Misplaced Pages

#522477

40-474: In the work, Cicero analyzes the concept of Fate , and suggests that free will is a condition of Fate. Cicero, however, does not consciously deal with the distinction between fatalism and determinism . It appears that De Fato is an appendix to the treatise on theology formed by the three books of De Natura Deorum and the two books of De Divinatione . These three books provide important information regarding Stoic cosmology and theology . De fato

80-453: A predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual. Although often used interchangeably, the words fate and destiny have distinct connotations. Traditional usage defines fate as a power or agency that predetermines and orders the course or set of events positively or negatively affecting someone or a group, or in an idiom , to tell someone's fortune , or simply the result of chance and events. In Hellenistic civilization ,

120-406: A deep challenge to the basis of how philosophy had been systematized. Immanuel Kant is a name that most would mention as being among the most important of influences, as is Jean-Jacques Rousseau . While both of these philosophers were products of the 18th century and its assumptions, they pressed at the boundaries. In trying to explain the nature of the state and government, Rousseau would challenge

160-623: A dramatic effect on subsequent developments in philosophy . In particular, the works of Immanuel Kant gave rise to a new generation of German philosophers and began to see wider recognition internationally. Also, in a reaction to the Enlightenment, a movement called Romanticism began to develop towards the end of the 18th century. Key ideas that sparked changes in philosophy were the fast progress of science, including evolution , most notably postulated by Charles Darwin , Alfred Russel Wallace and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , and theories regarding what

200-595: A manifestation of the Will to Live, which can be at the same time living fate and choice of overrunning fate, by means of the Art , of the Morality and of the Ascesis . For Friedrich Nietzsche , destiny keeps the form of Amor fati (Love of Fate) through the important element of Nietzsche's philosophy, the " will to power " (der Wille zur Macht ), the basis of human behavior, influenced by

240-438: A necessity for moral life. Ultimately, Cicero maintains this position as he is emotionally convinced that it is in man's power to achieve virtue for himself; if determinism were the order of things, then such ability would not be true. Fate Destiny , sometimes also called fate (from Latin fatum  'decree, prediction, destiny, fate'), is a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as

280-501: Is a self-producing and changing process. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , a student of Fichte, continued to develop many of the same ideas and was also assimilated by the Romantics as something of an official philosopher for their movement. But it was another of Fichte's students, and former roommate of Schelling, who would rise to become the most prominent of the post-Kantian idealists: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel . His work revealed

320-454: Is famous up to this day. This is a partial list of schools of 19th-century philosophy (also known as late modern philosophy ). One of the first philosophers to attempt to grapple with Kant's philosophy was Johann Gottlieb Fichte , whose development of Kantian metaphysics became a source of inspiration for the Romantics . In Wissenschaftslehre , Fichte argues that the self posits itself and

360-421: Is never conceived as being a spiritual, religious, nor astrological notion; fate is typically thought of as being "given" or "decreed" while determinism is "caused". Influential philosophers like Robert Kane , Thomas Nagel , Roderick Chisholm , and A. J. Ayer have written about this notion. Among the representatives of depth psychology school, the greatest contribution to the study of the notion such as "fate"

400-401: Is not within us, desire itself is not in our power; and if this is so, then those things which are brought about by desire are not within us. Therefore neither assent nor action is in our power; and from this it follows that neither praise nor blame are just, nor honours nor punishment" Cicero essentially dismisses this proposition as antithetical to what is observed, but postulates freedom as

440-599: Is one of the Endless , depicted as a blind man carrying a book that contains all the past and all the future. "Destiny is the oldest of the Endless; in the Beginning was the Word, and it was traced by hand on the first page of his book, before ever it was spoken aloud." 19th-century philosophy In the 19th century , the philosophers of the 18th-century Enlightenment began to have

SECTION 10

#1732859383523

480-573: Is part of the second group of Cicero's writings. The work was composed at Pozzuoli between April 17 and May 23 of 44 BC. In any case, the work would have most likely been completed prior to Cicero's abortive departure for Greece in July of that year. The work was written in haste, as Cicero was planning to return to the political arena. Hirtius notes that Cicero has adopted the Academic method of investigation: arguing against all propositions. Therefore, he outlines

520-454: Is today called emergent order , such as the free market of Adam Smith within nation states, or the Marxist approach concerning class warfare between the ruling class and the working class developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . Pressures for egalitarianism , and more rapid change culminated in a period of revolution and turbulence that would see philosophy change as well. With

560-428: The fate , but in such way it becomes even another thing, precisely a "choice" destiny. Determinism is a philosophical concept often confused with fate. It can be defined as the notion that all intents/actions are causally determined by the culminations of an agent's existing circumstances; simply put, everything that happens is determined by things that have already happened. Determinism differs from fate in that it

600-473: The feudal society , and then into his present era of the Industrial Revolution , after which he held that the next step was for the proletariat to overthrow the owners of industry and establish a socialist society, which would further develop into a communist society, in which class distinctions, money, and the state would have withered from existence entirely. Marxism had a profound influence on

640-485: The materialist viewpoint. Marx analysed history itself as the progression of dialectics in the form of class struggle . From this it is argued that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." According to Marx, this began with the phase of primitive communism ( hunter-gatherer society), after which the Neolithic Revolution gave way to slave societies , progressing into

680-551: The 'unconscious swarm-life of mankind', while Shakespeare spoke of a 'tide in the affairs of men' in his play Julius Caesar . In ancient Greece, many legends and tales teach the futility of trying to outmaneuver an inexorable fate that has been correctly predicted. This portrayal of fate is present in works such as Oedipus Rex (427 BCE), the Iliad , the Odyssey (800 BCE), and Theogony . Many ancient Chinese works have also portrayed

720-560: The Bible . In the second half of the 19th century, an even more orthodox return to Kantian thought was espoused by a number of Neo-Kantian philosophers based in two main locations: the Marburg School and the Baden School. This trend of thought survived into the beginning of the next century, influencing 20th-century philosophical movements such as neopositivism and phenomenology . One of

760-659: The Renaissance, and survives in some forms today. Philosophy on the concepts of destiny and fate has existed since the Hellenistic period with groups such as the Stoics and the Epicureans . The Stoics believed that human decisions and actions ultimately went according to a divine plan devised by a god. They claimed that although humans theoretically have free will , their souls and the circumstances under which they live are all part of

800-443: The Will to Live of Schopenhauer. But this concept may have even other senses, although he, in various places, saw the will to power as a strong element for adaptation or survival in a better way. Nietzsche eventually transformed the idea of matter as centers of force into matter as centers of will to power as humanity's destiny to face with amor fati . The expression Amor fati is used repeatedly by Nietzsche as acceptation-choice of

840-408: The basis of government with his declaration that "Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains". Kant, while attempting to preserve axiomic skepticism, was forced to argue that we do not see true reality, nor do we speak of it. All we know of reality is appearances. Since all we can see of reality is appearances, which are subject to certain necessary and subjective forms of perceptions, Kant postulates

SECTION 20

#1732859383523

880-451: The chaotic and unforeseeable turns of chance gave increasing prominence to a previously less notable goddess, Tyche (literally " Luck "), who embodied the good fortune of a city and all whose lives depended on its security and prosperity, two good qualities of life that appeared to be out of human reach. The Roman image of Fortuna , with the wheel she blindly turned, was retained by Christian writers including Boethius , revived strongly in

920-831: The concept of fate, most notably the Liezi , Mengzi , and the Zhuangzi . Similarly, and in Italy, the Spanish Duque de Rivas ' play that Verdi transformed into La Forza del Destino ("The Force of Destiny") includes notions of fate. In England, fate has played a notable literary role in Shakespeare's Macbeth (1606), Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), Samuel Beckett's Endgame (1957), and W.W Jacobs' popular short story " The Monkey's Paw " (1902). In America, Thornton Wilder 's book The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) portrays

960-533: The conception of fate. In Germany, fate is a recurring theme in the literature of Hermann Hesse (1877–1962), including Siddharta (1922) and his magnum opus, Das Glasperlenspiel, also published as The Glass Bead Game (1943). And by Hollywood through such characters as Neo in The Matrix . The common theme of these works involves a protagonist who cannot escape their destiny, however hard they try. In Neil Gaiman 's graphic novel series The Sandman , destiny

1000-419: The founders of utilitarianism, though the basic concept predates either of the two philosophers. Utilitarianism remains as one of the more appealing and compelling approaches to normative ethics. Developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the mid-to-late-19th century, Marxism is a sociopolitical and economic view based on the philosophy of dialectical materialism , which opposes idealism in favour of

1040-528: The history of the 20th century. Existentialism as a philosophical movement is properly a 20th-century movement, but its major antecedents, Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche wrote long before the rise of existentialism. In the 1840s, academic philosophy in Europe, following Hegel, was almost completely divorced from the concerns of individual human life, in favour of pursuing abstract metaphysical systems. Kierkegaard sought to reintroduce to philosophy, in

1080-458: The idea of an unknowable (while at the same time limiting our use of science and the principle of causality to the appearances). Hegel's distinction between the unknowable and the circumstantially unknown can be seen as the beginnings of Hegel's rational system of the universe. Yet another philosopher of the late Enlightenment that was influential in the 19th century was Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827), whose formulation of nomological determinism

1120-493: The increasing importance of historical thinking in German thought. Arthur Schopenhauer , rejecting Hegel and also materialism, called for a return to Kantian transcendentalism, at the same time adopting atheism and determinism , amongst others. His secular thought became more popular in Europe in the second half of the 19th century, which coincided with the advents of Darwinism , positivism , Marxism and philological analysis of

1160-464: The individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions. "Social Darwinism" refers to theories that apply the evolutionary concept of natural selection to human society in fields such as sociology, economics, and politics. Two major thinkers of this movement were Herbert Spencer and Francis Galton . Ontologism is an ideological system, favored by many Catholic philosophers, which asserts that God and Divine ideas are

1200-468: The major thinkers of British idealism . Transcendentalism was rooted in Immanuel Kant 's transcendence and German idealism , led by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau , who encountered German ideas through their readings of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas Carlyle . The main belief was in an ideal spiritual state that 'transcends' the physical and empirical and is only realized through

1240-419: The meekness and humility of Europe's slave-morality. Both philosophers are precursors to existentialism, among other ideas, for their importance on the "great man" against the age. Kierkegaard wrote of 19th-century Europe, "Each age has its own characteristic depravity. Ours is perhaps not pleasure or indulgence or sensuality, but rather a dissolute pantheistic contempt for the individual man." Auguste Comte ,

De fato - Misplaced Pages Continue

1280-427: The most famous opponents of idealism in the first half of the German 19th century was Ludwig Feuerbach , who advocated materialism and atheism . Utilitarianism is a consequentialist approach to normative ethics that holds morally right actions are those that promote the most human happiness. Jeremy Bentham , who created his version of the theory in 1829, and John Stuart Mill who made his in 1861 are considered

1320-418: The positions of Democritus , Heraclitus , Empedocles , and Aristotle as those who maintained that everything happens by necessity. As such Cicero develops the propositions of fate and necessity as follows: "If all things happen by fate, all things happen with an antecedent cause; and if this is true of desire, it is true also of what follows desire, and therefore true of assent. But if the cause of desire

1360-513: The pragmatist philosophy in the late 19th century. This school of thought holds that the value of an idea is based upon its practicability or utility rather than the extent to which it reflects reality. The twilight years of the 19th century in Britain saw the rise of British idealism , a revival of interest in the works of Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , and a reaction against British Empiricism and Utilitarianism . The movement

1400-498: The self-professed founder of modern sociology , put forward the view that the rigorous ordering of confirmable observations alone ought to constitute the realm of human knowledge. He had hoped to order the sciences in increasing degrees of complexity from mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and a new discipline called "sociology", which is the study of the "dynamics and statics of society". The American philosophers Charles Sanders Peirce and William James developed

1440-467: The spirit of Socrates : subjectivity, commitment, faith, and passion, all of which are a part of the human condition . Like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche saw the moral values of 19th-century Europe disintegrating into nihilism (Kierkegaard called it the levelling process). Nietzsche attempted to undermine traditional moral values by exposing its foundations. To that end, he distinguished between master and slave moralities , and claimed that man must turn from

1480-456: The tumultuous years of 1789–1815, European culture was transformed by revolution, war and disruption. By ending many of the social and cultural props of the previous century, the stage was set for dramatic economic and political change. European philosophy reflected on, participated in, and drove, many of these changes. The last third of the 18th century produced a host of ideas and works which would both systematize previous philosophy, and present

1520-450: The universal network of fate. The Epicureans challenged the Stoic beliefs by denying the existence of this divine fate. They believed that a human's actions were voluntary so long as they were rational. In common usage, destiny and fate are synonymous, but with regard to 19th-century philosophy , the words gained inherently different meanings. For Arthur Schopenhauer , destiny was just

1560-484: Was made by Carl Gustav Jung , Sigmund Freud and Leopold Szondi . The concept of destiny, fate or causation is prominent in most religions – but takes different forms: Metaphorical expressions of a predetermined destiny are commonly used by politicians to describe events not understood. Otto Von Bismarck said that the best a politician can do is to 'listen for God's footsteps and hang on to His coat tails'. In War and Peace , Leo Tolstoy wrote of

1600-614: Was partly kickstarted by James Hutchison Stirling 's two-volume work The Secret of Hegel which helped facilitate the study of Hegel in England and introduced some elements that became characteristic of the British Idealist interpretation of Hegel. Besides incorporating varying portions of the philosophies of Kant and Hegel, many British Idealists also took ideas from earlier thinkers such as Aristotle and Plato . T. H. Green , F. H. Bradley , and Bernard Bosanquet are considered some of

#522477