PHYSICS 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 28: Psychological Determinism, Hamartia, Iliad
Document Summary
Fatalism is the view that at certain checkpoints in our lives, we will necessarily find ourselves in particular circumstances no matter what the intervening vagaries of our personal trajectories. The idea that what happens (or has happened) in some sense has to (or had to) happen. Nor is fatalism theological necessity (as in "god"s will) What is necessary seems to be only the outcome, regardless of causes, regardless of agency. Many of the great systems of though in the world, including christianity and buddhism, have consisted largely of spiritual advice about one"s probable fate and its avoidance. Until the 20th century, the idea that the universe is governed by chance would have been almost unthinkable. Necessity invoked by fate and fatalism is not scientific necessity but rather what we might call "narrative necessity" Nietzsche: live your life like a work of art.
