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Concept
Destiny
Summary
Destiny, sometimes also called fate (), is a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual.
Although often used interchangeably, the words fate and destiny have distinct connotations.
Traditional usage defines fate as a power or agency that predetermines and orders the course of events. Fate defines events as ordered or "inevitable" and unavoidable. This is a concept based on the belief that there is a fixed natural order to the universe, and in some conceptions, the cosmos. Classical and European mythology feature personified "fate spinners," known as the Moirai in Greek mythology, the Parcae in Roman mythology, and the Norns in Norse mythology. They determine the events of the world through the mystic spinning of threads that represent individual human fates. Fate is often conceived as being divinely inspired.
Fate is the future scenario, which cannot be determined by decisions an individual will make. However, Destiny is about the present, where every decision an individual has made has led them to their present scenario.
Fate is used with regard to the finality of events as they have worked themselves out; and to that same sense of "destination", projected into the future to become the flow of events as they will work themselves out.
Fatalism refers to the belief that events fixed by fate are unchangeable by any type of human agency. In other words, humans cannot alter their own fates or the fates of others.
Distinguished from fate and destiny, fortune can refer to chance, or luck, as in fortunate, or to an event or set of events positively or negatively affecting someone or a group, or in an idiom, to tell someone's fortune, or simply the end result of chance and events. In Hellenistic civilization, the chaotic and unforeseeable turns of chance gave increasing prominence to a previously less notable goddess, Tyche (literally "Luck"), who embodied the good fortune of a city and all whose lives depended on its security and prosperity, two good qualities of life that appeared to be out of human reach.
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Ontological neighbourhood
Related publications (1)
Related concepts (16)
Stoicism
Stoicism is one of the four major schools of thought established in the Hellenistic period. It was founded in the ancient Agora of Athens by Zeno of Citium around 300 BC. The Stoics believed that the practice of virtue is enough to achieve eudaimonia: a well-lived, flourishing life. The Stoics identified the path to achieving it with a life spent practicing certain virtues in everyday life such as courage or temperance and living in accordance with nature.
Argument from free will
The argument from free will, also called the paradox of free will or theological fatalism, contends that omniscience and free will are incompatible and that any conception of God that incorporates both properties is therefore inconceivable. See the various controversies over claims of God's omniscience, in particular the critical notion of foreknowledge. These arguments are deeply concerned with the implications of predestination. Some arguments against the existence of God focus on the supposed incoherence of humankind possessing free will and God's omniscience.
Fatalism
Fatalism is a family of related philosophical doctrines that stress the subjugation of all events or actions to fate or destiny, and is commonly associated with the consequent attitude of resignation in the face of future events which are thought to be inevitable. The term "fatalism" can refer to any of the following ideas: Any view according to which human beings are powerless to do anything other than what they actually do. Included in this is the belief that humans have no power to influence the future or indeed the outcome of their own actions.