless truth content. They are always true, and thus the predetermination of the future is a requirement of logic. Hence one speaks of logical fatalism . In addition, the term logical determinism occurs. Here is a borderline case between fatalism and determinism: the logical argument agrees with the causal determinist in that it does not imply any metaphysical or religious conception, and with the fatalistic in that it does without a mechanical chain of causality. The latter is the reason for the assignment to fatalism.
Metaphysical and Religious Fatalism
With this type of fatalism, the organizing and directing authority appears as a superhuman power. In the theistic variants, which presuppose a personal God, it is equated with God. Some religious or philosophical worldviews favor or even require the fatalistic way of thinking. This is the case if it is assumed that the cosmos is ordered according to universal principles that not only regulate the regularly recurring natural processes, but also determine individual events. Then the way is free for the fatalistic idea that what happens to a person does not happen by chance, but is subject to a given necessity. In monotheistic systems this necessity arises from the constant will of the ruling God, whose providence determined the outcome of all human endeavors from the beginning. This is called predestination. In polytheistic systems, fatalism can develop when it is believed that there is a certain deity or universal power that directs, or at least significantly influences, the course of life independently of the aspirations of other superhuman instances. For polytheists this assumption is obvious, since the individual gods have different intentions and can therefore hardly function as a collective world government; consequently an additional authority is required which is responsible for the continuous control of the cosmos. The determining authority is not always ascribed a purposeful action; it can also be understood as "blind", haphazard and moody. While some doctrines postulate a connection between fortunes and the moral quality of those affected, others deny such a connection of justice. In terms of religious phenomenology, it can be seen that in numerous cultures alternative patterns of interpretations of fate coexist ('tool-box constellations'); Different forms of appropriation of experiences of fate are offered and used without reflecting the contradictions of the different approaches.
In monotheistic religions, which postulate an omniscient God, a special problem arises, since omniscience also has to refer to the entire future as foreknowledge, so that this appears to be determined. This creates a conflict with man's freedom to choose between alternatives, as assumed in these religious teachings, and with the principle of personal responsibility. The problem is that everything that is known, from whatever perspective and on what basis, must be truth-fixated and determined.
If religious or philosophical ideas prevail which are incompatible or only partially compatible with the basic assumptions of fatalism, its development and spread is inhibited. This is especially the case when a dominant doctrine emphasizes a person's free will and makes his status after death dependent on his free choices during his life. Such doctrines stand in sharp, fundamental opposition to all fatalistic and deterministic approaches that postulate a fate that cannot be influenced by human activity. To the bearers of religious dogmas, the assumption of a fateful necessity appears to be a threat to the foundations of religion because it relativizes or abolishes human responsibility. From the theological point of view, the danger that the power of fate can appear as an independent authority next to or even above God and thus calls into question his omnipotence is also threatening . A striking example of such a conflict is the struggle of Christian theologians against astrology, which has been going on since ancient times.
The contrast between free will and predestination is possible if the future is only partially or conditionally determined. In contrast to determinism, fatalistic systems can allow a free choice between different options for action if it is assumed that not all processes, but only certain events or results, are predetermined. According to some concepts - for example with oracles and prophecies - the person can decide freely, but the higher power directs the processes in such a way that his decision ultimately leads to the result that it intended for him from the start.
Astrological worldviews are a common form of fatalism. If the world is considered to be comprehensively and uniformly ordered, it is conceivable that analogous rules of earthly processes correspond to the rules of the movements of the stars. In astrology, however, the link between human destinies and the mechanics of heavenly movements is usually not understood as absolute. Rather, it is considered possible to influence one's own future at least to a limited extent through voluntary decisions, for example to take effective precautionary measures after reading a horoscope. Therefore it is mostly not a question of determinism and often not a matter of consistent fatalism. Even in antiquity it was disputed whether the stars only indicate something or whether they themselves have a determining influence.
Logical fatalism
Logical fatalism asserts that, due to logical necessity, nothing can happen other than what actually happens. In principle, this negates the possibility that there can be contingent events - those that do not necessarily have to occur. The debates about this thesis revolve around the question of whether it can be asserted without contradiction that the future is contingent. Contingent future events are referred to using the Latin technical term contingentia futura . The logical fatalism, which excludes contingency, agrees in the end completely with the causal determinism, but gets there in a different way.
The “tomorrow's sea battle” cited by Aristotle is discussed as a classic example . The fatalistic argument is: According to the principle of two-valence (bivalence), every statement must either have the truth value “ true ” or the truth value “false”. According to the principle of contradiction , two contradicting statements cannot be true in the same respect and at the same time. When tomorrow comes to an end, either the phrase “There was a sea battle that day” or the contrary statement “There was no sea battle that day” will have proven true. Since an accurate statement about an event on a particular day is absolutely true, its truth does not depend on its timing. Consequently, the correct assignment of a battle to its actual day is not only correct during and after the battle, but also now and in the past. This means: The statement “Tomorrow a sea battle will take place” has the same truth value today as the sentence pronounced the day after tomorrow “Yesterday there was a sea battle”. So it is already clear today and it has always been clear whether there will be fighting on that day or not. That means: There are not two options, but only the one that actually occurs from the start.
Consequences for everyday life
The colloquial use of the term fatalism focuses less on a conception of the nature of the world and more on the emotional attitude of devotion to fate and its effects on everyday life. The possible emotional and practical consequences of fatalism point in different directions. Belief in fate has a negative effect when the assumed superiority of an unfavorable fate creates a mood of powerlessness, resignation and discouragement, paralyzes energy and leads to lethargy and despair. On the other hand, it can be experienced as a welcome relief that the reduction of one's own responsibility enables a strategy of justification that relieves the conscience. Possible positive consequences of believing in a benevolent, supportive power of fate are confidence, serenity and calmness.
The idea of predestination has serious consequences for the assessment of action that appears unfree in such a worldview. The awareness of one's own powerlessness can lead to “mental quietism ”, that is, to renouncing the justification and moral justification of one's own actions, since from a fatalistic point of view there is no alternative and does not depend on the decisions of the person. Another possible consequence is practical quietism, a passive attitude and general reluctance to face challenges and decision-making situations. You shy away from efforts because you think you can't do anything anyway. Such a mood and attitude also occurs temporarily or permanently in people who do not associate it with a fully formed fatalistic worldview. For example, before an apparently inevitable outbreak of war, one lapses into hopelessness and passivity or comes to terms with ominous “practical constraints”. In everyday language, such an awareness of lack of influence without a corresponding ideological background is also referred to as fatalism. Occasional side issues are pessimism and cynicism . The habitual expectation of disastrous, fatal developments can generate a pessimistic worldview. The distant and mocking assessment of the disaster that is expected to occur is then perceived by the environment as cynicism.
From a practical point of view, critics traditionally object to fatalism that it leads to a passive, resigned attitude that is ethically reprehensible and incompatible with the demands of life. In view of one's own powerlessness, the impulse to make decisions and act disappears. In addition, the fatalistic position is inconsistent with regard to everyday life, because a fatalist also makes decisions instead of leaving everything to fate. As an example of questionable fatalistic inactivity, Cicero cites the train of thought that it is pointless for a sick person to consult a doctor in order to bring about recovery, because it is already clear whether he will get well or not. Since it is impossible to change the predetermined course of the disease, all efforts to cure are superfluous. This consideration is known in the philosophical discussion as a lazy argument , where lazy has the double meaning of not valid and laziness justifying . Another common name is lazy reason (Latin ratio ignava ). From a fatalistic or deterministic point of view, one can counter the criticism of the “lazy” argument that it presupposes that a decision-maker can freely choose between action and inaction. In reality, however, his decision is just as predetermined as the following developments. There is no alternative to human action, but not without consequences.
A special consequence of the belief in predestination is in beliefs that consider human fate in the hereafter to be predestined, the so-called " fear of election ", which arises when the believer doubts that he is one of the chosen according to God's plan and fears of to be rejected in the first place and irrevocably destined for hell . Such fear of hell can have serious effects on general wellbeing.
Another possible consequence of the predestination belief is courage in extraordinary dangers, since the believer is convinced that nothing can happen to him that is not already ordained by Providence. Such an attitude is particularly attributed to Muslims.
Whether a fatalistic or deterministic world interpretation can be compatible with the concept of free will is controversial. The answer to this question depends on the definition of the concept of freedom. In modern philosophical discourse, a distinction is made between compatibilist and incompatibilist positions. Compatibilists define the concept of freedom in such a way that its applicability to a determinate universe is secured, while incompatibilists proceed to the contrary. The conflict between them is not just terminological, but has far-reaching consequences for legal and moral concepts. Incompatibilism tends to be morally critical; it robs the common moral or legal liability by eliminating freedom. Compatibilists try to save conventional legal and moral concepts by introducing a suitable concept of freedom.
This raises the question of whether a compatibilist understanding of freedom is consistent with common language usage. This is the case if it is still possible to attribute human activities individually, i.e. to speak meaningfully of the fact that the person acted and not an external authority that determines fate. The prerequisite for this is that the person is actively involved in the action and has the choice between various alternatives. Compatibilists are faced with the task of upholding the principle of personal imputability under the assumption of predeterminedness. One of their approaches to a solution consists in the introduction of a weak concept of freedom, which does not correspond to the usual linguistic usage, according to which freedom does not require any real unfixed alternatives, but only their consistent thinkability or the theoretical existence of a possibility of choice without ability or opportunity for application.
The practical background to this is the fact that in a world in which everything is fixed, there is basically nothing to influence or change, both with regard to the course of history and in the life of the individual. Therefore, a causal deterministic worldview leads in practice to the same problematic as logical or metaphysical fatalism. When everything that happens is timeless or predetermined, considerations and actions aimed at making a difference are “pointless”. Although they are conceptually and logically possible and play a causal role, they are no longer what they should be according to their conceptual sense. The loss of meaning arises from the fact that it is part of the meaning of practical considerations and actions to be related to a scope of possibilities that offers alternatives.
Manifestations in Antiquity
Old Orient
In ancient oriental cultures, the determination of fates by a divine authority responsible for this was a central component of the interaction between gods and humans. The determination of fate affected entire countries and cities and their rulers as well as every single individual - people, animals and plants. In the Sumerian story Inanna's walk into the underworld, it is reported that the goddess Inanna determined the fate of a fly.
In Sumerian mythology , Nam-tar is a chthonic deity of fate or an underworld demon . The name is identical to the word that means fate or destiny in Sumerian . Therefore, it is sometimes difficult to decide whether to refer to God or the general term for destiny. The name of the deity was adopted in Akkadian as Namtaru . It is probably a personification of the general human "fate", that is, death. Nam-tar was feared as bringing disease. He was entitled lú nam-tar-tar-ra ('the one who determines all fates'). In addition, other deities - especially the sun god - were assigned the power to determine the destinies of humans. The Akkadian term for fate is šīmtu , literally 'that which is fixed'. According to a Babylonian myth , the divine owner of the entire cosmic rulership wears the fate tablets on his chest , which give him the power to determine fate. The power of the ruler god, who determines the fate of other gods and humans, was not, however, regarded as secure. According to the Anzu myth , the tablets could be stolen and then owned by another god, and that resulted in a change of power.
In Mesopotamia , fate was not regarded as irrevocably fixed, but as fundamentally changeable. It was determined by a divine authority, but divine judgments that had already been made could be revised. It was common practice to avert an unfavorable fate announced by omens through ritual acts and prayers. Rituals and prayers at the time of sunrise served the purpose of moving the sun god to a positive determination of fate. Although some texts - such as the Babylonian epic Enūma eliš - asserted that the advice of a deity was irreversible, according to popular belief this did not apply to normal human fates, which were only inevitable if one neglected to magically- to take ritual countermeasures. The option to change fate was offered by the gods themselves. The Mesopotamians did not know of an inexorable power of fate standing above the world of gods.
According to the Hittite beliefs , at the time of birth, people receive their fundamental destiny from the goddesses of birth and the goddesses of fate (Gulšeš) . They then set the date of death by specifying the number of days of life. The idea that the goddesses of fate Ištuštaya and papaya spun his years as a long thread is only attested for the king . Probably this belief was not limited to the ruler; it was assumed that for every human being a thread of life spun by the goddesses .
Egypt
In Egypt, the idea that life should follow an irrevocably fixed path was not widely used. The Egyptians of the Pharaonic times assumed that everyone who was not mentally weak would act as they see fit and be the master of his decisions. Therefore, he is also responsible for their consequences. It is true that man is in the hands of the gods, but that which moves him to act is not an alien will, no external force. The Egyptians did not know of an independent power of fate alongside or above the gods.
However, it was assumed that important aspects such as lifespan, occupation and professional success were determined at birth. As early as the late period of the Old Kingdom in the 3rd millennium BC The fatalistic belief is documented that the gods had already inflicted evil on some people out of hatred in the womb, that is, predetermined future disaster. However, the predestination was not necessarily definitive; a subsequent extension of the lifespan through special divine grace was considered possible.
In popular belief there were the seven hathors, protective goddesses of obstetricians who appear when a child is born and predict the manner in which it would die. There was still room for maneuver; this is what the fairy tale of the enchanted prince from the 13th century BC reads . The prophecy for a prince's son that his death would come either from a crocodile or from a snake or from a dog. It was hoped that decisions made by the fate-determining deity could be changed by magical means. An important aspect was shai (literally 'the determiner'), a term that traditionally stood for life energy and well-being. This gift was given to man at birth. In the late period, Schai was the name with positive connotations of an independently acting, but subordinate destiny to the gods.
In the Hellenistic period and the Roman Empire , the Egyptian goddess Isis was regarded by her admirers as the ultimate fate-determining authority, and her cult was also widely spread outside of Egypt. One ascribed to her the ability to break the compulsion of fate and to avert an actually predetermined misfortune. In her self-revelations, the Isis aretalogies , the goddess proclaimed triumphantly: “I will defeat fate! Fate obeys me! "
Greek and Roman mythology and popular religion
The three goddesses of fate
According to mythical tradition, three goddesses are responsible for the predetermination - primarily for determining the lifespan - who are called Moiren in Greek mythology , or Tria Fata in Roman Parzen . Since Hesiod their threefold is fixed. Their Greek names, which were adopted by the Romans, are Klotho , Lachesis and Atropos . They spin each person's thread of life and determine its length. According to the Greek and Roman folk beliefs, which were expressed in grave inscriptions, the Moiren or Parzen are inexorable. This shows a fully developed fatalism. The ruthlessness and injustice of these deities were lamented, the Farsi were downright hated.
In the Meleagrossage the Moire Atropos announces after the birth of his mother's hero that he will die as soon as an already burning log is consumed by the fire. The mother then extinguishes the log and hides it. But later she burns it herself to take revenge on her now grown-up son for the murder of her brothers, whereupon he dies. The Alcestissage is a special case in which it is possible to escape fate. At the request of the god Apollo, the Moiren agree to spare King Admetus , who is actually about to die, if a substitute is willing to die in his place. Queen Alcestis then declares herself ready to sacrifice her life, but she too can be saved in the end.
Apart from a few exceptions, the Greeks and Romans were convinced that the decisions of the Moiren and Parzen were irrevocable and that even the gods were powerless against them. It was even assumed that divine beings were subject to the command of the three destiners with regard to their functions. For example, the Moiren assigned the lot to the goddess Artemis at her birth to act as midwife for the people. It was generally assumed that definitive determinations were made at birth; In addition, however, there was also - especially in Roman popular belief - the idea that the thread of life was spun during the person's life and that not all events were determined from the start.
In addition to spinning, the Romans also considered writing, the writing of fate-determining decisions, to be an activity of the three Fates. The term Fata Scribunda was used for the personified power of fate active in this function . A variant of this representation tradition lets the Parzen record the oral decisions of Jupiter and thus make them irreversible. According to Roman popular belief, it was not only the Parzen who were responsible for determining fate; other gods, especially Jupiter, possessed and used the power to do so.
In the fine arts, the Moiren / Parzen are sometimes depicted with a spindle and a thread of life. Roman pictorial representations show them with a scroll, the book of fate, in which the predetermined events are recorded.
prophecy
In mythology, the motif of announcing a future disaster by means of an oracle was popular. The person directly affected or their environment receives a warning, but usually unclear prophecy. The knowledge gained in this way, however, does not allow any escape, even if countermeasures are initiated as a defense. Rather, the prophecy is surprisingly fulfilled in a completely unexpected way. In retrospect, this can give the impression of inevitability: the person who took precautionary measures has unsuspectingly brought about what he wanted to prevent. A classic example of this is the Oedipus saga , which dates back to the 5th century BC. Chr. Tragödienstoff was. According to the best-known version, the sequence is as follows: The childless king of Thebes , Laios , proclaims a saying by the famous oracle of Delphi, in the event that he has a son, that the latter will kill him. Therefore Laios abandons his newborn son Oedipus. The abandoned child is saved by a shepherd and grows up in Corinth with foster parents, whom Oedipus considers his birth parents. However, he later learns that his parentage is being disputed and tries to clarify with the oracle. In Delphi , he was prophesied that he would kill his father. Thereupon he does not return to Corinth, but takes the route to Thebes. On the way he meets his unknown father Laios. A tangible argument ensues, which ends with Laios being slain by Oedipus.
Whether the Oedipus saga and its adaptation in the drama is an inevitable fate that has been fixed from the start and thus the expression of a fatalistic worldview is disputed among modern interpreters. In the 19th century, under the influence of Romanticism, the impression prevailed that the legend impressively shows the helplessness of humans in the face of an absolutely superior power of fate. Such a constellation is characteristic of the Greek "fate tragedy". Oedipus had no chance of evading his fate outlined by the oracle. This view is criticized in recent research, but also defended. It contradicts a line of research according to which a modern romantic concept of fate blocks the way to understanding. According to this interpretation, in the archaic and classical epochs of Greek culture, when the Oedipus saga was created and developed, there was still no idea of fate as an independent force in the fatalistic sense to which people are helpless. Rather, this concept only emerged in the age of Hellenism . Accordingly, the killing of the father was not predetermined. Laios could have done without fathering a child. Oedipus could have avoided his act if he had not entered into a confrontation with the stranger. Then the oracle could have been realized in a different way - not literally - because the expression father in the prophecy could, as is usually the case with oracles, be a metaphor and designate something other than the biological father. Thus the future was not yet determined at the time of the proclamation of the oracles.
An example from the 5th century BC shows that the future was not viewed as strictly determined in myth. The historian Herodotus quotes a decision from the Oracle of Delphi, in which predestination is described as inevitable, but flexible. The oracle proclaimed the messenger of the Lydian king Kroisos , who complained about his lot after he was imprisoned during the destruction of his empire: "Even a god cannot escape the assigned fate." After all, the Moirs, like the oracle, had to do so announced that the god Apollon, who had stood up for Kroisos, made a concession: on his intervention, they had decided that the Lydian Empire would not perish until three years later than originally intended by them. So it happened then. Thus the goddesses of fate insisted on the fulfillment of their will, but allowed themselves to be discussed with regard to the timing.
Another episode in the life of Kroisos, which Herodotus has handed down, seems to bear witness to a fatalistic view of the world. A god announced to Kroisos through a dream that his son Atys would die with an iron spearhead. The king then takes precautionary measures and no longer allows Atys to participate in campaigns. However, he allows him to participate in a boar hunt. Atys is accidentally killed by throwing a lance. The thrower is precisely the hunter that Kroisos has placed at his son's side as a protector. Here the god's precise foreknowledge of the type of death points to a determined fate. In research, the question is discussed to what extent can be inferred from this a world order determined by the divine will down to the last detail and what freedom remains for man.
Daimones and Keres
According to Greek popular belief, there is another guiding authority, the personal daimon ("demon") of the person. In the archaic period this expression was used to describe all superhuman powers on which one felt dependent. It was only in the post-Homer era that the daimon, which originally appeared only as an occasional inspirer of human action, developed into a power that influenced the whole of life. Eventually it became an escort demon tied to the individual, who guides fate. This fully developed form of the daimon belief was in the 5th century BC. Common in the Greek-speaking world. The idea of spirit beings who constantly accompany people existed before. According to the belief of the Homeric period, every human being has a female death demon, a Ker , associated with him from birth; she is the executor of the pre-ordained death. Thus in Homer's Iliad the dreaming Achilles appears the soul of his fallen friend Patroclus , who proclaims that he, Patroclus, has devoured his men. With that, the fate overtook him that was destined for him when he was born.
Tyche
Tyche , the personification of the abstract term týchē ('fate', 'chance'), was also a deity of fate. She was considered to be the cause of the events that appear unpredictable and random to the people concerned. Tyche was worshiped and widely regarded as omnipotent from the Hellenistic period. She was valued as the goddess of luck, but feared her moodiness. Tyche largely corresponds to the Roman goddess Fortuna , who also gave luck and was considered unreliable. Fortuna was known for blindly giving or withdrawing her favor, that is, for no apparent reason. Due to their volatility, Tyche / Fortuna differed from the Moiren / Parzen, whose main characteristic was the firmness of the decisions once made.
philosophy
Greek thinkers already dealt with the question of destiny in the early days of philosophical endeavors, the epoch of the pre-Socratics . In the Greek Classical period , which began in the late 5th century B.C. Began, and especially in Hellenism the discussion of this topic deepened. Offensive was the belief in an inexorable fate because of the associated restriction or abolition of free will and responsibility. From an opposing point of view, the fatalists were accused of destroying the foundations of morality and legislation.
Pre-Socratics
Individual pre-Socratics took a critical look at the popular belief in a power that determines fate. In the 5th century BC In BC Heraclitus found : "His own kind (ἦθος ḗthos) is man's daimon." With this he turned against the idea of a personal fate daimon and generally rejected the belief that life is directed by external divine forces. According to Heraclitus, the daimon, the guiding factor, is to be found in man himself; it is to be equated with the “kind” of the person, their ethical quality. Anaxagoras († 428 BC) thought fate (heimarménē) was an empty word.
Gorgias of Leontinoi
Gorgias of Leontinoi , an influential thinker and orator of the 5th century BC. Chr., Dealt in his eulogy for Helena with the question of the cause for the adultery of the mythical Helena . He pointed out that a fatalistic interpretation relieves the unfaithful wife from responsibility for her actions that led to the Trojan War . As far as is known, Gorgias was the first author to deal with this ethical consequence of fatalism.
Plato
In Plato's dialogue, Politeia , which had a strong impact in the early 4th century BC, It describes the interaction between the free decision of individuals and the cosmic order and necessity. The framework for this is provided by a story invented by the author, the myth of the he. This story illustrates philosophical content through mythical clothing. A temporarily apparently deceased warrior named Er reports on the experiences of his soul in the hereafter during the time in which it was outside the body, when he was apparently dead. According to his description, the souls of the dead, when they ascend to heaven, arrive on the way to the “spindle of necessity”, a gigantic instrument that rotates uniformly and thus keeps the rotations of all celestial spheres around the earth, the center of the universe, going. The goddess Ananke , necessity personified, holds the spindle on her lap. With her are her daughters, the three Moiren in white. They sing the event: Lachesis the past, Klotho the present and Atropos the future. Lachesis receives the souls in groups who have ended their stay in the hereafter and have to re-enter earthly bodies as part of the transmigration of souls . For each soul group there is a large number of possible roles - future circumstances and fates - to choose from, and a decision must be made for each soul about which role it will be given as a future life task. Allocation takes place through a process that mixes lottery and autonomous selection. The order in which the souls can choose one for themselves from the limited number of life roles will be raffled off. Whoever receives the best ticket has their turn first and thus has a free choice. Those disadvantaged by the luck of the draw have to make do with the less attractive living conditions, which were spurned by those who chose it first, but they can also make a success out of this if they make an effort. No life is hopeless in the first place. However, some souls make a foolish choice and thereby inflict serious damage on themselves, for example by choosing the disastrous existence of a tyrant out of greed for power and carelessness .
Plato attached great importance to the autonomy of the individual. According to his teaching, everyone chooses his own fate, and the evils that people encounter are the inevitable consequences of their wrong decisions. The cause of wrong decisions is ignorance, but it can be remedied. Thus the divine world control is not to blame for the existing evils. In addition, only the decision about the external living conditions partly depends on the luck of the draw. The personality of the person remains despite the influence of external circumstances in the area of responsibility of the soul, which is responsible for it. Once you have made a choice of a lifeless thing, it does have effects that follow an inescapable necessity, but this does not preclude your freedom to take another path in the future.
Aristotle
Aristotle and the philosophers who followed his direction, the Peripatetics , rejected fatalism. Their concern was the defense of free will and thus morality. The opposite position Aristotle grappled with was logical fatalism, for which the possible inevitably coincides with the actual. To refute this equation, he presented a concept in his work Peri hermeneias with which he wanted to save the logical possibility of events that did not occur and thus the openness of the future. How his argumentation is to be understood is controversial in research. According to the modern standard interpretation, Aristotle meant that it is not already determined in the present, but will only be determined in the future, which of two contradicting future-related statements is true and which is false. Although future events correspond to statements with a certain truth value, it has not yet been determined which it is. The standard interpretation is controversial, however.
Megarics
In the late 4th and early 3rd centuries BC The philosopher Diodoros Kronos , who belonged to the direction of the Megarics , lived. The Megarics taught that only the real was possible, that is, that nothing could happen other than what actually happens. To prove this thesis, Diodorus formulated an argument that is known as the “master argument” or “master conclusion” (kyrieúōn lógos) and has met with a strong response up to the present day. Presumably Diodorus was reacting to Aristotle's theory of possibility, according to which events that do not actually occur are possible. With his argument, Diodoros probably wanted to show that the Aristotelian concept of possibility contradicts the principles of Aristotle's own modal logic . However, this thrust has not been proven.
The premises of the master's argument are known, but its wording has not been passed down. Therefore the reconstruction of the train of thought is fraught with uncertainty. According to tradition, Diodorus claimed that the two statements “Everything that is true in the past is necessary” and “From the possible does not follow the impossible” when combined with the statement “There is something possible that is neither true nor will it be true “Are incompatible. If, like Aristotle and Diodorus, one holds the first two sentences to be true, then, according to the master's argument, one has to abandon the third. This means that there cannot be any possibilities that cannot be realized. The possible is then to be defined as that which either already is real or will really be in the future. What never really happens is impossible. The master argument equates reality with logical correctness. Although it is logically correct, it is only conclusive on the basis of the modal logical semantics of Diodoros Kronos.
According to the understanding of ancient posterity, the logical fatalism results from the master argument as a consequence if one accepts the premises of the argument and considers the conclusion to be conclusive. The formal correctness of the conclusion was evidently not contested by the ancient philosophers. The opponents also admitted the incompatibility of the three sentences, they only denied that all three were valid. However, it is unclear whether Diodoros actually intended to derive a harsh fatalism from the master argument. It is possible that only his students drew this conclusion.
Another argument of the megarics for their theory of possibility is: "If you will mow the grain, you will not perhaps mow it and maybe not, but you will mow it in any case." The "grain mowing argument" is only handed down in late ancient sources.
Stoa
The Stoa , one of the most important philosophical directions of antiquity, made religious fatalism a core part of its teaching. Her concept of fate was embedded in her cosmology . The Stoics believed that all natural occurrences, and especially human life, were subject to a providential destiny. They understood the determining authority as a divine but impersonal power and called it - taking up an expression already used by Heraclitus - poor people . This term acquired a central meaning in the Stoa and became the subject of extensive controversial literature. The Stoics did not perceive the unchangeable reality of the home poor as a regrettable surrender. Rather, they demanded a voluntary, conscious affirmation of what they consider to be a reasonable world order which imposes their fate on man. This decision is left to everyone. According to the Stoic doctrine, the wise as the ideal person is the one who brings his will into complete agreement with the rule of fate and therefore only wants what is reasonable. The emphasis on Divine Providence should not negate the responsibility of the individual for his or her well-being, because depending on whether a person chooses wisdom or not, his life succeeds or fails. The moral attitude that is derived from the natural-philosophical findings of the Stoa is by no means resigned, but rather active and geared towards mastering life.
There was a tension between the principle of a comprehensive, strict and naturally necessary predetermination and the requirement that one should decide in favor of virtuous action through an autonomous act of will , which formed a starting point for criticism. This posed a difficult challenge for the stoic thinkers, as they wanted to stick to their Heimarmene concept without completely erasing the independence of the individual. In trying to reconcile their natural philosophy and ethics, they had to deal with the accusation of inconsistency raised by their opponents.
Chrysippus von Soloi , a prominent spokesman for the Stoa, defended himself against such criticism . He was a fatalist, but he took a mediating position by giving the human will a real choice. His solution to the conflict between necessity and individual autonomy consisted in accepting a special area of free decision-making as “that which depends on us” and asserting that this area was withdrawn from the general inevitability of natural processes. For this purpose, Chrysippus distinguished between different types of causes: In his system, the "completed" causes are opposed to the "contributing" ones, the "initial" the "last", that is, the initiating ones. According to another translation, it is a contrast between "perfect main causes" and "auxiliary causes". Chrysippus assigned compelling power only to the accomplished and initial causes - the disposition of a person or the nature of an object. On the other hand, the stimuli of the outside world and of his own instincts acting on the human being are seen in this model as only contributing and triggering causes. They are set by the Heimarmene, but not mandatory. Hence, the individual has the power to “approve” or refuse an option. It makes the decision according to its individual nature, i.e. autonomously. With that the responsibility is saved.
The assumption of such a “soft” determination creates a dilemma, the explosiveness of which Chrysippus may not have recognized: If the individual nature, the character of the person, determines their decisions, the question arises as to how this nature is determined. When it depends on external factors, it is completely subject to the coercion of the home poor, and moral responsibility turns out to be an illusion. However, if one denies or limits dependence on the outside world in order to save autonomy and responsibility, there is a risk of a circular argument . Then it must be assumed that the person himself influences his character through his convictions, decisions and actions and is in this respect its cause. However, reasoning requires that individual nature is the cause of beliefs, decisions and actions.
Chrysippus rejected logical fatalism, the understanding of which is incompatible with a “soft” determination. He tried to refute the master argument of Diodoros Kronos by denying the validity of his second premise, and developed an alternative modal logic. Opponents later objected that his understanding of fate contradicted his modal logic, because this allows contingent (unnecessary) events that exclude the concept of fate; thus his system actually does not allow anything that his modal logic is supposed to allow.
In the 1st century BC The stoic Poseidonios spread the "celestial fatalism", the doctrine that everything that happens is subject to the influence of the celestial bodies. The basis for this was the idea of a world order that creates a universal connection between cosmic processes and individual fates. This concept formed the philosophical basis of astrological fatalism.
A combination of fatalism and praise for action shaped the thoughts of the Roman stoic Seneca , who started from the inexorable necessity of the predetermined and at the same time saw life as a struggle with the adversities imposed by Fortuna. In Seneca's view of the world, Fortuna stands for the accidental, sudden and confusing that seem pointless to those affected; fate is the opposite of that; it is the necessity of fate, predetermined by the godhead, with which one should agree. Freedom exists only with regard to the choice of whether or not to agree to the course of fate; this does not change anything in the process. Seneca emphasized that one should not come to terms with fate, but willingly consent. He summarized this attitude succinctly with a verse by the Greek stoic Kleanthes , which he translated into Latin: "Fate leads the willing, draws the unwilling."
The stoically minded Roman Emperor Mark Aurel emphasized the demand to love fate. With him the Heimarmene appears in a positive light, only rarely is there talk of enduring and suffering. Love for fate expresses itself as cooperation in an event that is not only immutable, but also good. Fate deserves joyful and grateful approval.
Hellenistic, Imperial and Late Antique Platonism
In the age of Hellenism , the “academics”, the skeptical Platonists of the “ Younger Academy ”, tried to refute fatalism. The main work was done by Carneades of Cyrene , who lived in the 2nd century BC. Chr. Long as Scholarch directed the academy. He presented arguments that from then on shaped the entire philosophical fatalism discourse of antiquity. A considerable part of his comments were directed against the foundations and methods of astrology, another denounced the consequences of fatalism for morality and lifestyle. An important target was the stoic doctrine of Providence and the home poor developed by Chrysippos. The mastermind of the Stoa had tried to partially strip the causality brought about by the power of fate of its coercive character in order to save freedom of choice. Karneades rejected this approach as inconsistent.
Even in Middle Platonism , which began in the 1st century BC. The rejection of fatalism was unanimous in Neoplatonism , which determined the philosophical discourse of late antiquity. Middle and Neoplatonists rejected the fatalistic view that imperative necessity or Divine Providence is the cause of evils in human life. They did not see fate as a power that determines all processes and conditions from the outset, but only the cosmic law that connects all actions with their consequences and assigns to everyone what is due to him based on his decisions and actions. According to this understanding, the Heimarmene only determines the regularity of the possible courses of action, but not the human decisions for or against individual actions. The immortal soul of the human being is an autonomous entity which, due to its nature, can initiate spontaneous acts independently of external factors that determine fate.
The Neo-Platonist Proclus wrote a detailed description and justification of the traditional Platonic position in the 5th century . His starting point is the idea that fate links causes and consequences. Only what is spatially and temporally separated can be linked, that is, the physical, because only the physical is subject to the conditions of space and time. In contrast to the immaterial soul, which moves itself, the material is that which is moved by others. Thus what is ruled by fate must be moved and physical by others. So fate is limited to the realm of nature, material conditions. It takes place where there is growth and decay. It therefore has no influence on what stands above space and time. This is the intelligible sphere, the realm of the only spiritually comprehensible Platonic ideas . The immortal soul is at home in this timeless reality. It follows that man is subject to fate only with regard to his body. Through his spiritual activity he can rise to the realm that is above fate. But he also has the possibility of falling for the body and the affects and thus surrendering himself to fate through an act of will.
In the 6th century Boethius built fate into his philosophical worldview, in which he combined Platonic and Christian ideas. In his main work, The Consolation of Philosophy , the impermanence of the goddess of luck and fate Fortuna is one of the core themes. In order to clarify the question of human destinies, predetermination and free will, the personified philosophy explains the terms providence and fate in dialogue with the author. It defines providence as the divine reason that orders everything, and fate as the systematic structure inherent in movable things, through which providence properly binds everything together. The order of fate (ordo fatalis) arises from the simplicity of providence. Everything that is subject to fate is also subject to providence, but some that is subordinate to providence surpasses the order of fate. That is what is close and constant to the deity and thus goes beyond the mobility of the fate order. Fate is the authority from which the areas that are relatively remote from God are directed; the closer man strives to God, the freer he becomes from fate, and if he succeeds in anchoring himself in the firmness of the divine spirit, he is no longer subject to the compulsion of fate. Everything that happens is brought about by causal links. So there is no such thing as a coincidence. In the dialogue Boethius describes in detail the fatalistic position according to which divine foreknowledge destroys human freedom of will and responsibility. Philosophy responds to this with a thorough refutation. According to her, the future is only necessary when it is related to divine knowledge, but not when it is weighed according to its own nature. For God it is not about the foreknowledge of a future, but about the knowledge of a never-failing present (instantia) . God's eternity includes all time as the present and his knowledge of all events as present. What is given simultaneously in providence unfolds in time as destiny. The presence of the totality of events with God does not emerge from the store of the future, but from the simplicity of God's own nature. What is known is not known from an inherent force and nature, but according to the ability of the knower. Just as human contemplation of an event makes it unnecessary, God's knowledge does not make what he knows necessary. What remains unanswered in these explanations, however, is the question of how one has to imagine the compatibility of predestination and free will in a causal context.
Epicureans and Cynics
Epicurus and the Epicureans defended free will, which they emphasized, and fought fatalism. While Epicurus firmly rejected the idea of an interaction between gods and humans, he found the stoic concept of fate even worse. He therefore expressed the opinion that it was better to adhere to the myths of the gods than to surrender to the homeland poor, because popular belief at least offers the prospect of appealing to the gods, while in fatalism there is an inexorable necessity. Epicurus tried to rebut Diodoros Kronos' “master argument” by denying the general validity of the principle of duality. The imperial Epicureans Diogenes von Oinoanda and Diogenianos continued the anti-fatalistic polemics.
The Cynics also rejected fatalism. They viewed man as the master of his fate and denied that he was subject to any metaphysical power. In doing so, Oinomaos of Gadara emerged - probably in the 2nd century - who defended free will and tried to refute the fatalistic model of the Stoa in his exposure to swindlers . He mocked Chrysippus' moderate fatalism by remarking that this stoic had made man “half-slaves”.
Cicero
Cicero was heavily influenced by the ideas of the anti-fatalistic junior academy. In its partially lost, in 44 BC. Chr. Written signature of the fate he tried to refute the stoic fatalism. He presented and discussed the relevant arguments of the Hellenistic schools of philosophy. His treatise is the most detailed account known today of the discussion of fatigue in the epoch of Hellenism. Cicero's argument is ultimately based on that of Carnead. In man's ability to combat innate weaknesses and faults, Cicero saw conclusive evidence of the more or less non-natural character of the will, that is, of its independence from the compulsion of the external determining factors that otherwise prevail everywhere in the cosmos. He countered logical fatalism with the idea that only the truth or falsity of a sentence is determined, but not the facticity of an event. Logic only classifies things and does not say anything about the necessary occurrence or non-occurrence of events.
Alexander of Aphrodisias
Alexander von Aphrodisias , the most well-known peripatetic of the Roman Empire, wrote a treatise on fate , in which he polemicized in detail against Stoic fatalism. He admitted that a fateful causality exerts a determining influence on physical processes, but he denied that the natural power of fate postulated by the Stoics, the home poor, compulsorily determine all events. Rather, the Heimarmene is only one cause among others and not always the decisive factor. It is deprived of free human decisions. Anyone who, like the fatalists, does not recognize this is canceling what constitutes the peculiarity of human nature. According to the traditional position of the Peripatetic school, Alexander rejected the idea of comprehensive Providence.
astrology
In the age of Hellenism the stoic thought of fate was combined with the astrological speculation that flourished in the Seleucid Empire and permeated popular belief in the Middle East. The stoic doctrine provided the basis for a theory of astrological fatalism. This spread from the Orient into the Latin-speaking west of the Roman Empire. The popular oriental mystery cults in particular took up the fatalistic ideas of astrology and gave it a significant broad impact.
Astrologers of the Roman Empire grappled with the question of the extent to which events are determined by the power of fate and man is thus at the mercy of doom. Opinions differed on this. The astrologer Vettius Valens , who was active in the 2nd century, committed himself to a comprehensive predestination that also included the gods. He emphatically affirmed the dependence on celestial influences and praised the fatalism associated with joyful approval of the inevitable, which helps to bring about a serene calm. He called the insightful people "soldiers of the Heimarmene". His famous contemporary Ptolemy made a distinction between an absolutely compelling divine home poor and a physical one who does not exercise total domination. The divine organizes cosmic events, the physical directs human life.
With the philosophers - with the exception of the Stoics - astrological fatalism met with sharp opposition, and its ethical consequences appeared to them to be unacceptable. The struggle against this variant of the predestination belief initiated by Karneades was continued in an extensive literature that is now partly lost. Among the authors who engaged in this field were Philo of Alexandria , Favorinus , Sextus Empiricus and Plotinus .
Literary arrangements
Greek literature
In Homeric poetry, the moira appears - usually in the singular - as an indefinite power of fate against which even the gods can do nothing. However, there is no delimitation of responsibilities and no clarification of the power relations between Moira and the world leader Zeus ; Different points of view are asserted on this, the information about the relationship between the two bodies is contradictory. In the Iliad , the goddess Hera remarks in a meeting of the gods that her protégé Achilles will suffer "everything that fate has spun him with the yarn at his birth". Likewise, the Trojan queen Hekabe attributes the death of her fallen son to the web of fate that was spun at his birth. The hero Hector admits to a distinctly fatalistic attitude from which one can draw consolation. Before he goes into battle, he assures his worried wife: “Against fate, nobody will send me down to Hades. But none of the mortals, noble or low, probably never escaped doom after being begotten. "
In his theogony, Hesiod made the Moiren daughters of the world ruler Zeus, to whom he clearly subordinated them. He described them as the donors of happiness and unhappiness, but also stated that it was Zeus who had bestowed upon them the highest position of honor.
In famous tragedies of the Greek classical period, the tension between the fate brought about by the world of gods and human will is a central element. In Aeschylus , these two factors form a dense, inseparable fabric. In the modern interpretations of Aeschylus, when analyzing decision-making situations, the importance of the personal, responsible decision and the compulsion of an inevitable fate are placed in the foreground. Fateful necessity places narrow limits on free choice. The distinction between fateful coercion and personal choice is not always easy. There are hopeless situations in which every path leads to disaster. With Sophocles , too , the tension between divine control and free action emerges impressively, with the divine rule appearing as impenetrable; From the point of view of the poet, man has to accept the incomprehensible fate that is imposed on him with faith. In the Sophoclean tragedy, the divine destiny creates situations in which the richness and depth of the human soul become visible.
In the tragedy The Fettered Prometheus , which is traditionally - possibly wrongly - attributed to Aeschylus, the question arises whether even Zeus, the father of the gods, is subject to the violence of the Moiren. The rebellious Titan Prometheus is convinced that even Zeus cannot escape the lot that the Moiren have assigned him. In relation to them, Zeus is "the weaker".
A consistently fatalistic position in Sophocles' tragedy Antigone is taken by the choir , which declares it pointless to ask for a fate, because no one can escape the fate that has been predetermined for them. The tragedy writer Euripides had Oedipus exclaim in his drama Die Phoinikierinnen : “O Moire, how you made me unhappy from the beginning of my life!” Euripides himself was hardly fatalistic.
In the “ New Comedy ” of the Hellenistic period, an extremely fatalistic worldview asserted itself, which corresponded to the zeitgeist of the time. In the pieces shaped by such ideas, the capricious Tyche as goddess and ruler has the widest scope, human considerations cannot oppose her power. In particular, the well-known comedy poet Menander paid homage to this view. With him the Tyche is blind, unaffected, unpredictable and incomprehensible. She acts recklessly and without reason. Tyche was viewed in a similar way by the Athenian popular speakers, whose belief in fate mirrored that of their audience.
In the 2nd century, the satirist Lukian of Samosata mocked belief in fate. In his funeral talks , the mythical underworld judge Minos acquits a mugger who has asserted that he did not act on his own authority, but only carried out a decision by Moire Klotho. Lukians Dialogue The transferred Zeus targets the Heimarmene. In this dialogue, Zeus, the father of the gods, is cornered by a Cynical mocker. He admits that the gods are subordinate to the Moirs. Thus everything is predetermined, and Zeus cannot avoid the conclusion that sacrifice and supplication are pointless, since they cannot achieve anything. Moreover, the gods deserve no veneration, since they are only servants of the Moiren.
The worldview of the imperial Greek fiction is determined by a consistent fatalism. Here people are not responsible for their deeds - even for crimes - the gods and demons and above all the god of fate Tyche are responsible. In the romance novel Leukippe und Kleitophon , Achilles Tatios describes the adventures of a pair of lovers whose steadfastness has to prove itself in the tough "school of the Tyche".
Roman literature
In the 1st century BC The Epicurean poet Lucretius took a beating on the belief in fate, referring to what he believed to be an evident autonomy of the will.
In a poem by Catullus , the song of the Parzen is reproduced, predicting the birth and deeds of the hero Achilles and singing the thread of his life.
For the Roman poets of the Augustan period , predestination was an established fact. Fate plays a central role in Virgil's epic Aeneid , where it takes place according to Jupiter's will; the goal of history, through all the entanglements since the fall of Troy, is the establishment of the Roman Empire, which was always providential. The famous prophecy of a new golden age in Virgil's fourth eclogue is presented as the saying of the Parzen. Horace placed the power of fate above Jupiter, the "father of humanity", by reminding the divine world ruler that fate had entrusted him with the welfare of the reigning emperor Augustus . Tibullus stated that no god could tear the threads of the Parces. Also Ovid took up the subject of the immutability of the predestined. According to his description, the goddess Venus tried in vain to prevent the impending murder of Caesar . Jupiter explained to her that fate was insurmountable, the unalterable saying of the Parzen was recorded in the world archive on huge boards "safe and eternal".
The poet and astrologer Manilius , who wrote the didactic poem Astronomica in the early 1st century , represented a consistent fatalism on the basis of his stoic worldview. He formulated the principle “The stars rule the world”. In dealing with the Epicurean concept of freedom, Manilius propagated the opposite: redemption from worries through recognition of the omnipotence of fate.
In the 1st century, the epic poet Silius Italicus saw Jupiter as the guide of destiny, but at one point in his epic Punica the Parzen was granted superior authority: in a conversation with her husband Jupiter, the goddess Juno stated that she was attached to the threads that the Parzen spin , bends, although she would like a different outcome of the Second Punic War .
The poet Statius , a contemporary of Silius Italicus, was a rigorous fatalist. In his Thebais , an epic that had a strong impact in antiquity and the Middle Ages, fate and gods are neither benevolent nor just and reasonable. Rather, they control the processes arbitrarily, and the fate appears to be malicious. People are at the mercy of the higher powers and act as their tools. However, Statius believed that it was possible to influence the Fates and thereby extend the life of mortals beyond the predetermined range.
In the novel Metamorphoses of Apuleius , the hero suffers severe blows of fate, but is finally freed from his misery by the grace of the almighty goddess Isis . Isis stands above the power of fate and can avert the misfortune that has been inflicted on a person. In particular, it has the power to postpone death regardless of predestination. She unties the strings of fate again. With this glorifying portrayal of the goddess' reign, Apuleius took up an idea in the 2nd century that had been widespread among the worshipers of Isis since the Hellenistic period and gave her an impressive literary figure.
Even in late antiquity, the Parzen power provided material for poetic design in the long- Christianized Western Roman Empire . When the statesman and general Stilicho managed to take over the consulate for the year 400, the panegyric Claudian wrote three poems to glorify the successful politician who was his patron. In the second poem, the goddess Roma gives Stilicho a toga that she has woven together with Minerva and on which scenes from his life are embroidered with gold thread. It is the thread with which the Parze Lachesis has spun the impending Golden Age, which, thanks to Stilicho's deeds, is about to begin.
Religious Teachings in the Roman Empire
Christian theology of the large church
The major Christian Church vehemently denied that humans were exposed to an inevitable fate for which they were not responsible. Ecclesiastical authors of the patristic era were of the opinion that the term Heimarmene / Fatum had no correlation in reality, it only expressed a superstition. Fate of the Church was suspicious of this fate, especially because of its common connection with astrology, because human dependence on the stars was incompatible with their worldview.
Justin the Martyr , a 2nd century apologist , opened the fight against belief in fate. The most famous pioneer of Christian criticism of fatalism was the church writer Origen . The late antique church father John Chrysostom taught that everyone who pays attention to the Heimarmene is safe in hell. With the rejection of stoic fatalism and causal determinism, theologians turned against concepts that competed with their doctrine of unrestricted world control by the biblical God. In doing so, they used the arguments that they could find in the anti-fatalistic literature of the Peripatetics and Platonists. The focus was on moral argumentation.
On the one hand, from the theological point of view, freedom of will had to be saved, on the other hand, the Church Fathers strictly adhered to the principle of God's foreknowledge, which amounted to the assumption of an already determined future. The late antique church father Hieronymus even made the conviction of the logical fatalists his own that there are no future possibilities that remain unrealized forever.
The church father Augustine believed that the expression fatum actually does not belong in the vocabulary of Christians. For him, the Word was weighed down by the idea of a blind fate independent of God's will. However, like all ancient theologians, he believed that the course of history was predetermined and guided by the will of God and that God also constantly intervened in human destinies. From this perspective, from the point of view of the church father, fate could be interpreted as an expression of divine providence. What was meant then was the “saying of God” in the sense of the etymological derivation of fari (“to speak”). From this point of view, Augustine found the word acceptable.
Notwithstanding his rejection of pagan fatalism, Augustine himself introduced a fatalistic element into his theology by teaching that God predestined a few people to eternal salvation and the vast majority to eternal death. This will of God is irresistible and the human will is irrelevant.
Gnosis, Christian popular belief and special groups in Christianity
The ancient Gnostics attributed the manifold evils to which human existence is exposed to the work of the " archons ", malevolent forces that ruled the universe and would have enslaved people. In sharp contrast to the prevailing philosophical and religious doctrines, which proceeded from benevolent world governance and a meaningful world order, the Gnostics considered the authority in power - the creator or rulers of the world - to be demonic and tyrannical and the cosmos to be a prison. According to their teachings, the imprisoned man on earth is physically enslaved by the law of nature, psychologically by religious regulations. Under Heimarmene or Fatum the Gnostics understood the despotic world domination of the archons to which the prisoners were delivered. But they did not regard this fate as inevitable in the fatalistic sense. According to the Gnostic interpretation of the world, earthly misery is the result of a free decision by those who have voluntarily gone into the material world and have since been subject to the home poor. However, this fatal step can be reversed. One can free oneself from the slavery of the home poor if one acquires the Gnostic knowledge of salvation. Then it is possible to break out of prison and find the way to a realm of freedom beyond. There the fate that determines earthly conditions and destinies has no validity.
Many ancient Christians accepted the idea of a disastrous power of fate, but considered themselves to be members of an elite that was not subject to fate even while on earth. Thanks to their orthodoxy, they believed that they were above the compulsion of fate that dominated the existence of the “ Gentiles ”, since Christ had redeemed them from it. Such ideas were widespread among Christian Gnostics and in other “ heretical ” groups, and in the 2nd century they also found widespread acceptance within the main church. A well-known follower of this belief was Tatian . Theodotus of Byzantium vigorously propagated the concept of a home poor ruling only over the unbelievers, astrologically comprehensible, whose power was broken by baptism.
According to the teaching of the non-church Christian philosopher Bardesanes, there are three determining factors: nature, fate ( Syrian helqā ) and free will, which makes ethical decisions. The power of fate determines external goods and evils such as health and disease, wealth and poverty. Fate is actually an institution of the Creator, but it is partly directed in harmful ways by the spirits who administer it on his behalf.
Pagan doctrines of salvation
In the popular beliefs of the imperial and late ancient times, the view was widespread that the power of destiny ruled tyrannically and that it was important for people to escape from it. Religious ways of redemption were offered for this. Their heralds presented their own community as an elite, which could rise above the compulsion of fate, while the masses remained at the mercy of the home poor. Such ideas found resonance especially among the followers of the Isis cult . The Chaldean oracles , a popular religious didactic poem - or a collection of poems - from the imperial era, spread such ideas. The author of this work, which has only survived in fragments, assessed the Heimarmene negatively and advised not to turn to her, but to emancipate oneself from her. This is the direction in which his advice “do not look at nature, its name is fate” and “do not add anything to fate”. As a means of liberation from the compulsion of fate, he recommended theurgy , the cooperation with helpful divine beings to whom one could turn. Whoever devotes himself to theurgy does not return to the crowd of those who are subject to fate.
There were also magicians who claimed to be able to use magic to break the power of the home poor. They found considerable support.
In an Orphic hymn , the unknown author addresses the “inexplicable Moiren”, whom he addresses as “dear children of the dark night”, and praises them for the fact that they “relieve mortals of necessity”. Here the women of fate appear as benevolent goddesses who are accessible to the requests of their admirers.
Teutons, Celts, Etruscans
It is unclear to what extent the ancient Germanic peoples believed in an unfathomable and inexorable fate. Older research saw such a fatalism as a special feature of the old Germanic interpretation of the world. More recently, however, there have been strong doubts that the notion of an impersonal authority over the gods that directs fate, as attested in medieval sources, has Germanic roots. Reference is made to the influence of ancient and Christian ideas on the sources reporting on it.
Among the Celts in the Roman Empire there was a cult of native maternal goddesses, both in the Belgian territory and in Britain , who were regarded as determiners of fate and equated with the Roman Fates. This is shown by inscriptions and plastic representations of the deity with a spinning device or a scroll.
The Etruscans worshiped Nortia , the goddess of fate . They wanted to read the future fate from omens, mainly from lightning and from the bowels of the sacrificed animals , especially the liver. Divination played a central role in the Etruscan religion . In the older research it was assumed that there was a severe fatalism which produced constant fear and a gloomy attitude towards life. According to more recent findings, however, this assessment should be revised, because humans were not considered powerless and at the mercy. The Etruscans believed that they could influence the predetermined and foreseen and avert threatening evils by changing the minds of the divine authors of the impending events. It was also considered possible to postpone the fulfillment of a divine fate. In addition, the Etruscans considered fate to be transferable: Anyone who had recognized on the basis of divination that a disaster was imminent could distract it onto another person. Likewise, one could attract a favorable fate destined for another. This could also be done at the level of the peoples.
Persian
The Persian Zoroastrianism shows in the time of Sasanidenreichs a fatalistic character. In Middle Persian literature, the fate assigned to a person is denoted by the word baxt , the basic meaning of which is a predetermined share , but which can also denote the power that is assigned. The fixed star sky is the "master of the allocation". This is part of the good creation and can therefore only do people good. Whether someone leads a relatively happy or unhappy life depends on how much good has been assigned to them from heaven through the signs of the zodiac . The evil comes from the planets that steal the good. They disturb the action of the fixed star sky and prevent a fair allocation. According to another version, the distribution of the good through the zodiac is to be compared with the activity of a farmer who, while sowing, does not pay attention to the point at which a seed falls. Accordingly, the allocation is random, it does not depend on the virtue or worthiness of the individual.
It is not clear from the sources whether the allocation was made at the beginning of the creation of the world or not until a person is born. In any case, baxt is a share, fixed in advance for each person, in the goods family, property, authority and life that are considered valuable. There is also another portion called bayō.baxt . Man receives it only in the course of his life according to his dignity and his merits. With diligence one cannot increase the portion that has been assigned to one by the fixed star sky, but one can acquire it more quickly.
According to an older research opinion , Zurvanism , a religious tendency within or alongside Zoroastrianism, was the home of a particularly powerful form of Persian fatalism. The deity Zurvan , a personification of unlimited time, was the lord of fate who assigned the hour of death to every person. In the more recent specialist literature, however, a special connection between Zurvan and the determination of fate is denied.
Arabs
Pre-Islamic Arab culture was permeated with a distinctly fatalistic thought that found expression in poetry. Death, in particular, as the inevitable destiny of all people, was expected in a fatalistic attitude. There was a belief that the date of death was predetermined. In complaining about the loss of a relative or friend, in the introductory verses (Nasib) of Qasidah -Poems where the destructive effect of time was discussed, and the driving -Versen, praised the steadfastness and defiance of death, was the undoing of the question. Expressions for time were often given the meaning of fate . The famous poet Labīd wrote that the soul is bound by its inevitable fate (ḥimām) . As ḥimām death was often referred to on the battlefield.
Fate was also thought of as a divine being. The goddess Manat was revered as the personified fate and assigned a pair of scissors with which she cut the thread of life.
Medieval conceptions
Theological and Philosophical Debates
Medieval scholars' grappling with the ancient discourse, which they were only partially aware of, turned out to be mixed. You were in a dilemma. On the one hand, the stoic fatalism was condemned from theological point of view as contrary to faith, based on the relevant polemics of the church fathers; the threatened freedom of will had to be preserved. On the other hand, the faith in divine providence and in biblical prophecies, prescribed by the church, led to the formation of more or less fatalistic doctrines of predestination. Added to this was the ongoing challenge posed by the problem of logical fatalism.
Western and Central Europe
In the Latin-speaking world of scholars of Western and Central Europe, the discussion of logical fatalism initiated by Aristotle received a lot of attention. This theme overlapped with that of theological fatalism. The Aristotelian model of an open future had advantages from a Christian point of view, since it ensured free will. On the other hand, however, the medieval thinkers had to take into account the theological consequences that arose with regard to biblical prophecies and divine omniscience if the future was understood as indefinite in the sense of the Aristotelian doctrine. Boethius' comments on Aristotle's Peri hermeneias , in which the concept of God's eternity serves as the basis for a solution, seemed to offer a way out . Boethius' approach could be used for both fatalistic and non-fatalistic models. His understanding of the relationship between providence and fate formed the starting point for common medieval interpretations, including for Thomism, which was extraordinarily influential in the late Middle Ages .
In the 9th century Gottschalk von Orbais put forward a decidedly fatalistic concept. According to his doctrine of the double predestination , not only is eternal salvation predetermined for the elect of God, but also eternal punishment in hell for the rejected. Church theology taught that the omniscient God knew in advance that the future inhabitants of hell would make a culpable decision for evil, but Gottschalk went far beyond this assumption. He claimed that it was an inevitable predestination for damnation, an outcome that God had wanted from the beginning. Because of this divine decision, those affected by it have no prospect of salvation from the outset. This doctrine was attacked by Gottschalk's opponents as a denial of free will and condemned by the church.
Gottschalk's contemporary Eriugena formulated a radically anti-fatalist position . According to his teaching, the future does not yet exist in the present. Hence, it is impossible for God to anticipate future events on the path of foreknowledge or predetermination. So there is no predestination, the future is open. Contrary statements in the Bible are not to be taken literally.
In the 1180s, Bishop Bartholomew of Exeter (Bartholomaeus Exoniensis) completed a pamphlet against fatalism. His treatise is known today under the modern title Contra fatalitatis errorem .
High and late medieval theologians and philosophers who dealt with logical fatalism include Anselm von Canterbury , Petrus Abelardus , Petrus Lombardus , Robert Grosseteste , Thomas von Aquin , Johannes Duns Scotus , Wilhelm von Ockham , Thomas Bradwardine and Petrus von Ailly . The vast majority of models adhered to the unrestricted validity of the principle of two-valence. The first to choose a different path was Petrus Aureoli , who proposed in the early 14th century to abandon the principle that the duality principle must also apply to all past and present statements about the future. This position was theologically offensive and therefore remained a minority opinion.
According to the argumentation of the well-known scholastic Abelard (Petrus Abelardus, † 1142), God's omniscience, which includes foreknowledge, results in the occurrence of the facts about which God knows. Thus the possible coincides with the factual. Accordingly, Abelard taught that the salvation of every person depends on whether or not he is predestined by God for the attainment of grace. Abelard even thought that the creation of the world was determined; it was not possible for God not to create them.
In the 15th century a conflict broke out about the openness of the future, the "Löwener Streit". The Franciscan Petrus de Rivo, who taught at the University of Leuven , advocated the uncertainty of the future. His concern was the fight against fatalistic versions of the doctrine of predestination, as they had propagated the reform theologians John Wyclif and Jan Hus . The consistent fatalism of these thinkers had already been condemned at the Council of Constance in 1415 , but the extreme opposing position taken by Petrus de Rivo also met with opposition in important church circles. His teaching found some approval among university theologians, but was finally condemned in 1474 by Pope Sixtus IV as contrary to faith.
Byzantium
The Byzantine theologians often discussed the question of whether the time of death is irrevocably predetermined by God or whether man can influence his own lifespan through his actions. In terms of immutability, it was argued that God's comprehensive provision must include the hour of death. On the other hand, it was argued that human behavior cannot be without affecting the length of his life. The anti-fatalist position prevailed.
Most middle and late Byzantine authors affirmed the indeterminacy of the future, also from God's perspective. In doing so, they turned against predestination. The rejection of theological fatalism became a distinguishing feature of orthodox theology from Islam and played a role in the anti-Islamic polemics of the Byzantines.
In the 11th century, the Byzantine scholar and philosopher Michael Psellos commented on the Heimarmene. In his commentary on the Chaldean oracles , he made a distinction between fate and providence. Providence is the direct expression of God's benevolence, whereas fate is the power that determines living conditions with its decrees. Whoever acts from a spiritual point of view submits himself to Providence and thus stands above fate; Insofar as one orientates oneself on the physical one is subject to the home poor.
The late medieval philosopher Georgios Gemistos Plethon († 1452) was a consistent fatalist. He considered all processes to be strictly determined. According to his teaching, the divine world ruler has “predetermined and established the future from eternity”. It is impossible to change his mind because he always only wants the best possible. If, at the request of people, he repealed a decision that was already aimed at the best, he would prefer something worse to good, which is absurd. Plethon's fatalism is optimistic: because everything predestined is good, the one who affirms it will find happiness and true freedom.
Literary reception
In the 12th century, the philosopher Bernardus Silvestris wrote the extensive poem Mathematicus , in which he illustrated the problem of belief in fate using a narrative based on ancient material. The starting point is fateful: an astrologer predicted the birth of a boy who had a bright future and would ascend the Roman throne, but would one day kill his father. The horrified parents initially agree to kill the newborn child, but the mother cannot do it, she only fakes the murder and lets her son grow up far away. He later actually achieved the Roman royal dignity and, as predicted, turned out to be an extraordinarily capable and successful ruler. After learning of the prophecy, he decides to put an end to his life in order to forestall the impending fate. As a king, however, he cannot freely dispose of his life. He therefore asks the Senate and the People's Assembly for permission to commit suicide. Because of its general popularity, the shocking request meets with rejection. He then abdicates in order to gain the freedom to realize his project as a private individual. At this point the poem breaks off, the outcome remains open. What is striking is the deeply rooted fatalism, which for the main participants is the natural prerequisite for their decisions.
In the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance , the figure of the ancient goddess of fate Fortuna, conveyed primarily by Boethius, was very popular. She was seen as executor of God's will, but the ancient image of the independent goddess was also taken up again. Her attribute was the wheel of fortune she turned. It symbolized the changeability of happiness and the dependence of the human being on dispositions against which he is powerless. From the 12th century onwards, this symbol was often referred to in literary texts and historiography.
Humanist Statements in the Early Renaissance
The famous humanist Francesco Petrarca took an ambivalent attitude in the 14th century . He was often seized with a fatalistic mood; many of his utterances show him as a supporter of the widespread belief in human impotence in the face of the power and irresistibility of Fortuna. On the other hand, he endeavored to solve the problem theoretically through an intellectual battle against fatalistic ideas. His attempt at a solution was based on the idea of equating Fortuna with divine providence and thus stripping her of her terrifying, demonic character. Petrarch's argument, however, was inconclusive and was therefore relentlessly criticized by the statesman and humanist writer Coluccio Salutati in the late 14th century . Salutati presented his own opinion in 1396/1399 in the treatise De fato et fortuna . He defended the reality of Fortuna, who was a servant of God, using biblical and ancient examples. Salutati justified his refusal to leave Florence because of the plague epidemic there, not only with his responsibility for the city, but also with the fact that providence, from which one could not escape, had determined the time and place of his death.
The renaissance humanists were widespread in the belief that brave, virtuous people were superior to fortunes and could master their fate.
In the 15th century, the Platonist Marsilio Ficino followed the concept of fate of the Chaldean oracles from a Christian perspective . He said that the human body is under the rule of fate (sub fato) , but the soul stands above fate (supra fatum) through the spirit (per mentem) by acting in the order of providence. It is up to everyone whether they submit to fate or not.
Early modern assessments
In the fine arts of the 16th and 17th centuries, the motif of the goddesses of fate is relatively rare. Paintings, which were made in honor of the Medici or individual members of this sex, show the rule of the Parzen in a cheerful context and an optimistic mood, the goddesses are benevolent and represent a promising future. In contrast, the depiction in a drawing by Albrecht Dürer from 1515 is decidedly fatalistic and pessimistic. There a squire begs the Parzen in vain to grant him a favorable fate.
During the Reformation , Reformed theologians developed predestination teachings that implicitly or explicitly assume that the fate that awaits them after death is inevitably predestined for every human being. John Calvin formulated the concept of “double predestination”, the predestination of the one for salvation and the other for disaster, particularly clearly and consistently . Calvin taught that there is an eternal resolution of God about what should become of every person. Eternal salvation is assigned to a certain part of mankind, and eternal damnation to the rest. Therefore, each person only achieves in his life what was imposed on him before he was born. Accordingly, man acts only as an instrument of providence even when he sins. This fatalistic position was shared by numerous Reformed theologians, but tempered or opposed by others. Opponents of Calvinism pointed to the similarity of its doctrine of predestination to the Islamic one and accused the Calvinists of paying homage to a “Turkish” fatalism. A starting point for such criticism offered Calvin's doctrine of providence, which states that every event - from the outbreak of war to the occurrences in the life of a single animal - is directly willed and brought about by God. This doctrine belongs to the type of "universal deterministic fatalism".
According to Max Weber's assessment , the Calvinist doctrine of predestination had serious consequences for the mood of an entire generation during the Reformation. In her "pathetic inhumanity" she created the feeling of an unheard-of inner isolation of the individual. The believer was told to walk lonely towards a fate that had been fixed from eternity. However, Weber's presentation has met with criticism in research because it underestimates the collective aspect of religious experience.
The humanist philosopher Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) endeavored to renew the Stoic tradition, dealing intensively with the doctrine of fatum , the fatum stoicum . In his very more powerful, published in 1584 Dialogue De Constantia he pointed to inconsistencies and contradictions of the Stoic concept and tried to distill a "truthful" fate-understanding of ancient thought, a level compatible with Christianity fate verum . Lipsius saw in fate the primary cause, in addition to the secondary and intermediate causes, including the human will, can influence.
According to the teaching of Baruch de Spinoza (1632–1677) everything necessarily follows from the nature of God, which alone is the operative cause of all things - especially all acts of will. Only what actually occurs is possible. Although Spinoza declared that he was not submitting God to fate in any way, he assumed an inevitable rule of fate, which he equated with divine nature. With his understanding of necessity, he abolished human freedom. Therefore, he was branded a fatalist by critics. In the 18th century " Spinozism " was attacked as a variant of fatalism. Since Spinoza was denigrated as an atheist, the term fatalism was given the connotation of atheism. His model was perceived as a threat to religion and morality and was opposed.
Leibniz (1646–1716), in the preface to his theodicy, opposed the “misunderstood conception of necessity”, which has given rise to a type of fatalism that is commonly referred to as fatum mahumetanum ( Muslim fate) . In doing so, Leibniz referred to the belief in predestination, which is strongly pronounced in Islam. He spoke of a fate according to the Turkish view (“destin à la turque”), because it was said of the Turks that they did not avoid the dangers and did not even leave places infected by the plague, since they believed everything to be predetermined. Leibniz rejected this belief. He stated that in the actions of most people, an admixture of the “Turkish” idea of fate flows into them, without them being sufficiently aware of it. He also often heard bright young people argue that everything was written down in the Book of Fate and that exhortations about virtue were therefore useless. However, according to Leibniz, this position did not correspond to consistent life practice. Rather, the fatalists only used predestination as an excuse to avoid difficult or unpleasant decisions out of comfort. However, when they were in danger or desired something, they did not leave the outcome to Providence, but took fate into their own hands.
Leibniz rejected logical fatalism and emphasized the thesis that there are more possibilities than realizations. However, by this he meant mere ways of thinking, for which he only demanded consistency and not an existence-related ability . Accordingly, all alternatives to what actually occurs exist only theoretically; only that which, according to providence, actually happens can really come about. Because of this view, Leibniz came under suspicion of believing in fate himself and of subordinating God to an insurmountable fate in his doctrine of providence. The result was protracted controversy that continued after his death.
The topic of “Turkish” or generally Islamic or “Oriental” fatalism was widely discussed in the 18th century, very often with reference to the example of the plague cited by Leibniz. Fatalism served as an explanation for the politics and economic constitution of the Orient, for the "despotism" that ruled there. But it was also put forward in the sense of a reverse causation that Turkish tyranny, with its capricious political arbitrariness, does not permit any other mental attitude than the fatalistic one.
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743–1819) contributed to the spread of the term fatalism in ideological debates. He used it as a fighting term in his polemics against the teachings of Spinoza and Leibniz. Jacobi considered every system that understands the nature of the world as a necessary effect of the nature of the divine primordial essence to be fatalistic, since it makes necessity the cause of events and does not see the individual as the real author of his deeds. Any attempt to found a religion of reason must lead to such a fatalism. Fatalism is the center, the crux of Spinozism. Jacobi's statement triggered the “ Spinozismusstreit ” in 1785 . His view that fate necessarily devours God or that God devours fate was not shared by most of his contemporaries.
The enlightener Denis Diderot wrote the novel-like short story Jacques le Fataliste et son maître (Jacques the Fatalist and his Lord) , which was only published posthumously in 1796 . The title character Jacques represents a causal determinist fatalism of the Spinozist style, while his employer believes in free will. It depicts the everyday life of a fatalist who tries to live according to his convictions and gets into difficulties that he only partially copes with.
Kant said that reason breaks free from fatalism “by means of the theological idea” and leads to the concept of a cause through freedom. In this way it is possible to “repeal” “cheeky assertions that narrow the field of reason” of fatalism. Whoever sees time and space for “determinations belonging to the existence of things in themselves” cannot avoid the “fatality of actions”. Then man would be a puppet, a thinking automaton. In reality, however, human actions are "mere determinations of the same as appearance", not of the thing in itself, and thus freedom can be saved.
The Kantian Carl Christian Erhard Schmid discovered a problem in Kant's system in 1790: an action is determined either by reason or by sensual influences. In the first case the action is autonomous and complies with moral law, in the second case it is not autonomous and therefore unfree. In both cases there is no freedom to work spontaneously against the moral law, i.e. no freedom of choice. Schmid described this consequence, the renunciation of freedom of choice, as "intelligible fatalism". He said that his arguments did not harm morality, as they did not remove accountability. Kant agreed with Schmid's consideration insofar as he stated that only freedom in relation to the internal laws of reason is a faculty, the possibility of deviating from it is an inability. Although he accepted intelligible fatalism as a mere possibility within the edifice of his theoretical philosophy, he warned against drawing conclusions from it. His problem was that, according to his theory, positive freedom is based on the capacity for spontaneity. He feared that a skeptic would deduce from intelligible fatalism that spontaneity could not be justified and that morality therefore had no basis within the framework of the Kantian theory.
Fichte expanded the meaning of the term fatalism by calling any doctrine that does not allow the ego to be determined exclusively by itself as fatalistic. He distinguished between two opposing philosophical approaches, "dogmatism" and "idealism". According to this classification, dogmatism seeks the basis of experience in the thing-in-itself, idealism in the ego. Dogmatism tries to derive all contents of consciousness, including the consciousness of freedom, from the thing-in-itself, of which they are products, and thus regards freedom-consciousness as an illusion. Therefore, from Fichte's point of view, every consistent dogmatist is a fatalist. Fichte also considered orientation to an externally prescribed moral law to be fatalistic in the sense of his conceptual understanding. He criticized the fact that the creation of such a moral law ignores the spontaneity of the ego. As a consistent anti-fatalist, he rejected Schmid's intelligible fatalism.
In his System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), Schelling dealt with the question of freedom and necessity in action. He distinguished three possibilities: If the reflection is only directed towards the objective lying outside the consciousness, all actions appear to be predetermined by a completely blind predetermination. That is the system of fatalism. If the reflection is directed solely to the subjective, arbitrarily determining, then the necessity of action is disputed and a system of absolute lawlessness arises. When reflection rises to the absolute, the system of providence arises, that is, religion.
Reception in the modern age
Philosophy and sociology
19th century
Hegel dealt with the ancient understanding of fate in his lectures on aesthetics, which he held from 1820 to 1826 . He pointed to a “silent train of grief” in classic god sculptures. According to Hegel's interpretation, this mourning constitutes the fate of the gods. It indicates that "there is something higher above them and the transition from the specifics to their general unity is necessary". For Hegel, this unity is "that which is abstract and formless in itself, the necessity, the fate, which in this abstraction is only the higher in general, which conquers gods and people, but which in itself remains misunderstood and without concept". As a general power, fate dominates the particularity of the individual gods and therefore cannot itself be represented as an individual, because otherwise it would not stand above the individualities. It is "necessity as such" that "invariably hits" gods and people. For Hegel, the goal to be striven for is the abolition of the separation between fate and self-confidence. Fate is first experienced by consciousness as something alien, separate from it; in this form it is "unconscious night" and must be overcome. It does this by uniting it with self-awareness. In this way, against fate as externality, the internal is set as the essence of action and fate.
Schopenhauer distinguished in his Parerga and Paralipomena (1851) between a “demonstrable” and a “ transcendent ” fatalism. Schopenhauer viewed the demonstrable, according to which everything that happens occurs with strict necessity, as a certain fact that can be seen a priori and is consequently irrevocable. According to the explanation in his main work The World as Will and Idea , every single action inevitably follows “from the effect of the motif on the character”. This happens in accordance with the necessity, which is “the relation of the consequence to the reason and absolutely nothing more”. The individual itself is already determined. Given that a given person's character is fixed, only one action is possible under given circumstances. The transcendent fatalism is of a different kind, which regards the course of life not only as necessary but also as a planned, purposeful course of events. This fatalism arises from a subjective perspective. It is gradually derived from the experiences of one's own life. No proof can therefore be given for him.
Søren Kierkegaard dealt with the problem of fatalism in the 1840s. He described the fatalist as a desperate man who had lost God and thus himself, because for him everything was a necessity, he had lost the possibility; but personality is a synthesis of possibility and necessity. According to Kierkegaard's description, the god of the fatalist is necessity. His worship of God, when it reaches its maximum, is essentially mute, mute submission. The self of the determinist and the fatalist cannot breathe, for it is stifled by the exclusivity of the necessary. Determinism and fatalism are "mental despair". After all, the adherents of such worldviews have enough imagination to despair of the possibility, in contrast to the "philistine bourgeoisie", which is probable and offers a place for the possible, but falls victim to its lack of imagination. For Kierkegaard, the ancient “pagan” belief in fate is a manifestation of fear. Fate is the nothing that is the subject of this fear. As soon as the reality of freedom and spirit is established, the fear is removed.
Nietzsche pleaded for a decidedly non-metaphysical fatalism in which the result of a life appears as a necessary consequence of character and circumstances. He considered the given character to be unchangeable. He saw the greatness of man in the affirmation of this necessity of fate. His demand was to view the inevitable not only as necessary but as beautiful and desirable and to give preference to all theoretically conceivable alternatives. Nietzsche considered it the highest aim of a philosopher not only to endure fate, but to love it ( amor fati ) .
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In 1879 Eduard von Hartmann criticized a fatalism according to which the actions of the individual human being are irrelevant for the end result of historical development, the fulfillment of the teleological world plan, since the progressive realization of the moral world order is guaranteed by the institutions already in place. Von Hartmann asserted that such a fatalism tears the necessity of the end result away from the determining factors, from whose interaction it causally emerges. This is not a well-founded belief, but a blind belief. It is true that the average psychological disposition of individuals is such that human behavior actually guarantees the existence of the moral world order, but this is only the case because the principle of the moral world order is itself a psychological factor that is effective in every human consciousness without exception be. The “fatalism of blind faith”, which disregards this factor and thus pushes away “the cornerstone of the building of the moral world order”, is a delusion.
20th and 21st centuries
In the early 20th century, Max Weber examined the history of Calvinist piety, examining the relationship between predestination and fatalism. According to Weber's findings, fatalism can be logically derived as a consequence of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, but psychologically the effect is the opposite due to the inclusion of the idea of probation in life: For the Calvinists, those chosen by God are inaccessible to fatalism because of their election, “just in their rejection of the fatalistic consequences they prove themselves ”. God's providence has decreed that they should diligently perform their duties, and therefore they do it according to their interests and do not allow themselves to be deterred in their religious practice by the fatalism that the logic of their faith should lead to. Weber thus came to the conclusion: "The practical intertwining of interests cuts up the logically inferred (incidentally, despite everything, occasionally also factually occurred) fatalistic consequences."
The logician Jan Łukasiewicz created a three-valued logic in the early 20th century , in which he assigned the third truth value to statements about the future, which, according to his understanding, are currently neither true nor untrue. Łukasiewicz wanted to evade logical fatalism and in doing so followed up Aristotle's considerations.
Oswald Spengler , in his main work on the philosophy of history, Der Untergang des Abendlandes , published from 1918 to 1922, set out the thesis that the development of all advanced cultures is subject to the same law. It is comparable to the aging of living beings, goes through phases of growth, maturity and old age and ultimately leads to death. Historical developments are natural processes. Thus, the future of the West is predictable. In the face of such inevitability, from Spengler's point of view, the only alternative left for the individual is to act in accordance with the fateful necessity or to fail. In his original questions published from the estate, Spengler acknowledged the idea of a fate-determining authority: “Fate can only be experienced; it is the metaphysical power in the living space, not the causal link in the physical world. ”History takes place completely independently of the wishes and wishes of people. The sense of fate cannot be recognized, all interpretations are "born of fear". Thomas Mann criticized it in his 1924 essay On Spengler's Doctrine , in which he accused the historical philosopher of spreading a fatalism that was not tragic-heroic, as with Nietzsche, but a defeatism of humanity.
Karl Jaspers explained fatalism in 1919 in his treatise Psychology of Weltanschauungen , assuming the " borderline situation " of chance. For Jaspers, an “inevitable antinomy ” is that man must see the world as necessary and coherent on the one hand, and as random, chaotic and incoherent on the other. Those seeking meaning experience chance as "uncanny factuality everywhere". The reaction to the randomness is the feeling of a metaphysical connection: One has the impression that the randomnesses all have a “thread” “by which they belong together”. Fate "has a felt meaning and a totality that can be represented in the completed biography". Empirically , one could say that an active human disposition selects what is appropriate from the myriad of coincidences and thus fate is only the processing of heterogeneous events by the individuality reacting to them. But - according to Jaspers - "the living person doesn't feel that way on the whole". He doesn't come to terms with chance, but tries to overcome it by grasping something behind it. This is the purpose of “formulas” such as predestination, karma or the control of the world by a deity or fate. According to Jaspers' judgment, such formulas are the temporary products or deposits of the living impulse that overcomes the borderline situation and creates a positive consciousness in it.
In a treatise published in 1924, Max Scheler dealt with the question of the direction and control of history by the personal sponsors of the respective “intellectual-ideal cultural content” from a sociological point of view. According to Scheler's assessment, the human will can only exercise a leading function in relation to the course of real history within the framework of a fixed phase sequence of autonomous, automatically occurring and "mind-value-blind" events and conditions. He cannot do more. The extent of its influence diminishes in the course of a relatively closed, coherent cultural process, the main phases of which are youth, maturity and decay. While the conductibility of the historical process decreases, the “ collectivist moment of fatality grows , and with it people's sense of determination”. Each final phase of such a process is "the measurement of life". For Scheler, fatalism is the assumption that fate is individual destiny. In his opinion, this equation is wrong, because the individual determination of a person can conflict with both the structure of the environment and fate. Man can indeed be under the spell of fate, but he can also stand above him with knowledge, change it or even throw it off.
Arnold Toynbee dealt with the subject in 1939 in the part of his main work A Study of History ( The course of world history ) , in which he examined the "disintegration of cultures". He described religious fatalism as the theistic form of determinism. He cited the Calvinist doctrine of predestination as a classic example. According to Toynbee's analysis, a creed of this kind is an expression of the sense of drift . This occurs in times of social disintegration. It is the passive way of experiencing the loss of elan of growth ; the active counterpart is the feeling of sinfulness. For Toynbee, non-religious manifestations of this attitude to life are the liberal belief in progress of the 19th century and Marxism , two atheistic versions of the belief in predestination, the worship of the “idol of necessity”. In need of explanation is the fact that many fatalists, despite the passive nature of the sense of drift , have distinguished themselves through extraordinary drive, purposefulness and confidence. According to Toynbee's interpretation, this strengthening effect of fatalism can be traced back to the assumption of his followers that their will coincides with the will of God or the law of nature or the demands of necessity and must therefore inevitably conquer. However, if success does not materialize, the opposite effect occurs: in times of disaster, fatalism undermines morality.
Gilbert Ryle commented on logical fatalism in the 1954 lecture It Was To Be . He argued that the fatalistic argument disregarded the fundamental difference between statements and facts and between the logically necessary and the practically necessary. In Ryle's opinion, regardless of the question of whether the future can be known, it is logically impossible to make statements with a certain truth value that relate to individual concrete facts that are not yet given, for example a future battle. Only when an event has taken place can one speak of it as "it". Alfred Jules Ayer contradicted this view in his 1963 essay Fatalism . Ayer's own objection to logical fatalism is that foreknowledge does not make a future event necessary. With regard to predestination in theistic models, Ayer found that it in principle excludes a person's responsibility for his actions.
Arthur Norman Prior , in an article published in 1962, argued that a hypothetical omniscient being could not know at the present time whether forward-looking statements were true, since knowledge could only relate to truth and such statements had no truth value in the present. So omniscience does not require fatalism.
Also in 1962, Richard Taylor published his article Fatalism , with which he gave a new impetus to the debate on logical fatalism. Using the example of “tomorrow's sea battle” chosen by Aristotle, he tried to show that logical fatalism was an inevitable consequence of six presuppositions that were almost unanimously accepted by contemporary philosophy. Taylor looked at the truthfulness of statements about tomorrow's battle in terms of the freedom of choice of the commander who might be called upon to give the order to attack. Using the principle of duality, he concluded that the conduct of the battle was a logically necessary condition for the order. Accordingly, the commander's decision is not free.
In the period that followed, Taylor's essay sparked a lively debate among experts. A number of critics - John Turk Saunders, Bruce Aune, Raziel Abelson, Charles D. Brown, Bernard Mayo (pen name Peter Makepiece), and Richard Sharvy - spoke up, and Taylor responded. Steven Cahn defended both the conclusiveness of Taylor's reasoning and the validity of the assumptions. In reality, Taylor was not a fatalist because he believed two of the six assumptions were wrong. In particular, he rejected the view that the truth value of a statement is not subject to any time constraints. The aim of his advance was to point out the fatalistic consequence of the presumptions he rejected and thus to show their questionability. However, this was hardly noticed by his critics, rather he gained the reputation of being a fatalist.
The opponents of logical fatalism had to grapple with the problem of asymmetry that arises when statements about the future are assigned a different truth value than statements about the present and the past. The asymmetry seems to require a fundamental ontological distinction between past and future states. John Randolph Lucas saved the openness of the future by affirming such a difference. Other approaches in the late 20th century got by without this assumption; they only relied on the fact that causation follows the arrow of time .
Nelson Pike initiated a new debate on theological fatalism in 1965, building on Taylor's essay and Boethius's considerations. He examined the thesis that no human act of free will is performed when God is omniscient. He started from assumptions that lead to the conclusion that the thesis must be affirmed. The lively discussion that this sparked continues. Linda Zagzebski established her opinion in 2011 that the idea of divine timelessness does not offer a way out of fatalism.
In 2011, the anthology Fate, Time, and Language was published , which offers a review of the debate initiated by Richard Taylor on logical fatalism. The volume has put together a number of well-known contributions, including a detailed statement by David Foster Wallace published there for the first time .
Peter Sloterdijk spoke in a dialogue published in 2011. From his point of view, the real fascination of fatalism for people of every age is based on the fact that they consider the statement “You can not do anything” as good news. This thesis is the acquittal of the expectation to do something. It provides the reason for the "tendency to overwinter on the zero point of will". He, Sloterdijk, suspected that this did not only apply to the fatalism of the common people; A large part of the intellectual movements of the 20th century also had "part of the longing for hibernation" and had satisfied their need to "eliminate the subject".
Fiction
In the early 19th century, a genre that was difficult to define in German-language literature emerged, which is traditionally referred to in literary history as "fate tragedy" and more recently as " fateful drama ". They are tragedies in which fate is taken fatalistically. Typical of the genre is a chain of coincidental events between which there is no internal connection, but which together in the end result lead to the fulfillment of a predetermined personal fate. The outcome was announced by an omen or appears as the result of a curse or a crime long ago. It is not a natural consequence of the given constellation between certain characters, but is brought about by external developments. The fate-determining authority remains mysterious. An impetus was provided by Schiller 's drama The Bride of Messina , premiered in 1803 , which introduced an ancient idea of fate into modern theater. Schiller's concern was to achieve an educational effect through the confrontation with the merciless fate and to show how moral freedom is made possible for people. However, this aspect was not taken up in the following years, rather the helplessness of the actors in the face of the fate came to the fore. Zacharias Werner was a role model for the fateful drama ; other well-known authors in this direction were Adolf Müllner and Ernst von Houwald . Even Franz Grillparzer piece The ancestor is counted among the fate dramas. These authors thematized fate, but were not themselves fatalists. Critics like Ludwig Börne condemned the staging of the fateful or made it ridiculous with parodies .
music
The composer Gian Francesco Malipiero gave his tenth symphony, a late work from 1967, the title Atropo . By naming it after the death-bringing moire, he referred to the subject of death. With his musical means, Malipiero expressed the cruelty of the unpredictable and hostile power of destiny.
European legends and customs
Fatalistic ideas are widespread in European folk beliefs and legends. They come into their own in numerous stories of fate. A very common structure is determined by three characteristics: A “child of fate” is prophesied of calamity after its birth, often the circumstances of its death; the victim or his protector try to avert doom; in the end the prophecy is fulfilled. In individual cases, the sentence of fate can be canceled, circumvented or at least defused by cunning, or the disaster is postponed, but the story usually ends tragically. Often it is precisely attempts at defense that bring about the fulfillment of the prophecy.
In many European folk tales there is no “blind”, arbitrary providence, rather the thought pattern of a context of justice is shown: The fate-generating authority - usually three female figures, the “fateful women” - allows the worthy to succeed, the unworthy to fail. According to other, equally widespread traditions, however, the women of fate are capricious and sensitive and decide arbitrarily according to current moods. One after the other they proclaim their sayings about the future life of the newborn, whereby the saying of the last woman is of decisive importance and the wording must be fulfilled. In addition to death, marriage is particularly often predetermined.
Eastern European, Romance and Celtic traditions
The ancient Greek belief in the Moiren, the classical women of fate, and their often disastrous role after childbirth proved to be extraordinarily tenacious. It was preserved in Greek legends and customs up to modern times, was also adopted into Albanian folk beliefs together with the Greek name and was still alive in the 20th century. So on the third night after the birth of a child, bread and honey were served to feed the Moiren who come to allot the lifeless. The ancient Meleagrossage, which describes the fate brought about by the Moire Atropos, had a particularly lasting effect. Its subject matter has been handed down in 21 variations in popular stories.
In Romania, too, the popular belief in women of fate appearing at birth was still widespread in the 20th century. There is a striking correspondence with the Greek tradition. Older Romanian sources speak of two women of fate, in younger sources there are three, as in the Greek region. Numerous forms of names have been passed down for these figures, including the name Mire, which betrays Greek influence . The term ursitoare has established itself in scientific terminology . The Ursitoare measure the happiness of the newborn. Your visit is usually expected on the third night after the baby is born. Extensive preparations are made for their reception and entertainment.
Many variants of the belief in fate-determining female spirits, which determine the future happiness and unhappiness of a child when a child is born, became widespread among a number of Slavic peoples. It is unclear whether the material is Old Slavic material or material taken from Greek stories and customs. Numerous folk tales document the popularity of fatalistic ideas of this kind. A central aspect was the endeavor of families to influence the determination of the future fate of a newborn. Corresponding customs served the purpose of winning the benevolence of the women of fate in order to ensure the child a successful life. The associated ideas were able to assert themselves for centuries in different variants, in some cases up to the modern age. There are testimonies to women of fate in Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Czech and Slovak folk beliefs. The old Russian goddesses of birth (Roženicy) were probably also originally women of fate; their veneration with offerings continued in the Middle Ages even after Christianization and was eagerly opposed by the Orthodox Church . From the Slavs, many groups of Roma took over the belief in those who determined their fate and the relevant customs.
The woman of fate Laima , originally a goddess from pre-Christian times, plays an important role in folk tales of the Latvians and Lithuanians . Extensive folklore material shows that the veneration of this figure, especially among Latvians, survived Christianization and continued into the early modern period. The sources also often speak of three laymen.
In the popular beliefs of Roman peoples, especially in France, fairies took over the role of women of fate in the Middle Ages . The French word fée comes from the Latin fata . The appearance of the fairies at birth, their gift of destiny and their threesome reveal the ancient origins of the tradition.
Fatalism finds strong expression in the Celtic legends. In the medieval saga of Diarmuid and Gráinne , the hero Diarmuid states that if a certain death is predetermined for him, there is no escape for him.
Germanic traditions
It is unclear to what extent credible information about pagan Germanic notions of fate that still had an impact after Christianization can be extracted from the medieval sources. The Old English term wyrd has been discussed for a long time in this context , and should not be equated with etymologically related terms in Old High German and other Germanic languages . In older research, the opinion was widespread that wyrd was an inexorable force of fate of pagan origin. It was assumed that the concept could be deduced from information in the vernacular literature, that it was a pre-Christian substrate in medieval popular belief. However, recent research is very skeptical of such attempts at reconstruction.
However, there is reliable evidence from a number of clear evidence in vernacular sources that in the Middle Ages fatalistic ideas were widespread in the Germanic language area. Popular belief believed that predestined fate ruled life and that no one could resist it. The hero's task was to act in accordance with the order of doom.
In Norse mythology , the Norns play the role of the female gods of fate. You assign each newborn his skill, especially the lifespan. Like the Moiren and Parzen, they appear as a trinity and are described as spinners who spin the threads of fate with power and make judgments that no one can escape. Fate is felt as a judgment passed by the Norns. The Valkyries (valkyrja) are also destructive beings. While the Norns determine its length at the beginning of a life, the Valkyries appear at the end of life, their rulings referring to death. As their name suggests, they are “the voters of the battle dead (valr) ”; they determine who should fall in battle. The information about whether you decide for yourself or have to act according to divine instructions are different.
Islamic cultural area
After the introduction of Islam, the traditional tendency towards fatalism persisted in Arab culture, as the new religion also offered it a breeding ground. The fatalistic view of the world now took on a theistic coloring and mingled with the doctrine of divine predestination. According to the Koran , only that which God has already recorded in writing can happen to a person.
In Islam, the destiny set by God is called qadar or qaḍāʾ . Numerous Arabic proverbs refer to the power of fate. The fatalistic trend in theology emphasizes that without exception everything that happens is not only known in advance by God, but also wanted. Everything had been decided by him before the world was created. It is recorded with the pen of his will and is therefore unalterable. Other theological teachings, on the other hand, focus on human free will and combat fatalism. In this sense, the supporters of the Muʿtazilite theology took sides in the Middle Ages . The Ashʿaritic interpretation of the Koran occupies a middle position, adhering to both predestination and human freedom of action. The explanation is based on the idea that man appropriates the deeds brought about by God through an act of will and is therefore responsible for them.
An extreme consequence of theological fatalism is the doctrine that man only appears to act, in reality only God is always the doer. Medieval Antifatalisten designated the opposing directions as Ǧabrīya ( forced followers of Arab ǧabr , forced ') and accused them of denying the will and thus eliminate human responsibility. Moderate fatalists were also accused of belonging to the “people of coercion”.
The “lot” of man, his “share” - Arabic قسمة qisma , Turkish kismet - was a concept widespread in Turkish popular belief, which found expression in stories and edifying literature. However, qisma does not appear with this meaning in the Koran and has played no role in the theological or philosophical discourse of Muslims. In the European reception of the Turkish mentality, however, Kismet has become the leading term; It is a destiny understanding that in the 18th and 19th centuries with pejorative terms such as Türkenfatalismus and Turks faith was occupied.
In Iran, too, fatalism found fertile ground after the Islamic conquest. A pronounced predilection for the concept of predestination pervades Persian poetry up to modern times. For example, she shaped the famous epic Shāhnāme . This tendency can also be found in historiography. In Persian poetry, traces of pre-Islamic notions of fate lived on for centuries after the conquest. The pre-Islamic thought that the starry sky assigned people their individual fate continued to prove to be powerful; Echo can be found both in the Shāhnāme and in the epic Wīs u Rāmīn by the Persian poet Gurgānī . The popularity of fatalistic ideas among the people is shown linguistically in metaphorical expressions such as the arrow (or hand, feather) of fate, as well as in an abundance of idioms, proverbs, anecdotes, stories and legends. In the modern age, Iranian intellectuals like Ahmad Kasrawi have fought deeply rooted resignation to fate in the population, as it leads to the devaluation of human achievements and is one of the causes of the nation's backwardness.
Indian traditions
In the Vedic religion , the oldest known religion in India from written sources, the idea of an almighty, inevitable fate was still unknown. It was only in the epic literature of early Hinduism that fatalistic terms and ideas came to the fore. In addition to the popular epics, astrology, which is rooted in popular belief, made a significant contribution to solidifying the tendency towards fatalism in the Hindu population. In the very popular epic Mahabharata , which is part of the core of the Hindu tradition, it is assumed that even the gods are powerless against fate. In doing so, fate is identified with time.
The basic theological and philosophical beliefs that prevailed in ancient Indian culture opposed the emergence of fatalistic ideas because the widespread concepts of karma attributed a significant influence on the future to human decisions. Therefore, no consistent fatalism could develop in the teaching material of the important religions of Indian origin that still exist today - Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism . Nevertheless, fatalistic notions of fate play an important role in Hinduism, both in religious literature and in popular belief. They serve to explain surprising events, uncontrollable processes and unexpected results of human efforts. Fate - in Sanskrit daiva - is used when the impression arises of a succession of causes and effects which one can no longer control or avoid after it has been set in motion. Either an impersonal force or a deity who planned and sent something appears as the triggering cause. The causative deity is sometimes referred to as the "arranger" ( dātā or vidhātā ). The Mahabharata complains that the capricious god plays with people like a child with his toys. According to another exposition in the Mahabharata , the outcome of an enterprise depends both on the actions of those involved and on daiva . Even a sensible and properly tackled project can ultimately fail due to the resistance of the relentless daiva . Nevertheless, the believers are encouraged not to give up and always try their best.
The fate from which one cannot escape is presented by the Hindu authorities in some cases as the effect of a powerful curse. It is usually explained in the context of reincarnation as a result of unknown acts in previous lives. In addition, there are also interpretations in popular belief that have fatalistic features. The fatalism is strongly pronounced in a myth told in Tamil Nadu , according to which the god Shiva assigned every living being his future fate as "writing on the forehead" before the creation of the world, whereby all deeds, thoughts and experiences were already precisely defined . However, the prevailing opinion among the Hindus leaves the possibility of change open. It is believed that the course of events planned by fate and recognizable in horoscopes is not inevitable; rather, impending disaster can still be averted through ritual acts.
A special phenomenon is the teaching of the Ajivikas , a non-Hindu philosophical trend that has been attested from the time of Buddha Gautama Siddharta in India and probably continued until the 15th century. According to the Ajivikas, fate is strictly determined. There is no free will, rather everything follows a natural law necessity (niyati) . Thus, humans cannot influence their fate. He is helpless in the face of necessity. The Ajivikas denied the existence of a moral world order. They rejected the idea that the conditions of existence of the soul after the death of the body and in future incarnations depend on the previous good or bad deeds. According to their teaching, following or disregarding ethical norms has no effect after death. Merit and sin are not objective realities that, based on a universal law, result in reward or punishment. This is how the Ajivika philosophy differs fundamentally from Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, which make fate dependent on karma, past deeds, and thus on human acts of will.
In Sikhism , which takes up both Hindu and Islamic ideas, the karma principle (here as karam ) is adopted and thus the responsibility of people for their living conditions and their future is established. The Adi Granth , the basic script of the Sikh religion, also contains clearly fatalistic statements. It is established that all human actions such as talking, eating, walking, seeing, hearing and breathing are “written down” in the sense of a predestination (lekhai) . This writing comes from God and cannot be erased.
Chinese concepts
Confucianism
Confucius (551–479 BC), the founder of Confucianism , considered “heaven” (Chinese 天tiān ) to be the guarantor of the world order in which man is included. According to Confucian understanding, heaven directs the course of human life and sets each person their destiny, the task they have to fulfill and the goal that must be achieved. This predetermined determination is the “commission from heaven” (天命tiān mìng ). Heaven has imposed his personal fate (命mìng ) on every person . The word mìng has the basic meaning of commission or command . For Confucius heaven has a will, on which depends whether a person finds the right way, an ethical way of life, or not. The master is said to have remarked: “Whether one will tread the right path is fate. Whether one will reject the right path, that is fate. ”According to Confucian teaching, heaven sends fate, it determines life and death, illness, wealth and prestige, talent and personality. Confucius said that the allocation of the gifts was arbitrary and that the reasons could not be identified because heaven was silent. The influential Confucian Mengzi , who lived in the 4th and early 3rd centuries BC. BC, also emphasized the guidance through heaven, but he assigned the human will a more important role than Confucius.
The extent to which heaven was viewed as a moral authority in early Confucianism is not clear from the sources and is controversial in research. Some statements suggest the idea of a blind, morally indifferent power of fate, others are based on the idea of rewarding or punishing human deeds from an ethical point of view.
Even processes that seem to belong exclusively to the realm of human freedom of choice, such as a state of war, are perceived in Confucianism as interventions by a superordinate power, against which one can do nothing. Mengzi remarked: “Heaven does not yet want peace to reign on earth!” From a Confucian point of view, the charisma (德dé ), a highly valued power of individuals, is bestowed by heaven. The dé is only given to selected people, the wisdom teachers - especially Confucius - and particularly gifted rulers. Those who have the power to do so are sure of success.
Confucianism distinguishes between the circumstances of life determined by fate and the relationships and processes within the human being, which fall within his competence and responsibility. The wise man's job is to know his destiny and to accept it obediently and calmly while cultivating virtue within himself. According to Mengzi's teaching, a person achieves the right attitude towards external circumstances by exhausting the spiritual and moral possibilities inherent in himself. Armed in this way, he can calmly wait for developments that do not depend on his will and face fate. The power of mìng should not be disregarded, but viewed with respect.
With regard to life practice, the Confucian respect for fateful circumstances does not result in a resigned attitude. Rather, the recommendation to accept fate is connected with the demand to be active and to fulfill the personal task, the commission of heaven.
In the case of a ruler, his assumption of power indicates that he has initially received the mandate of heaven. The principle applies here: Heaven does not speak, but it reveals itself through its effects. In the following years heaven orientates itself towards the actions of the ruler and withdraws his mandate if he fails. The course of history thus determines the interaction of the heavenly power of fate with human decisions.
Mohism
The philosopher Mozi (Mo Di), who in the 5th century BC took a decidedly opposite position to the fatalistic tendency in Confucianism . Founded the "Mohism". He fought vigorously against fatalism. In the Mozi collection of texts named after him , a compilation of their teachings arranged by the Mohists, a three-chapter part is entitled Fēi mìng (Against [the belief in] fate) . Above all, Mozi accused those "who assume that there is predestination" the social consequences of their worldview. Fatalism leads to the breakdown of loyalty, morals and decency both in family life and in the state. When belief in fate gains influence, selfish ruthlessness, neglect of duty and faithlessness determine people's behavior.
The mohist condemnation judgment on fatalism does not concern the concept of a governing higher power as such. The only thing that is rejected is the belief in a “blind” fate that is predetermined from the outset regardless of the respective ethical decisions made by the people. A world order that is justly allocated, however, is affirmed. Mohism postulates that heaven has a will, that it promotes righteousness, rewards good behavior and punishes bad. Mozi's anti-fatalistic struggle was directed against the leading scholars of his time, the rú (儒). According to his account, the rú claimed that heaven had predetermined longevity or early death, poverty or wealth, security or danger for each individual. They said that these goods could neither be increased nor decreased, and even if one knew about the destinies, nothing could be changed. From such fatalistic assumptions it could be concluded, according to Mozi's argument, that following or disregarding moral norms has no effect. The mohistic polemic was directed against this consequence. Mozi found that socially desirable behavior can only be expected if the conviction is rooted in society that people are responsible for their good or bad deeds.
Wang Chong
In the 1st century, the philosopher Wang Chong emerged as a critic of contemporary popular belief. In dealing with ideas that were widespread at the time, he developed and founded his theory of fate. The starting point was his criticism of the popular opinion that human destinies are controlled by a just heaven, which rewards merit and punishes wrongdoing. Wang countered this with his concept, which says that the nature of a person, his individual character (性xìng ), has no connection with his fate (命mìng ). Good and bad actions depend on character, luck and unhappiness on fate. Good people, like bad people, are lucky in some cases and not in others. This applies to natural living conditions as well as to interpersonal relationships. Rulers reward and punish their subjects not according to their real achievements and misconduct, but arbitrarily; they disregard loyal servants and rely on unreliable ones.
Wang Chong based his argument not only on his empirical finding that in human life there was no observable connection between morality and fortunes or strokes of fate. In addition, he pointed out that the same laws are to be assumed for the human world as for nature in general. Wang's reasoning is that if a person walks in a place where there are ants, then those ants he steps on die while the others survive. When a fire breaks out, some blades of grass will burn and others will not. If a group of people is attacked by armed men, some will be wounded and others will escape unharmed. The individual blades of grass and ants are not rewarded or punished for being good or bad. Thus the same can be assumed for humans. Man is indeed produced from heaven and earth, but not intentionally, because nature has no need for this earth inhabitant and no sympathy for him. Heaven and earth relate to humans as humans relate to lice.
According to this, the course of human life, as with animals and plants, depends on whether one is lucky or unlucky. The individual cannot help it. However, Wang did not see the determining factor in a chaotic coincidence of causal chains. Rather, he claimed that everything was predetermined by mìng , the power of fate. For example, the lifespan is dependent on an innate predisposition. The difference to the Confucian concept of predestination is that Wang did not equate the authority that determines fate with the benevolent and righteous heaven, but rather considered it to be ethically indifferent. According to his understanding, there is predestination in nature, but no moral criteria. This applies not only to individuals, but also to states. They too are subject to the decrees of fate, and no efforts by wise rulers can change that. The collective fate of a country is stronger than that of its inhabitants. Because of this, citizens are all simultaneously beneficiaries or sufferers of great events and general conditions, although their individual predestination would be different.
Wang cited an example from the Confucian Mengzi. He had recommended that one should submit to fate, but counter the dangers through responsible action. Those who understand fate do not stand under a wall that is in danger of collapsing. Wang's objection to this is that he who is destined to die in this way is destined to come under such a wall at the right time.
African religions
In African ethnic religions , the supreme deity often appears as the power of fate. According to a widespread belief in Benin , the predetermined fate (fa) is determined by the sky goddess Mawu , it is "the writing Mawu". Among the Ewe , Mawu is understood as male; it determines the character, the talent and the fate of every person. Its injustice is lamented. In the traditional belief of the Ashanti , the principle applies that the fate of the highest being has been determined in advance and nothing can be changed about it. With the Kpelle the ruling god is the actual cause of all events. He measures the time of life and assigns people and animals their fate; the hunter says that he killed “his” animal, that is, that which was assigned to him by God. Fatalistic ideas, according to which the highest being is the sovereign ruler of the forces of existence and arbitrarily assigns happiness and unhappiness to the individual, also shape the worldview in the indigenous religions of the Shilluk , Kaffa , Maasai , Chagga , Ovambo , Barundi, Ila and Dama.
literature
General overview displays
- Gregor Ahn et al: fate . In: Theological Real Encyclopedia . Volume 30, de Gruyter, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-11-016243-1 , pp. 102-122
- Chantal Hasnoui: Fatalism . In: Encyclopédie philosophique universelle. Volume 2: Les notions philosophiques. Dictionnaire , subband 1: philosophy occidentale: A-L . Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1990, ISBN 2-13-041442-7 , pp. 957-963
- Monika Oertner: Fatalism . In: Hans Jörg Sandkühler (Ed.): Encyclopedia Philosophy. Volume 1, Meiner, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-7873-1999-2 , pp. 701-706
- Jürgen Ruhnau: Fatalism . In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy . Volume 2, Schwabe, Basel 1972, Col. 913-915
General examinations
- Mark H. Bernstein: Fatalism. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln / London 1992, ISBN 0-8032-1227-5
- Steven M. Cahn: Fate, Logic, and Time. Yale University Press, New Haven / London 1967
- William Lane Craig : The Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingents from Aristotle to Suarez. Brill, Leiden et al. 1988, ISBN 90-04-08516-5
- Helena Eilstein: Life Contemplative, Life Practical. An Essay on Fatalism. Rodopi, Amsterdam 1997, ISBN 90-420-0183-6 (discusses modern hypotheses on the logic of fatalism and antifatalism)
- Monika Oertner: Fatalism. An analysis of concepts, phenomena and problems, taking into account the teachings of Chrysipps and Calvin as an example . Hartung-Gorre, Konstanz 2005, ISBN 3-86628-031-9
Collections of articles
- Steven M. Cahn, Maureen Eckert (Eds.): Fate, Time, and Language. An Essay on Free Will. David Foster Wallace. Columbia University Press, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-231-15157-3 (Essays on Logical Fatalism)
- John Martin Fischer , Patrick Todd (Eds.): Freedom, Fatalism, and Foreknowledge. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-994241-1
- Helmer Ringgren (Ed.): Fatalistic Beliefs in Religion, Folklore, and Literature. Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm 1967
Old Orient
- Jack N. Lawson: The Concept of Fate in Ancient Mesopotamia of the First Millennium. Toward to Understanding of Šīmtu. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1994, ISBN 3-447-03541-2
- Janice Polonsky: The Rise of the Sun God and the Determination of Destiny in Ancient Mesopotamia. ProQuest, Ann Arbor 2002 (dissertation)
Antiquity
- David Amand: Fatalisme et liberté dans l'antiquité grecque. Hakkert, Amsterdam 1973, ISBN 90-256-0646-6 (reprint of the Louvain 1945 edition)
- Bernard Clive Dietrich: Death, Fate and the Gods. The development of a religious idea in Greek popular belief and in Homer. 2nd corrected edition, Athlone Press, London 1967
- Aldo Magris: L'idea di destino nel pensiero antico. 2 volumes, Del Bianco, Udine 1984
- Heinrich Otto Schröder : Fatum (Heimarmene) . In: Real Lexicon for Antiquity and Christianity . Volume 7, Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1969, Sp. 524-636
- Reinhard Gregor Kratz , Hermann Spieckermann (ed.): Providence, fate and divine power. Ancient voices on a current topic . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-16-149463-5
middle Ages
- Stamatios Gerogiorgakis: Futura contingentia, necessitas per accidens and predestination in Byzantium and in Scholasticism. Peter Lang, Frankfurt 2017, ISBN 978-3-631-65485-9
Modern times
- Franziska Rehlinghaus: The Semantics of Fate. On the relevance of the unavailable between the Enlightenment and the First World War. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-36724-7
Germanic traditions
- Anthony Winterbourne: When the Norns Have Spoken. Time and Fate in Germanic Paganism. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Madison 2004, ISBN 0-8386-4048-6
Islam
- ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Zarrīnkūb: Fatalism . In: Ehsan Yarshater (ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica . Volume 9, Bibliotheca Persica Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-933273-35-5 , pp. 396-398
- Helmer Ringgren: Studies in Arabian Fatalism . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1955
Hinduism
- Peter Hill: Fate, Predestination and Human Action in the Mahābhārata: A Study in the History of Ideas. Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi 2001, ISBN 81-215-0855-X , pp. 195-230
China
- Yixia Wei: The Chinese Philosophy of Fate. Springer, Singapore 2017, ISBN 978-981-10-4369-7
Web links
- Hugh Rice: Fatalism. In: Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
- Ned Markosian: Time: Fatalism. In: Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
Remarks
- ↑ See the articles on the individual terms in the dictionary of ancient philosophy published by Christoph Horn and Christof Rapp , 2nd, revised edition, Munich 2008 as well as Margarita Kranz: Schicksal. In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 8, Basel 1992, Sp. 1275–1289, here: 1275.
- ↑ Franziska Rehlinghaus: Die Semantik des Schicksals , Göttingen 2015, p. 132.
- ↑ Michael Franz : Schelling's Tübinger Platon-Studien , Göttingen 1996, p. 22 f.
- ^ Walther von Wartburg : French Etymological Dictionary , Volume 3, Tübingen 1949, p. 434.
- ↑ Isolde Nortmeyer: fatal. In: Hans Schulz, Otto Basler (Eds.): Deutsches Fremdwörterbuch , 2nd, revised edition, Volume 5, Berlin 2004, pp. 737–742, here: 737.
- ↑ Monika Oertner: Fatalismus , Konstanz 2005, p. 16 f .; Jürgen Ruhnau: Fatalism . In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 2, Basel 1972, Sp. 913–915.
- ↑ For Wortgeschichte see Isolde Nortmeyer: fatal. In: Hans Schulz, Otto Basler (eds.): German Foreign Dictionary , 2nd, revised edition, Volume 5, Berlin 2004, pp. 737–742; on the colloquial term of fatalism Monika Oertner: Fatalismus , Konstanz 2005, pp. 10–24. Compare Jürgen Ruhnau: Fatalism . In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 2, Basel 1972, Sp. 913–915, here: 913.
- ↑ On Nietzsche's approach, see Marco Brusotti: The Passion of Knowledge , Berlin 1997, pp. 454–471.
- ↑ Monika Oertner: Fatalism , Konstanz 2005, p. 16 f.
- ↑ Heidrun Kämper : determine . In: Hans Schulz, Otto Basler (eds.): Deutsches Fremdwörterbuch , 2nd, revised edition, Volume 4, Berlin 1999, pp. 433–445, here: 435.
- ↑ Monika Oertner: Fatalism , Konstanz 2005, p. 3, 16 f.
- ↑ Monika Oertner: Fatalism . In: Hans Jörg Sandkühler (Ed.): Enzyklopädie Philosophie , Volume 1, Hamburg 2010, pp. 701–706, here: 701.
- ↑ Monika Oertner: Fatalism . In: Hans Jörg Sandkühler (Ed.): Enzyklopädie Philosophie , Volume 1, Hamburg 2010, pp. 701–706, here: 701; Mark Bernstein: Fatalism. In: Robert Kane (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Free Will , Oxford 2002, pp. 65–81, here: 67–69; Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer among others: Determinism / Indeterminism. In: Hans Jörg Sandkühler (Ed.): Enzyklopädie Philosophie , Volume 1, Hamburg 2010, pp. 382–395, here: 382–384.
- ↑ For the delimitation of fatalism and determinism, see Mark H. Bernstein: Fatalism , Lincoln / London 1992, pp. 61–65; Monika Oertner: Fatalism . In: Hans Jörg Sandkühler (Ed.): Enzyklopädie Philosophie , Volume 1, Hamburg 2010, pp. 701–706, here: 701 f.
- ↑ See on typology Gregor Ahn: Schicksal. I. Religious history. In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Volume 30, Berlin 1999, pp. 102-107, here: 104-106; Mark H. Bernstein: Fatalism , Lincoln / London 1992, pp. 5-10; Mark Jago: Fatalism. In: The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy , Volume 2, London / New York 2006, pp. 1059 f., Here: 1059.
- ^ Jacob Burckhardt : Greek cultural history , Volume 2, Basel / Stuttgart 1978, p. 115 f.
- ^ Bernard Clive Dietrich: Death, Fate and the Gods , 2nd, corrected edition, London 1967, pp. 2–7; Gregor Ahn: Fate. I. Religious history. In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Volume 30, Berlin 1999, pp. 102-107, here: 104-106; Helmer Ringgren: The Problem of Fatalism. In: Helmer Ringgren (Ed.): Fatalistic Beliefs in Religion, Folklore, and Literature , Stockholm 1967, pp. 7–18, here: 13–18.
- ↑ Gottfried Seebaß : Will / Freedom of Will. I. Philosophically. In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Volume 36, Berlin 2004, pp. 55–73, here: 66.
- ↑ Kees W. Bolle: Fate. In: Lindsay Jones (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Religion , 2nd edition, Volume 5, Detroit 2005, pp. 2998-3006, here: 3002 f .; Heinrich Otto Schröder: Fatum (Heimarmene) . In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum , Volume 7, Stuttgart 1969, Sp. 524–636, here: 579–586; Utto Riedinger: The Holy Scriptures in the fight of the Greek Church against astrology , Innsbruck 1956, p. 15 f .; David Amand: Fatalisme et liberté dans l'antiquité grecque , Louvain 1945, p. 587 f.
- ↑ Edward Craig: Fatalism . In: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Volume 3, London / New York 1998, p. 563 f .; Monika Oertner: Fatalismus , Konstanz 2005, pp. 37–45.
- ↑ Friedrich Heiler : manifestations and essence of religion , 2nd, improved edition, Stuttgart 1979, p. 58 f.
- ↑ Jim Tester: A history of Western Astrology , Woodbridge 1987, pp. 2 f .; Christian Thiel : Astrology. In: Jürgen Mittelstraß (Ed.): Encyclopedia Philosophy and Philosophy of Science , 2nd, revised edition, Volume 1, Stuttgart 2005, pp. 267–269, here: 267; David Pingree et al: Astrology. II. History. In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Volume 4, Berlin 1979, pp. 281-299, here: 281 f., 290.
- ↑ An overview is provided by Chantal Hasnoui: Fatalisme . In: Encyclopédie philosophique universelle , Volume 2/1, Paris 1990, pp. 957–963, here: 958 f.
- ↑ Christopher Shields provides an introduction to the problem: Aristotle , 2nd edition, London 2014, pp. 212–223.
- ↑ Monika Oertner: Fatalismus , Konstanz 2005, pp. 19, 71–79; Monika Oertner: Fatalism . In: Hans Jörg Sandkühler (Ed.): Enzyklopädie Philosophie , Volume 1, Hamburg 2010, pp. 701–706, here: 701, 705.
- ↑ Monika Oertner: Fatalismus , Konstanz 2005, pp. 20–22.
- ↑ Monika Oertner: Fatalism , Konstanz 2005, p. 22 f.
- ↑ Cicero, De fato 28 f. See Elisabeth Begemann: Schicksal als Argument , Stuttgart 2012, p. 55.
- ^ Margarita Kranz, Peter Probst: Ratio ignava. In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 8, Basel 1992, Col. 41 f .; Monika Oertner: Fatalismus , Konstanz 2005, pp. 20 f., 38–41, 79 f. See Jordan Howard Sobel's analysis: Dummett on Fatalism. In: The Philosophical Review 75, 1966, pp. 78-90.
- ↑ Monika Oertner: Fatalismus , Konstanz 2005, pp. 161–164.
- ↑ Monika Oertner: Fatalism . In: Hans Jörg Sandkühler (Ed.): Enzyklopädie Philosophie , Volume 1, Hamburg 2010, pp. 701–706, here: 706; Franziska Rehlinghaus: Die Semantik des Schicksals , Göttingen 2015, pp. 131–138.
- ↑ Gottfried Seebass: Freedom and Determinism. In: Journal for philosophical research 47, 1993, pp. 1–22, 223–245, here: 14–19.
- ↑ Gottfried Seebass: Freedom and Determinism. In: Journal for philosophical research 47, 1993, pp. 1–22, 223–245, here: 19 f., 223 f., 244 f .; Gottfried Seebaß: Will / Free Will. I. Philosophically. In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Volume 36, Berlin 2004, pp. 55–73, here: 67.
- ↑ Gottfried Seebass: Freedom and Determinism. In: Journal for philosophical research 47, 1993, pp. 1–22, 223–245, here: 7–14.
- ↑ Janice Polonsky: The Rise of the Sun God and the Determination of Destiny in Ancient Mesopotamia , Ann Arbor 2002, pp. 73 f., 100-108.
- ↑ Jacob Klein: Namtar. In: Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie , Volume 9, Berlin 1998–2001, pp. 142–145; Kai Lämmerhirt , Annette Zgoll : Destiny. A. In Mesopotamia. In: Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Aräologie , Volume 12, Berlin 2009–2011, pp. 145–155, here: 147 f .; Janice Polonsky: The Rise of the Sun God and the Determination of Destiny in Ancient Mesopotamia , Ann Arbor 2002, pp. 75-79; Christliebe Fichtner-Jeremias: The belief in fate among the Babylonians , Leipzig 1922, pp. 10–24.
- ↑ Brigitte Groneberg : Anzû steals the destiny tablets. In: Reinhard Gregor Kratz, Hermann Spieckermann (ed.): Providence, fate and divine power , Tübingen 2008, pp. 23–39, here: 32 f .; Friedrich Nötscher : Belief in fate in Qumran and the environment. In: Nötscher: From the Old to the New Testament , Bonn 1962, pp. 17–71, here: 18 f.
- ↑ Kai Lämmerhirt, Annette Zgoll: Destiny. A. In Mesopotamia. In: Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Aräologie , Volume 12, Berlin 2009–2011, pp. 145–155, here: 145, 149, 152.
- ↑ Manfred Dietrich: The divine counsel and the way of man in the light of Babylonian texts. In: Manfred Dietrich (Hrsg.): Religions in einerandenden Welt , Münster 1999, pp. 13–29, here: 14–18.
- ^ Jack N. Lawson: The Concept of Fate in Ancient Mesopotamia of the First Millennium. Toward an Understanding of Šīmtu , Wiesbaden 1994, pp. 128 f., 132 f.
- ↑ Daniel Schwemer : Fate. B. With the Hittites. In: Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Aräologie , Volume 12, Berlin 2009–2011, pp. 155–157.
- ↑ Christiane Zivie-Coche, Françoise Dunand: The Religions of Ancient Egypt , Stuttgart 2013, p. 386 f .; Friedrich Nötscher: Belief in fate in Qumran and the environment. In: Nötscher: From the Old to the New Testament , Bonn 1962, pp. 17–71, here: 27 f.
- ^ Siegfried Morenz : Studies on the role of fate in the Egyptian religion , Berlin 1960, pp. 8-10, 29; Irene Grumach-Shirun: Fate. In: Lexikon der Ägyptologie , Volume 5, Wiesbaden 1984, Sp. 598-600.
- ↑ Irene Grumach-Shirun: Schai and fate. In: Lexikon der Ägyptologie , Volume 5, Wiesbaden 1984, Sp. 524-526 and 598-600; Matthias Rochholz: Creation, Destruction of Feind, Regeneration , Wiesbaden 2002, pp. 44–49.
- ↑ Heike Sternberg-el Hotabi : "I defeat fate". In: Reinhard Gregor Kratz, Hermann Spieckermann (ed.): Providence, fate and divine power , Tübingen 2008, pp. 40–60, here: 45–47, 57–59.
- ↑ See on this designation Sylvie Ballestra-Puech: Les Parques , Toulouse 1999, p. 46.
- ↑ See on this motif Otto Betz : The thread of life. In: Symbolon. Jahrbuch für Symbolforschung 9, 1988, pp. 107-120, here: 107-111; Sylvie Ballestra-Puech: Les Parques , Toulouse 1999, pp. 77-88.
- ↑ Samson Eitrem : Moira. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (RE), Volume XV, 2, Stuttgart 1932, Sp. 2449–2497, here: 2477–2479, 2484 f .; Bernard Clive Dietrich: Death, Fate and the Gods , 2nd, corrected edition, London 1967, pp. 78-82, 85-87.
- ↑ See on Meleagrossage and its later modifications in Volkserzählungen Rolf Wilhelm Brednich : Volkserzählungen und Volksglaube von den Schicksalsfrauen , Helsinki 1964, pp. 17–31.
- ↑ William Chase Greene : Moira , Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1944, pp. 195-197.
- ↑ Ernst Steinbach: Der Faden der Schicksalsgottheiten , Leipzig 1931, p. 13, 15-21.
- ↑ Ernst Steinbach: Der Faden der Schicksalsgottheiten , Leipzig 1931, pp. 33–45.
- ↑ See on this expression Walter Pötscher : The Roman Fatum - Concept and Use. In: Rise and Fall of the Roman World , Volume II 16.1, Berlin 1978, pp. 393–424, here: 401–404; Sylvie Ballestra-Puech: Les Parques , Toulouse 1999, p. 46 f.
- ^ Markos Giannoulis: Die Moiren , Münster 2010, p. 12; Samson Eitrem: Moira. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (RE), Volume XV, 2, Stuttgart 1932, Sp. 2449–2497, here: 2484 f.
- ^ Walter Pötscher: The Roman fate - term and use. In: Rise and Fall of the Roman World , Volume II 16.1, Berlin 1978, pp. 393–424, here: 404–406.
- ↑ Stefano de Angeli provides an overview: Moirai. In: Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC) , Volume 6.1, Zurich / Munich 1992, pp. 636–648, here: 646–648.
- ↑ See the overview in Bernd Manuwald (ed.): Sophokles: König Ödipus , Berlin 2012, pp. 10-14.
- ↑ See Bernd Manuwald: Oidipus and Adrastos. In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 135, 1992, pp. 1–43, here: 1–5, 34–36 and the literature cited there; Bernd Manuwald (ed.): Sophokles: König Ödipus , Berlin 2012, pp. 29–33, 44 f .; Egon Flaig : Ödipus , Munich 1998, pp. 17-21.
- ↑ Egon Flaig: Ödipus , Munich 1998, pp. 19–28.
- ↑ Herodotus, Histories 1.91. Cf. Michael Krewet: Vernunft und Religion bei Herodot , Heidelberg 2017, pp. 282–284, 290 f.
- ↑ Herodotus, Historien 1,34–45. Cf. Michael Krewet: Vernunft und Religion bei Herodot , Heidelberg 2017, pp. 213–220.
- ↑ Michael Krewet: Vernunft und Religion bei Herodot , Heidelberg 2017, pp. 220–237.
- ↑ Homer, Iliad 23.78 f. See on the Keres and Daimones Johanna ter Vrugt-Lentz: Geister (demons). B. II. Pre-Hellenistic Greece. In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum , Volume 9, Stuttgart 1976, Sp. 598–615, here: 600–606, 609 f.
- ↑ See on the history of the Tyche Hans Herter : Tyche. In: Herter: Kleine Schriften , Munich 1975, pp. 76–90.
- ↑ See the compilation of arguments in David Amand: Fatalisme et liberté dans l'antiquité grecque , Louvain 1945, pp. 573-586.
- ↑ Dieter Bremer , Roman Dilcher: Heraklit . In: Hellmut Flashar et al. (Ed.): Ground plan of the history of philosophy . The Philosophy of Antiquity , Volume 1: Early Greek Philosophy , Half Volume 2, Basel 2013, pp. 601–656, here: 624; Miroslav Marcovich : Heraclitus: Greek text with a short commentary. Editio maior , Mérida 1967, pp. 502-504.
- ↑ David Amand: Fatalisme et liberté dans l'antiquité grecque , Louvain 1945, p. 29 f.
- ↑ David Amand: Fatalisme et liberté dans l'antiquité grecque , Louvain 1945, p. 30 f.
- ↑ Plato, Politeia 614b-617d. Cf. Dirk Cürsgen: Die Rationalität des Mythischen , Berlin 2002, p. 115 f.
- ^ Plato, Politeia 617d-620d. See Stephen Halliwell (Ed.): Plato: Republic 10 , Warminster 1988, pp. 183-191.
- ↑ Harald Seubert : Polis and Nomos , Berlin 2005, pp. 434–436; Wolfgang M. Zeitler: Freedom of choice in Platon , Munich 1983, pp. 114-136; Dirk Cürsgen: Die Rationalität des Mythischen , Berlin 2002, pp. 114–121.
- ↑ Christof Rapp: Aristotle for introduction , 4th, revised edition, Hamburg 2012, pp. 93–95 (brief, easily understandable summary); Hermann Weidemann (translator): Aristoteles: Peri hermeneias , Berlin 1994, pp. 300-324 (history of interpretation). Cf. Günther Patzig : Aristoteles, Łukasiewicz and the origins of multi-valued logic. In: Patzig: Gesammelte Schriften , Volume 3, Göttingen 1996, pp. 218–229, here: 218–222. Richard Gaskin: The Sea Battle and the Master Argument , Berlin / New York 1995, pp. 12-48 and William Lane Craig: The Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingents from Aristotle provide detailed accounts of the modern debate on Aristotle's conception to Suarez , Leiden et al. 1988, pp. 1-58.
- ↑ Dorothea Frede : Aristoteles and the "Sea Battle" , Göttingen 1970, p. 93; Klaus Döring : Socrates, the Socratics and the traditions they founded. In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/1, Basel 1998, pp. 139–364, here: 227–230.
- ↑ See the study by Richard Gaskin: The Sea Battle and the Master Argument , Berlin 1995 (his own attempt at reconstruction, pp. 282-296).
- ↑ A summary is provided by Magnus Schallenberg: Freiheit und Determinismus , Berlin 2008, pp. 18–22.
- ↑ Magnus Schallenberg: Freedom and Determinism , Berlin 2008, pp. 17 f., 22; Klaus Döring: Die Megariker , Amsterdam 1972, p. 134; Dorothea Frede: Aristoteles and the "Sea Battle" , Göttingen 1970, p. 93 f.
- ↑ Hermann Weidemann: The so-called master argument of Diodoros Kronos and the Aristotelian concept of possibility. In: Archive for the history of philosophy 69, 1987, pp. 18–53, here: p. 31 f. Note 38.
- ↑ Stamatios Gerogiorgakis: Futura contingentia, necessitas per accidens and predestination in Byzantium and in the Scholastik , Frankfurt 2017, pp. 49 f., 56 f., 59.
- ↑ Susanne Bobzien : Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy , Oxford 1998, pp. 16, 18, 28–33, 44–50; Aldo Magris: L'idea di destino nel pensiero antico , Volume 2, Udine 1984, pp. 518-522.
- ↑ Maximilian Forschner : Die stoische Ethik , Stuttgart 1981, pp. 104-113; Susanne Bobzien: Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy , Oxford 1998, pp. 3-11; Monika Oertner: Fatalismus , Konstanz 2005, pp. 101-107, 117-119.
- ↑ On the problem of translation see Woldemar Görler : ' Main causes' in Chrysipp and Cicero? In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 130, 1987, pp. 254–274, here: 254–259.
- ↑ See the explanations by Karl Bayer (ed.): M. Tulli Ciceronis De fato , Munich 1963, pp. 155–164. See Willy Theiler : Research on Neo-Platonism , Berlin 1966, pp. 73-78; Claudia Wiener : Stoic Doctrine in Roman Fiction , Munich / Leipzig 2006, pp. 246–252; Hermann Weidemann: An argument against fatalism in Cicero's writing about fate (De fato, XVII 40). In: Elenchos 22, 2001, pp. 111-120.
- ↑ See Susanne Bobzien: Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy , Oxford 1998, p. 291; Monika Oertner: Fatalism , Konstanz 2005, p. 100 f.
- ↑ Susanne Bobzien: Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy , Oxford 1998, pp. 97 f., 112-119.
- ↑ Susanne Bobzien: Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy , Oxford 1998, pp. 122-131.
- ^ Max Pohlenz : Die Stoa , 7th edition, Göttingen 1992, pp. 215-218; Aldo Magris: L'idea di destino nel pensiero antico , Volume 2, Udine 1984, pp. 544-547.
- ↑ Seneca, Epistulae morales 107, 11. See Gerda Busch: Fortunae resistere in the morality of the philosopher Seneca. In: Gregor Maurach (ed.): Seneca als Philosopher , Darmstadt 1975, pp. 53–94, here: 71–94; Marc Rozelaar: Seneca , Amsterdam 1976, pp. 454-459.
- ↑ Hans Rudolf Neuenschwander: Mark Aurels Relationships with Seneca and Poseidonios , Bern / Stuttgart 1951, p. 84 f.
- ↑ Magnus Schallenberg: Freiheit und Determinismus , Berlin 2008, pp. 28–31, provides a summary of the reasoning behind Carnead.
- ↑ Albrecht Dihle : The doctrines of fate of philosophy in the old church. In: Jürgen Wiesner (Ed.): Aristoteles. Work and Effect , Volume 2, Berlin 1987, pp. 52–71, here: 56–59.
- ↑ Proklos, On Providence, Fate and Free Will 7-13, 22, 44. See the commentary by Michael Erler : Proklos Diadochos: On Providence, Fate and Free Will to Theodoros, the engineer (mechanic) , Meisenheim am Glan 1980, pp. 18-35, 54 f., 100 f. and Margarita Kranz: Destiny. In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 8, Basel 1992, Sp. 1275–1289, here: 1278.
- ↑ Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 4, 6, 9–16. See Friedrich Klingner : Römische Geisteswelt , 4th, increased edition, Munich 1961, pp. 590-594.
- ↑ Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 5,1,8.
- ↑ Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 5: 3, 3–36. See Friedrich Klingner: Römische Geisteswelt , 4th, increased edition, Munich 1961, pp. 594–596.
- ↑ Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 5: 4-6. See Friedrich Klingner: Römische Geisteswelt , 4th, increased edition, Munich 1961, pp. 596–598.
- ↑ Joachim Gruber : Commentary on Boethius, De consolatione Philosophiae , 2nd, extended edition, Berlin 2006, p. 370.
- ↑ Aldo Magris: L'idea di destino nel pensiero antico , Volume 2, Udine 1984, pp. 547-553; Tim O'Keefe: Epicurus on Freedom , Cambridge 2005, pp. 17-21, 124-144; David Amand: Fatalisme et liberté dans l'antiquité grecque , Louvain 1945, pp. 119–126.
- ↑ Jürgen Hammerstaedt : The cynic Oenomaus von Gadara. In: Rise and Decline of the Roman World (ANRW) , Volume II 36.4, Berlin 1990, pp. 2834–2865, here: 2848–2850; Heinrich Otto Schröder: Fatum (Heimarmene) . In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum , Volume 7, Stuttgart 1969, Sp. 524–636, here: 551.
- ↑ Magnus Schallenberg: Freedom and Determinism. A philosophical commentary on Cicero's De fato , Berlin 2008, pp. IX, 2 f., 63–68; Elisabeth Begemann: Fate as Argument , Stuttgart 2012, pp. 66–69.
- ↑ Bärbel Platz: Fatum et libertas , Cologne 1973, pp. 16-18.
- ↑ Bärbel Platz: Fatum et libertas , Cologne 1973, pp. 51–53.
- ^ Heinrich Otto Schröder: Fatum (Heimarmene) . In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum , Volume 7, Stuttgart 1969, Sp. 524–636, here: 547–549. A detailed critical analysis is offered by Robert W. Sharples : Writings and Problem Complexes on Ethics. In: Paul Moraux : Aristotelianism among the Greeks , Volume 3, Berlin 2001, pp. 511–616, here: 514–578.
- ↑ Albrecht Dihle: The doctrines of fate of philosophy in the old church. In: Jürgen Wiesner (Ed.): Aristoteles. Work and Effect , Volume 2, Berlin 1987, pp. 52–71, here: 59 f.
- ↑ David Amand: Fatalisme et liberté dans l'antiquité grecque , Louvain 1945, pp. 11-15.
- ^ Vettius Valens, Anthologies 5,6. In: Vettii Valentis Antiocheni anthologiarum libri novem , edited by David Pingree, Leipzig 1986, p. 210. See Jan Bergman: “I Overcome Fate, Fate Harkens to Me”. In: Helmer Ringgren (Ed.): Fatalistic Beliefs in Religion, Folklore, and Literature , Stockholm 1967, pp. 35–51, here: 45; Aldo Magris: L'idea di destino nel pensiero antico , Volume 2, Udine 1984, p. 499 and note 55.
- ^ Heinrich Otto Schröder: Fatum (Heimarmene) . In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum , Volume 7, Stuttgart 1969, Sp. 524–636, here: 545.
- ↑ David Amand: Fatalisme et liberté dans l'antiquité grecque , Louvain 1945, pp. 73-76 (overview), 82-95 (on Philon), 96-100 (on Favorinus).
- ↑ See Martin P. Nilsson : History of the Greek Religion , Volume 1, 3rd, reviewed edition, Munich 1967, pp. 361–368.
- ↑ Homer, Iliad 20,127 f.
- ↑ Homer, Iliad 24.209 f.
- ↑ Homer, Iliad 6,487-489. See on the role of the moiren in Homer Bernard Clive Dietrich: Death, Fate and the Gods , 2nd, corrected edition, London 1967, pp. 179–193 (research history), 194–231 (own study). - Cf. Efstratios Sarischoulis: Fate, Gods and Freedom of Action in Homer's epics , Stuttgart 2008, pp. 21–26, 274–300. In his dissertation, Sarischoulis criticizes previous research and denies the superiority of fate in Homer; see. but the critical review by Pascale Hummel in Gnomon 82, 2010, p. 73.
- ↑ Hesiod, Theogony 901-906. Cf. Sylvie Ballestra-Puech: Les Parques , Toulouse 1999, p. 28 f .; Aldo Magris: L'idea di destino nel pensiero antico , Volume 1, Udine 1984, p. 267 f.
- ↑ Albin Lesky : The tragic poetry of the Hellenes , 3rd, expanded edition, Göttingen 1972, pp. 164–168, 272–274.
- ↑ Prometheus Fettered 511-525. See William Chase Greene: Moira , Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1944, p. 124 f.
- ↑ Sophocles, Antigone 1337 f. For Sophocles' understanding of fate, see William Chase Greene: Moira , Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1944, pp. 142–171.
- ↑ Euripides, Die Phoinikierinnen 1595.
- ^ William Chase Greene: Moira , Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1944, pp. 218 f.
- ^ Konrat Ziegler : Tyche. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (RE), Volume VII A, 2, Munich 1948, Sp. 1643–1696, here: 1657–1661.
- ↑ See Jacques Bompaire : Le destin dans le "Zeus confondu" de Lucien de Samosate. In: François Jouan (ed.): Visages du destin dans les mythologies , Paris 1983, pp. 131–136; David Amand: Fatalisme et liberté dans l'antiquité grecque , Louvain 1945, pp. 111-115.
- ↑ Achilleus Tatios, Leukippe and Kleitophon 5,2,3.
- ^ Gertrud Herzog-Hauser : Tyche. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (RE), Volume VII A, 2, Munich 1948, Sp. 1643–1689, here: 1670 f.
- ↑ Lucretius, De rerum natura 2, 251–293. For this position, see Elisabeth Begemann: Destiny as Argument , Stuttgart 2012, pp. 313–317.
- ↑ Catullus, Poems 64,305-383. Cf. Marco Fernandelli: Catullo e la rinascita dell'epos , Hildesheim 2012, pp. 289–307.
- ↑ Virgil, Eklogen 4.46 f. See Gerhard Binder : Song of the Parzen for the birth of Octavian. In: Gymnasium 90, 1983, pp. 102–122, here: 114–116.
- ↑ Horace, Oden 1, 12, 49-51. See Roland Mayer (Ed.): Horace: Odes. Book I , Cambridge 2012, p. 127.
- ↑ Tibullus , Elegies 1,7,1 f. Cf. Raffaele Perrelli: Commento a Tibullo: Elegie, libro I , Soveria Mannelli 2002, p. 216 f.
- ↑ Ovid, Metamorphoses 15.779-817. See Franz Bömer : P. Ovidius Naso: Metamorphosen. Comment. Book XIV-XV , Heidelberg 1986, p. 471.
- ^ Josèphe-Henriette Abry: Manilius. In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Volume 4, Paris 2005, pp. 248–254, here: 253; Franz-Frieder Lühr: Ratio and Fatum. Poetry and teaching by Manilius , Frankfurt 1969, pp. 112–116.
- ↑ Silius Italicus, Punica 17.361 f. See also Walter Pötscher: The Roman Fatum - Concept and Use. In: Rise and Fall of the Roman World , Volume II 16.1, Berlin 1978, pp. 393–424, here: 414 f.
- ↑ Statius, Silvae 1,4,1 f .; 1,4,63 f .; 3,1,171-179; 3,5,41. See Gabriel Laguna (ed.): Estacio, Silvas III , Sevilla 1992, p. 186 f .; Marcia L. Colish: The Stoic tradition from antiquity to the early Middle Ages , Volume 1, 2nd, supplemented edition, Leiden 1990, pp. 275-281.
- ↑ Heike Sternberg-el Hotabi: "I defeat fate". In: Reinhard Gregor Kratz, Hermann Spieckermann (ed.): Providence, fate and divine power , Tübingen 2008, pp. 40–60, here: 45–47.
- ↑ Claudian, Lob Stilichos 2,330–361. Cf. Jean-Louis Charlet (ed.): Claudien: Œuvres , Volume 3, Paris 2017, pp. 312-314.
- ^ Heinrich Otto Schröder: Fatum (Heimarmene) . In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum , Volume 7, Stuttgart 1969, Sp. 524–636, here: 580–585.
- ↑ Stamatios Gerogiorgakis: Futura contingentia, necessitas per accidens and predestination in Byzantium and in the Scholastik , Frankfurt 2017, p. 133.
- ^ Heinrich Otto Schröder: Fatum (Heimarmene) . In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum , Volume 7, Stuttgart 1969, Sp. 524–636, here: 579–626. A detailed study of the antifatalism of the Greek-speaking theologians is offered by David Amand: Fatalisme et liberté dans l'antiquité grecque , Louvain 1945, pp. 191 ff.
- ↑ Stamatios Gerogiorgakis: Futura contingentia, necessitas per accidens and predestination in Byzantium and in the Scholastik , Frankfurt 2017, p. 61 f.
- ↑ Augustine, Vom Gottesstaat 5: 1; 5.8 f. Compare Jan den Boeft: Fatum. In: Cornelius Mayer (Ed.): Augustinus-Lexikon , Volume 2, Basel 1996–2002, Sp. 1240–1244; Heinrich Otto Schröder: Fatum (Heimarmene) . In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum , Volume 7, Stuttgart 1969, Sp. 524–636, here: 585, 616–621.
- ↑ See also Kurt Flasch : Freedom of Will: 850–1150. In: Johannes Fried (Ed.): The Occidental Freedom from the 10th to the 14th Century , Sigmaringen 1991, pp. 17–47, here: 23–27.
- ↑ See the overview in Hans Jonas : Gnosis , Frankfurt 2008, pp. 69–74; see. but the corrections to Jonas' understanding of Gnosis in the more recent studies by Nicola Denzey Lewis: Cosmology and Fate in Gnosticism and Graeco-Roman Antiquity , Leiden 2013, pp. 13-25, 29-31 (with a discussion of the history of research) and Ismo O. Dunderberg : Beyond Gnosticism , New York 2008, p. 133.
- ↑ Nicola Denzey Lewis: Cosmology and Fate in Gnosticism and Graeco-Roman Antiquity , Leiden 2013, pp. 147 f., 152-159, 185-190; Giovanni Filoramo: A history of Gnosticism , Oxford 1990, pp. 119 f .; David Amand: Fatalisme et liberté dans l'antiquité grecque , Louvain 1945, pp. 25-28.
- ↑ Albrecht Dihle: To the doctrine of fate of Bardesanes. In: Adolf Martin Ritter (Ed.): Kerygma and Logos , Göttingen 1979, pp. 123–135, here: 123 f.
- ↑ Aldo Magris: L'idea di destino nel pensiero antico , Volume 2, Udine 1984, pp. 504-508; Wilhelm Gundel : Heimarmene. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (RE), Volume VII, 2, Stuttgart 1912, Sp. 2622–2645, here: 2638 f .; Heinrich Otto Schröder: Fatum (Heimarmene) . In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum , Volume 7, Stuttgart 1969, Sp. 524–636, here: 568–570.
- ↑ Chaldean Oracle , fragments 102 and 103. Cf. Ruth Majercik (Ed.): The Chaldean Oracles , Leiden 1989, pp. 18, 180.
- ↑ Chaldean Oracle , Fragment 153. Cf. Ruth Majercik (Ed.): The Chaldean Oracles , Leiden 1989, pp. 18, 198.
- ^ Wilhelm Gundel: Heimarmene. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (RE), Volume VII, 2, Stuttgart 1912, Sp. 2622–2645, here: 2640–2642.
- ↑ Hildegard Kirschenknapp: Parzen and Nornen , Frankfurt 2000, pp. 19–21; Sylvie Ballestra-Puech: Les Parques , Toulouse 1999, p. 32 f.
- ↑ Rudolf Simek offers an overview : Schicksal, Schicksalsglaube . In: Lexikon des Mittelalters , Volume 7, Munich 1995, Sp. 1453 f.
- ^ Fritz Heichelheim : Parcae (Celtic). In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (RE), Volume XVIII, 4, Munich 1949, Sp. 1417-1419.
- ^ Ambros Josef Pfiffig : Religio Etrusca , Wiesbaden 1998, pp. 146-150.
- ↑ Kianoosh Rezania: Die Zoroastrische Zeitvorstellung , Wiesbaden 2010, pp. 139–142. See Helmer Ringgren: Fatalism in Persian Epics , Wiesbaden 1952, p. 90 f.
- ↑ Kianoosh Rezania: The Zoroastrian conception of time , Wiesbaden 2010, pp 140-142.
- ↑ Kianoosh Rezania: Die Zoroastrische Zeitvorstellung , Wiesbaden 2010, pp. 204-207. See Helmer Ringgren: Fatalism in Persian Epics , Wiesbaden 1952, pp. 23-35; Robert C. Zaehner: Zurvan , Oxford 1955, pp. 254-261.
- ↑ Helmer Ringgren: Studies in Arabian Fatalism , Wiesbaden 1955, pp. 6-9, 30-40.
- ^ Friedrich Nötscher: Belief in fate in Qumran and the environment. In: Nötscher: From the Old to the New Testament , Bonn 1962, pp. 17–71, here: 67 f.
- ↑ Ruben Schneider: Sein, Gott, Freiheit , Münster 2016, pp. 19–22, provides an overview of the problem and the possible solutions, and a summary of Stamatios Gerogiorgakis: Futura contingentia, necessitas per accidens and predestination in Byzantium and in the Scholastik , Frankfurt 2017 , Pp. 365-369.
- Jump up ↑ Overview: Simo Knuuttila: Future Contingents. In: Henrik Lagerlund (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy , Volume 1, Dordrecht 2011, pp. 371–374; Peter Adamson : Freedom and Determinism. In: Robert Pasnau, Christina Van Dyke (eds.): The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy , Volume 1, Cambridge 2010, pp. 399-413, here: 407-412; Calvin Normore: Future contingents. In: Norman Kretzmann et al. (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy , Cambridge 1982, pp. 358–381; Stamatios Gerogiorgakis: Futura contingentia, necessitas per accidens and predestination in Byzantium and in the Scholastik , Frankfurt 2017, pp. 287–291.
- ↑ See also Loris Sturlese : Die deutsche Philosophie im Mittelalter , Munich 1993, pp. 31–36; Kurt Flasch: Freedom of Will: 850–1150. In: Johannes Fried (Ed.): The Occidental Freedom from the 10th to the 14th Century , Sigmaringen 1991, pp. 17–47, here: 34–37.
- ↑ Kurt Flasch: Freedom of Will: 850–1150. In: Johannes Fried (Ed.): The Occidental Freedom from the 10th to the 14th Century , Sigmaringen 1991, pp. 17–47, here: 36 f .; Stamatios Gerogiorgakis: Futura contingentia, necessitas per accidens and predestination in Byzantium and in the Scholastic , Frankfurt 2017, p. 68 f.
- ↑ David N. Bell (ed.): Bartholomaei Exoniensis Contra fatalitatis errorem , Turnhout 1996 (for dating p. XXI).
- ↑ Calvin Normore: Future contingent gents. In: Norman Kretzmann et al. (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy , Cambridge 1982, pp. 358–381; William Lane Craig: The Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingents from Aristotle to Suarez , Leiden et al. 1988, pp. 1, 99-168.
- ↑ Stamatios Gerogiorgakis: Futura contingentia, necessitas per accidens and predestination in Byzantium and in scholasticism , Frankfurt 2017, pp 215-228, 250th
- ↑ Stamatios Gerogiorgakis: Futura contingentia, necessitas per accidens and predestination in Byzantium and in the Scholastik , Frankfurt 2017, pp. 190–197, 264–270.
- ^ Franz Tinnefeld : Fate and Predestination in the Thinking of the Byzantines. In: Das Mittelalter 1, 1996, pp. 21–42, here: 39; Stamatios Gerogiorgakis: Futura contingentia, necessitas per accidens and predestination in Byzantium and in the Scholastic , Frankfurt 2017, pp. 68, 134 f.
- ↑ Stamatios Gerogiorgakis: Futura contingentia, necessitas per accidens and predestination in Byzantium and in the Scholastik , Frankfurt 2017, pp. 68–71.
- ↑ Édouard des Places (ed.): Oracles chaldaïques avec un choix de commentaires anciens , 5th edition, Paris 2010, p. 183. See Michael Stausberg : Faszination Zarathustra , Part 1, Berlin 1998, p. 185.
- ^ Franz Tinnefeld: Fate and Predestination in the Thinking of the Byzantines. In: Das Mittelalter 1, 1996, pp. 21–42, here: 31 f .; see. the translation of a relevant passage from Plethon's Nomoi in: Wilhelm Blum, Walter Seitter (eds.): Georgios Gemistos Plethon (1355–1452) , Zurich / Berlin 2005, pp. 13–17.
- ↑ See Winthrop Wetherbee (ed.): Bernardus Silvestris: Poetic Works , Cambridge (Massachusetts) / London 2015, pp. XXXIII – XXXVIII. See the detailed interpretation by Christine Ratkowitsch : Astrology and Suicide in Mathematicus. In: Wiener Studien 112, 1999, pp. 175–229.
- ↑ For the history of the wheel of fortune motif see Howard R. Patch: The Goddess Fortuna in Mediaeval Literature , New York 1967 (reprint of the 1927 edition), pp. 147–177; Adriaan Miltenburg: Fortuna. In: Lexikon des Mittelalters , Volume 4, Munich / Zurich 1989, Sp. 665 f.
- ↑ Eckhard Kessler: Petrarca and the story , Munich 1978, pp. 148–151, 155–158.
- ^ Walter Rüegg : Origin, sources and aim of Salutatis 'De fato et fortuna'. In: Rinascimento 5, 1954, pp. 143-190, here: 144-147, 178.
- ^ Antonino Poppi: Fate, fortune, providence and human freedom. In: Charles B. Schmitt (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy , Cambridge 1988, pp. 641–667, here: 647 f.
- ↑ Michael Stausberg: Fascination Zarathustra , Part 1, Berlin 1998, p. 184 f.
- ↑ Gernot Michael Müller : Moiren. In: Maria Moog-Grünewald (Ed.): Mythenrezeption (= Der Neue Pauly . Supplements , Volume 5), Stuttgart / Weimar 2008, pp. 436–440, here: 439 f. The drawing is in the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam .
- ↑ Franziska Rehlinghaus: Die Semantik des Schicksals , Göttingen 2015, p. 134 f .; Theodor Mahlmann: Predestination. V. Reformation to modern times. In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Volume 27, Berlin 1997, pp. 118–156, here: 118–130; Monika Oertner: Fatalismus , Konstanz 2005, pp. 128–143.
- ↑ Monika Oertner: Fatalismus , Konstanz 2005, pp. 128-134.
- ↑ Max Weber: Collected essays on the sociology of religion , 5th edition, Tübingen 1963, p. 93 f.
- ↑ Monika Oertner: Fatalismus , Konstanz 2005, p. 163, note 356.
- ↑ Franziska Rehlinghaus: Die Semantik des Schicksals , Göttingen 2015, pp. 72–78.
- ^ Barbara Handwerker Küchenhoff: Spinoza's Theory of Affect , Würzburg 2006, pp. 87–90; Franziska Rehlinghaus: Die Semantik des Schicksals , Göttingen 2015, pp. 87–89, 100–111.
- ^ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Essais de théodicée (= Leibniz: Philosophische Schriften , Volume 2/1), ed. by Herbert Herring, Darmstadt 1985, pp. 14-22. On Leibniz 'understanding of fatalism, see Franziska Rehlinghaus: Die Semantik des Schicksals , Göttingen 2015, pp. 138–142.
- ↑ Franziska Rehlinghaus: Die Semantik des Schicksals , Göttingen 2015, p. 126 f .; Bärbel Platz: Fatum et libertas , Cologne 1973, pp. 103–115.
- ↑ Franziska Rehlinghaus: Die Semantik des Schicksals , Göttingen 2015, pp. 142–148.
- ↑ Birgit Sandkaulen: reason and cause , Munich 2000, pp. 54–63; Jürgen Ruhnau: Fatalism . In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 2, Basel 1972, Sp. 913–915, here: 913. For the Spinozismusstreit see the overview by Thomas Leinkauf : Der Pantheismusstreit. In: Helmut Holzhey , Vilem Mudroch (Hrsg.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The Philosophy of the 18th Century , Volume 5, Half Volume 1, Basel 2014, pp. 607–618.
- ↑ Franziska Rehlinghaus: Die Semantik des Schicksals , Göttingen 2015, p. 127.
- ↑ See Yvon Belaval (ed.): Diderot: Jacques le Fataliste et son maître , Paris 2016, pp. 30–33; Monika Oertner: Fatalismus , Konstanz 2005, pp. 3–9.
- ↑ Immanuel Kant: Prolegomena to every future metaphysics , § 60.
- ↑ Immanuel Kant: Critique of Practical Reason 181. Cf. Georg Sans : Fatalismus. In: Marcus Willaschek et al. (Ed.): Kant-Lexikon , Volume 1, Berlin 2015, p. 601; Georg von Wallwitz: Kant on fatalism and spontaneity. In: Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie 28, 2003, pp. 207–227, here: 210, 212.
- ^ Georg von Wallwitz: Kant on fatalism and spontaneity. In: Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie 28, 2003, pp. 207–227, here: 214 f.
- ↑ Johannes Römelt: " Notice yourself" . In: Fichte-Studien 1, 1990, pp. 73-98, here: 75 f .; Jürgen Ruhnau: Fatalism . In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 2, Basel 1972, Sp. 913–915, here: 914.
- ↑ Horst D. Brandt, Peter Müller (ed.): Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling: System des transzendentalen Idealismus , Hamburg 1992, p. 271 f. Cf. Christian Danz : History as a progressive revelation of God. In: Christian Danz et al. (Ed.): System alsreality, Würzburg 2001, pp. 69–82, here: 79–81.
- ^ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Lectures on Aesthetics II (= Hegel: Works , Volume 14), ed. by Eva Moldenhauer , Karl Markus Michel , Frankfurt 1970, p. 108 f. Cf. Dieter Bremer: The concept of fate in Hegel and its Greek origins. In: Antike und Abendland 35, 1989, pp. 24–38, here: 32–38.
- ↑ Arthur Schopenhauer: Parerga and Paralipomena I (= Schopenhauer: Complete Works , Volume 4), ed. by Wolfgang von Löhneysen , Darmstadt 1963, p. 247.
- ↑ Arthur Schopenhauer: The world as will and idea I (= Schopenhauer: Complete Works , Volume 1), ed. by Wolfgang von Löhneysen, Darmstadt 1961, p. 174.
- ↑ Arthur Schopenhauer: Price publication on the freedom of the will. In: Schopenhauer: Kleinere Schriften (= Complete Works , Volume 3), ed. by Wolfgang von Löhneysen, Darmstadt 1968, pp. 519–627, here: 581.
- ↑ Arthur Schopenhauer: Parerga and Paralipomena I (= Schopenhauer: Complete Works , Volume 4), ed. by Wolfgang von Löhneysen, Darmstadt 1963, pp. 248-256. On Schopenhauer's point of view, see Kiyoshi Nishigami: Nietzsches Amor fati , Frankfurt 1993, pp. 220–223.
- ^ Sören Kierkegaard: Die Kranken zum Tode, translated by Hans Rochol, Hamburg 1995, pp. 38–40. Cf. Jürgen Boomgaarden: The lost self , Göttingen 2016, pp. 158–160, 163 f.
- ^ Sören Kierkegaard: The term fear , translated by Hans Rochol, Hamburg 1984, p. 105 f. See Michael Bösch : Søren Kierkegaard: Schicksal - Angst - Freiheit , Paderborn 1994, pp. 111–115, 123–126.
- ↑ See also Robert C. Solomon: Nietzsche on Fatalism and “Free Will”. In: The Journal of Nietzsche Studies 23, 2002, pp. 63–87, here: 63 f., 66–71; Kiyoshi Nishigami: Nietzsches Amor fati , Frankfurt 1993, pp. 229-237, 252, 268 f.
- ^ Eduard von Hartmann: Phenomenology of moral consciousness , Berlin 1879, p. 737 f.
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- ↑ Oswald Spengler: primal questions , Munich 1965, pp 346, 349. See to Spengler's fatalism Michael Biddiss: History as Destiny: Gobineau, HS Chamberlain and Spengler. In: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 7, 1997, pp. 73-100, here: 89-92.
- ↑ Thomas Mann: About Spengler's teaching. In: Mann: Reden und Aufzüge , Volume 2, 2nd, reviewed edition, Frankfurt 1960, pp. 172–180, here: 174. See Barbara Beßlich : Faszination des Verfall , Berlin 2002, pp. 47–52.
- ^ Karl Jaspers: Psychology of Weltanschauungen , Berlin 1919, p. 240 f.
- ^ Max Scheler: Forms of Knowledge and Society , 2nd, reviewed edition, Bern 1960, p. 40 f.
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- ↑ Gilbert Ryle: It Was To Be. In: Ryle: Dilemmas , Cambridge 1954, pp. 15–35, here: 21–24, 26–28. See Steven M. Cahn: Fate, Logic, and Time , New Haven / London 1967, p. 41 f.
- ^ Alfred Jules Ayer: Fatalism. In: Ayer: The Concept of a Person , London 1963, pp. 235–268, here: 247–255.
- ^ Arthur Norman Prior: The Formalities of Omniscience. In: Philosophy 37, 1962, pp. 114-129.
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- ↑ See the compilation of the contributions in Steven M. Cahn, Maureen Eckert (Ed.): Fate, Time, and Language , New York 2011.
- ^ Steven M. Cahn: Introduction. In: Steven M. Cahn, Maureen Eckert (Eds.): Fate, Time, and Language , New York 2011, pp. 37-39.
- ↑ John Randolph Lucas: The Future , Oxford 1989, pp. 182-201.
- ↑ Mark Jago: Fatalism. In: The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy , Volume 2, London / New York 2006, pp. 1059 f., Here: 1059.
- ^ Nelson Pike: Divine Omniscience and Voluntary Action. In: The Philosophical Review 74, 1965, pp. 27-46.
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- ↑ Linda Zagzebski: Eternity and Fatalism. In: Christian Tapp , Edmund Runggaldier (eds.): God, Eternity, and Time , Farnham 2011, pp. 65–80.
- ↑ Steven M. Cahn, Maureen Eckert (Eds.): Fate, Time, and Language , New York 2011.
- ^ Peter Sloterdijk: Questions of fate. A novel about thinking. In: Dietmar Jaegle (Ed.): Destiny. Seven times seven inevitable things , Marbach 2011, pp. 15–72, here: 69 f.
- ^ Paul Hankamer : Tragedy of fate. In: Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturgeschichte , 2nd edition, Volume 3, Berlin 1977, pp. 626–633, here: 626 f., 633; Franziska Rehlinghaus: Die Semantik des Schicksals , Göttingen 2015, pp. 217–220.
- ^ Rudolf Werner: Die Schicksaltragödie and the Theater of Romanticism , Munich 1963, pp. 7-11, 140.
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- ^ Rolf Wilhelm Brednich: Stories of fate, women of fate, child of fate. In: Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales , Volume 11, Berlin 2004, Col. 1386–1406, here: 1386 f. Rolf Wilhelm Brednich offers extensive material: Volkserzählungen und Volksglaube von den Schicksalsfrauen , Helsinki 1964, pp. 78–148.
- ^ Rolf Wilhelm Brednich: Stories of fate, women of fate, child of fate. In: Enzyklopädie des Märchen , Volume 11, Berlin 2004, Sp. 1386–1406, here: 1387, 1395 f.
- ↑ Rolf Wilhelm Brednich: Volkserzählungen und Volksglaube von den Schicksalsfrauen , Helsinki 1964, p. 222.
- ^ Albert Doja: La mythologie du destin dans la tradition Albanaise et les autres populations sud-est européennes. In: Südost-Forschungen 56, 1997, pp. 189–211, here: 202–206.
- ↑ Georgios Megas: The Moiren as a functional factor in the modern Greek fairy tale. In: Hugo Kuhn , Kurt Schier (ed.): Märchen, Mythos, Dichtung , Munich 1963, pp. 47–62, here: 47–49; Katerina Krikos – Davis: Moira at birth in Greek tradition. In: Folia Neohellenica 4, 1982, pp. 106-134, here: 115-118, 125-130; Rolf Wilhelm Brednich: Folk tales and folk beliefs from the women of fate , Helsinki 1964, pp. 19–28, 159–167.
- ^ Rolf Wilhelm Brednich: Volkserzählungen und Volksglaube von den Schicksalsfrauen , Helsinki 1964, pp. 167–172; Sylvie Ballestra-Puech: Les Parques , Toulouse 1999, pp. 67-71.
- ^ Rolf Wilhelm Brednich: Volkserzählungen und Volksglaube von den Schicksalsfrauen , Helsinki 1964, pp. 172-188.
- ↑ Rolf Wilhelm Brednich: Volkserzählungen und Volksglaube von den Schicksalsfrauen , Helsinki 1964, pp. 189–195.
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- ↑ Jerold C. Frakes provides a research overview: The Fate of Fortune in the Early Middle Ages , Leiden 1988, pp. 83-100. Cf. Gerd Wolfgang Weber: Wyrd , Bad Homburg 1969, pp. 14-17, 20 f., 125 f.
- ^ Åke V. Ström, Haralds Biezais : Germanische und Baltische Religion , Stuttgart 1975, pp. 249-255; Eduard Neumann : The fate in the Edda , Volume 1, Giessen 1955, p. 50 f.
- ^ François-Xavier Dillmann: Nornen. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde , Volume 21, Berlin 2002, pp. 388–394, here: 389–392; Anthony Winterbourne: When the Norns Have Spoken , Madison 2004, pp. 92-103.
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- ^ Friedrich Nötscher: Belief in fate in Qumran and the environment. In: Nötscher: Vom Alten zum Neuen Testament , Bonn 1962, pp. 17–71, here: 68 f .; Dalya Cohen-Mor: A Matter of Fate , Oxford 2001, pp. 51-53.
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- ↑ Dalya Cohen-Mor: A Matter of Fate , Oxford 2001, p. 31. Cf. Helmer Ringgren: Studies in Arabian Fatalism , Wiesbaden 1955, pp. 97-104.
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- ↑ Helmer Ringgren: Fatalism in Persian Epics , Wiesbaden 1952, pp. 5 f., 9-23, 49-79, 129 f .; Geo Widengren : Iranische Geisteswelt , Baden-Baden 1961, p. 107 f.
- ↑ ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Zarrīnkūb: Fatalism. In: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica , Volume 9, New York 1999, pp. 396-398.
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- ↑ Confucius, Lun yu 14:36.
- ↑ Konrad Meisig: The Ethics of Confucius. In: Konrad Meisig (Ed.): Chinese Religion and Philosophy , Wiesbaden 2005, pp. 1–33, here: 3–5; Tilemann Grimm : Meister Kung , Opladen 1976, p. 22 f .; Yixia Wei: The Chinese Philosophy of Fate , Singapore 2017, pp. 1–5, 33–39.
- ↑ See the study by Michael Puett: Following the Commands of Heaven. The Notion of Ming in Early China. In: Christopher Lupke (Ed.): The Magnitude of Ming , Honolulu 2005, pp. 49-69.
- ↑ Mengzi 2B13. See Hubert Schleichert , Heiner Roetz : Classic Chinese Philosophy , 3rd, revised edition, Frankfurt 2009, p. 73.
- ↑ Konrad Meisig: The Ethics of Confucius. In: Konrad Meisig (Ed.): Chinese Religion and Philosophy , Wiesbaden 2005, pp. 1–33, here: 5 f.
- ↑ Ning Huang: How Chinese think , Munich 2008, p. 40; Ted Slingerland: The Conception of Ming in Early Confucian Thought. In: Philosophy East & West 46, 1996, pp. 567-581.
- ^ Hubert Schleichert, Heiner Roetz: Classic Chinese Philosophy , 3rd, revised edition, Frankfurt 2009, pp. 72–77.
- ^ Hubert Schleichert, Heiner Roetz: Classical Chinese Philosophy , 3rd, revised edition, Frankfurt 2009, pp. 67–69; Fung Yu-Lan : A History of Chinese Philosophy , Volume 1, Princeton 1952, pp. 115-117.
- ^ Fung Yu-Lan: A History of Chinese Philosophy , Volume 1, Princeton 1952, p. 99 f .; Reinhard Emmerich: Religious attitudes of the Mohists. In: Konrad Meisig (Ed.): Chinese Religion and Philosophy , Wiesbaden 2005, pp. 35–52, here: 46–48.
- ↑ Chris Fraser: The Philosophy of the Mòzǐ , New York 2016, pp. 40–48; Yixia Wei: The Chinese Philosophy of Fate , Singapore 2017, pp. 13-23.
- ↑ Fung Yu-Lan: A History of Chinese Philosophy , Volume 2, Princeton 1953, pp. 162-164.
- ^ Fung Yu-Lan: A History of Chinese Philosophy , Volume 2, Princeton 1953, pp. 163 f .; Yixia Wei: The Chinese Philosophy of Fate , Singapore 2017, pp. 93 f., 101-103.
- ↑ Fung Yu-Lan: A History of Chinese Philosophy , Volume 2, Princeton 1953, pp. 164-167; Yixia Wei: The Chinese Philosophy of Fate , Singapore 2017, pp. 93, 97.
- ^ Hubert Schleichert, Heiner Roetz: Classic Chinese Philosophy , 3rd, revised edition, Frankfurt 2009, p. 75.
- ↑ Geo Widengren: Hochgottglaube im alten Iran , Uppsala / Leipzig 1938, pp. 8 f., 11 f., 18 f., 23, 37, 42, 44–47, 60, 65–67, 87–93.
