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Full Idea
If I really knew that it was ordained for me to be ill at this moment, I would aspire to be so.
Gist of Idea
If I know I am fated to be ill, I should want to be ill
Source
Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.06.10)
Book Ref
Epictetus: 'The Discourses, The Handbook, Fragments', ed/tr. Gill,C [Everyman 1995], p.87
A Reaction
The rub, of course, is that it is presumably impossible to know what is fated. Book 2.7 is on divination. I don't see any good in a mortally ill person desiring, for that reason alone, to die. Rage against the dying of the light, I say.
| 14062 | Sooner follow mythology, than accept the 'fate' of natural philosophers [Epicurus] |
| 20836 | The Lazy Argument responds to fate with 'why bother?', but the bothering is also fated [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
| 20837 | Fate is an eternal and fixed chain of causal events [Chrysippus] |
| 21679 | When we say events are fated by antecedent causes, do we mean principal or auxiliary causes? [Chrysippus] |
| 23315 | The nearest to ancient determinism is Stoic fate, but that is controlled by a sympathetic God [Stoic school, by Frede,M] |
| 21674 | Even Apollo can only foretell the future when it is naturally necessary [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| 23347 | If I know I am fated to be ill, I should want to be ill [Epictetus] |
| 13162 | Sloth's Syllogism: either it can't happen, or it is inevitable without my effort [Leibniz] |
| 24133 | I have perfected fatalism, as recurrence and denial of the will [Nietzsche] |
| 24152 | Fate is inspiring, if you understand you are part of it [Nietzsche] |
| 9253 | The human heart has a tiresome tendency to label as fate only what crushes it [Camus] |