Providence and Fate in Stoicism according to Diogenes Laertius’ Book 7
Main Article Content
Abstract
The aim of this paper lies on reviewing and questioning the topic of providence and fate among the Stoics according to the very few information transmitted by Diogenes Laertius in the Book 7 of his Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, so the brief reconstruction built by the Greek doxographer could be evaluated. Since Diogenes confirms his debt to previous authors at the time of summarizing Stoic thinking, not only through direct sources but indirect as well, it shall be possible to compare his data with other testimonies which Arnim (SVF) and Boeri-Salles (BS) have brought together into their compilations.
Downloads
Metrics
- Captures
- Mendeley - Readers: 1
Article Details

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Copyright Notice
The authors who publish in NOVA TELLVS accept the following terms:
- The author or authors commit themselves to sign a Declaration of unpublished text and proprietary rights assignment authorizing the publication in the different platforms and spaces of diffusion of NOVA TELLVS and ceding the proprietary rights on the work in total and exclusive form to the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, according to article 84 of the Federal Law of Copyright and others relative and applicable to its regulation, in the understanding that the right of the author over the work will be respected, and the corresponding credit will be granted to them.
- All texts published by NOVA TELLVS—without exception—are distributed under the Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution - Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0 International), which allows third parties to use what has been published as long as they mention the authorship of the work and specify that the first publication was made in this journal.
- Authors may enter into other independent and additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the version of the article published in NOVA TELLVS (e.g. including it in an institutional repository or making it known in other paper or electronic media) provided that it clearly and explicitly states that the work was first published in this journal.
- For all of the above, together with their proposed material, authors must submit the Declaration of unpublished text and proprietary rights assignment format of the first publication duly requisitioned and signed by the authors. This format should be sent as a PDF file to novatellus@unam.mx or iiflnovatellus@gmail.com
References
Fuentes antiguas
Aristotle, On the soul. Parva naturalia. On breath, ed. and tr. Walter Stanley Hett, Cambridge, Harvard University Press (The Loeb Classical Library, 288), 1957.
Calcidius, Platonis Timæus translatus commentarioque instructus, ed. Jan Hendrik Waszink, London-Leiden, Warburg Institute & Brill, 1962.
Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker [= dk], ed. Hermann Diels und Walther Kranz, Berlin, Weidmann, 1951 (1903).
Diógenes Laercio, Vidas y opiniones de los filósofos ilustres, trad. Carlos García Gual, Madrid, Alianza Editorial, 2013a.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, edited with introduction by Tiziano Dorandi, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries, 50), 2013b.
Diogenis Laertii Vitæ philosophorum, vol. I, libri I-X, ed. Miroslav Marcovich, Berolini et Novi Eboraci, Walter de Gruyter (Bibliotheca Scriptorum Græcorum et Romanorum Teubneriana), 2008.
Los Filósofos Estoicos. Ontología, Lógica, Física y Ética. Traducción, Comentario Filosófico y Edición Anotada de los Principales Textos Griegos y Latinos [= bs], trad., comentario filosófico y ed. Marcelo Boeri y Ricardo Salles, Sankt Augustin, Academia Verlag (Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 12), 2014.
Pindar, The Odes of Pindar including the Principal Fragments, with an Introduction and an English Translation by Sir John Sandys, Cambridge, Harvard University
Press, 1937.
Plutarchi De communibus notitiis adversus Stoicos. Moralia. VI, ed. Gregorius N. Bernardakis, Leipzig, Teubner, 1895.
Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta [= svf], 4 vols., ed. Hans von Arnim, Stutgardiæ, in ædibus B. G. Teubneri, 1903-1905.
Fuentes modernas
Bobzien, Susanne, Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford Clarendon Press, 1998.
Collete, Bernard, The Stoic Doctrine of Providence. A Study of its Development and of Some of its Major Issues, London-NewYork, Routledge (Issues in Ancient Philosophy), 2022.
Dragona-Monachou, Myrto, The Stoic Arguments for the Existence and the Providence of the Gods, Athens, National and Capodistrian University of Athens,
Gould, Josiah, “The Stoic Conception of Fate”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 35/1, 1974, pp. 17-32.
Hahm, David, “Diogenes Laertius VII: On the Stoics”, in Wolfgang Haase und Hildegard Temporini (eds.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, pt. 2, vol. 36, 5, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1992, pp. 4076-4182.
Liddell, Henry George, and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon [= lsj], revised and augmented throughout Henry Stuart Jones, Oxford, Oxford Clarendon Press, 1940.
Long, Anthony, and David Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Mejer, Jørgen, Diogenes Laertius and his Hellenistic Background, Weisbaden, Franz Steiner Verlag GMBH, 1978.
Nietzsche, Friedrich, “De Diogenis Laertii fontibus”, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, XXIII, 1868, pp. 632-653.
Salles, Ricardo, God and Cosmos in Stoicism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009.
Untersteiner, Mario, Problemi di filologia filosofica, Milano, Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino-La Goliardica, 1980.