Blackwell Reference Online

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M etaphysics, philosophy of action The doctrine that what will happen is predetermined and it will happen whatever attempt we make to intervene. Human action is ineffectual regarding these events. Fatalism might be derived from logical principles, especially about future contingents , from the assumption of perfect divine foreknowledge , or from the principle of causality , which claims that everything is causally determined. Fatalism is distinguished from determinism in the sense that determinism, although it is also based on the principle of causality, still admits that human action may effectively cause one event rather than another, while fatalism characteristically denies any human effect on the future. Stoicism is a typical representative of fatalism. “That the course of events will be what it will be is a logical truism; yet many people are reluctant to admit it, because they think that it commits them to some sort of fatalism.” Ayer, The Problem of Knowledge ... log in or subscribe to read full text