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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
On Providence

On Providence

Proclus
Steel, Carlos

Hardcover

Series: Ancient Commentators on Aristotle

Philosophy

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0801445337
ISBN13: 9780801445330
Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr
Published: Aug 16 2007
Pages: 126
Weight: 0.76
Height: 0.61 Width: 6.52 Depth: 9.32
Language: English
The universe is, as it were, one machine, wherein the celestial spheres are analogous to the interlocking wheels and the particular beings are like the things moved by the wheels and all events are determined by an inescapable necessity. To speak of free choice or self determination is only an illusion we human beings cherish. Thus writes Theodore the engineer to his old friend Proclus. Proclus' reply is one of the most remarkable discussions on fate, providence and free choice in Late Antiquity. It continues a long debate that had started with the first polemics of the Platonists against the Stoic doctrine of determinism. How can there be place for free choice and moral responsibility in a world governed by an unalterable fate? Notwithstanding its great interest, Proclus' treatise has not received the attention it deserves, probably because its text is not very accessible to the modern reader. It has survived only in a Latin medieval translation. This first English translation will bring the arguments he formulates again to the fore.

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