Concept tag
#fatalism
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The lazy argument fails against tawakkul just as it failed against the Stoics
Every so often someone at work tells me not to bother with a contingency plan because "what is written is written". I want to argue that this is a philosophical mistake, and an old one. Cicero's On Fate reports what the ancients…
Started by Abdulrahman Al-Bassam5 replies -
When a family says ‘it was always going to happen’, what are they claiming?
"It was always going to happen." I hear the sentence most weeks at work. Sometimes from a daughter, sometimes from a doctor, sometimes from me. I've started to think it means very different things in different mouths: Medical inevitability. Given the disease…
Started by Elin Hedqvist5 replies -
The sea battle argument is a scope mistake, and Aristotle half saw it
Chapter 9 of De Interpretatione makes a fatalist of somebody in my class every year. So here is the case I make to them, and I would like it attacked by people who know more logic than my students. The argument: if…
Started by Giulia Ferrante4 replies