Fate and Possibility in Early Stoic Philosophy

Abstract

THE SToIC CoNCEPTS of and in Physics depended ultimately upon the distinction which the Stoics made between principal and initiating causes. In this paper I hope to prove that possibility is to be found in the principal cause, which was a quality and the cause of a predicate, and that a possible event was one which followed from the principal cause. I wish to show also, that the term fate was applied to both the principal and the initiating cause. When it was used to refer to the principal cause, it denoted only its relationship to its substratum. On the other hand, all initiating causes which included particulars and events external to the object, and the circumstances in which the object was placed, were according to fate.' Since there is a close connection between Stoic Physics and Logic it will be necessary to consider the evidence given for the views of Cleanthes and Chrysippus by their criticisms of the Master Argument of Diodorus Cronus, a Megarian philosopher who was born about 350 B.c. The Master Argument contained three propositions dealing with the necessary and the possible, which were considered to be incompatible. Since Cleanthes and Chrysippus each rejected a different proposition, and since both disagreed with Diodorus Cronus, I shall point out the differences in the treatment of this subject by the two Stoic philosophers, and I shall show how Chrysippus' interpretation of the Master Argument was related to his Physics. Later we shall see that the definitions of the possible, non-necessary, necessary, and impossible in Stoic Logic are in complete accord with their concepts of and in Physics. In fact, definitions in Logic which would be otherwise unintelligible become clear when they are viewed in the light of Physics. The close connection which I shall demonstrate between these two aspects of Stoic philosophy will, I hope, justify my inclusion of the logical propositions in my paper. The Stoics themselves insisted that the three divisions of their philosophy, Physics, Logic, and Ethics were inseparable, and that no part was independent of the other two (D. L. 7.40; cf. Sext. Emp. Math. 7.19).