10 De fato of Ps.-Plutarch: Fate, Providence, Free Will
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Abstract
What is fate? How does it affect men’s lives? And are they free, or are their actions conditioned by this looming force? These were the questions that the ancients asked themselves or tried to answer. Fate, according to Chrysippus, is ordo seriesque causarum, cum causae causa nexa rem ex se gignat (“an orderly succession of causes wherein cause is linked to cause and each cause of itself produces an effect,” Cic. Div. 1.125, transl. W.A. Falconer). So, fate is “the reason why the past has been, the present is, the future will be” (SVF 2.264 F 913 Chrysippus) and it is an “eternal, continuous and orderly movement” (SVF 2.265 F 916 Chrysippus). According to this idea, which was explained also by Seneca, only the wise man, acting in accordance with it, can recognize—and does not complain about—the inexorable law which he obeys. And the Epicureans and Academic-Peripatetic philosophers were against this idea. We want to retrace the various stages of this theory, starting from the Ps.-Plutarch’s idea of fate, and also considering the qualitative comparison with the law of the State, which “subordinates … most of its prescriptions on a condition … and embraces the State with formulas of universal importance” (De fato 569D). So, we will recall Heraclitus’ words, and, later, Plato’s thought, to investigate some passages of Ps.-Plutarch’s work and make a comparative study with other authors who wrote about fate and free will in the period between the first and the second century CE.