Member-only story
Free will and the problem of evil
The great logician Chrysippus tackles both, and comes a bit short
One of the standard “spiritual” exercises that constitute my personal philosophical practice is what the ancient Greeks called anagnosis, that is the reading and studying of ancient texts, to remind ourselves about the roots of our wisdom, such as it is.
In that context, for the last few weeks I’ve been reading a delightful gem known as Attic Nights, by the second century writer Aulus Gellius, a contemporary of Marcus Aurelius. It’s an example of hypomnema, a notebook where one jots down ideas that crossed one’s mind because of experiences, conversations, or readings. Marcus’s own Meditations is considered an example of hypomnema. In the case of Aulus’s book, the title comes from the fact that he started keeping this peculiar philosophical diary one cold night during a period he spent in Attica, the region of Greece where Athens is located.
At any rate, I recently read two short entries, numbered 1 and 2 in book VII of Attic Nights, that caught my attention. They are both about the Stoic Chrysippus of Soli, one of the major logicians of all time and the third scholarch of the original Stoa. Both entries concern Aulus’s notes about one particular book written by Chrysippus and now lost, except for fragments: On Providence. As it…
