Beyond Fate

Margaret Visser

• Publisher: House of Anansi Press
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9780887848469
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Free Will & Determinism in Philosophy

In spite of modern ideals and achievements in the area of freedom and choice, people today are often afflicted with a sense that they cannot change things for the better. They feel helpless, constrained, caught -- in a word, fatalistic. Beyond Fate, Margaret Visser's 2002 CBC Massey Lectures, examines why.

This timely and important book investigates what fate means, and where the propensity to believe in it and accept it comes from. Visser takes an ancient metaphor -- ubiquitous, influential, perhaps unavoidable -- where time is "seen" and spoken of as though it were space; she examines how this way of picturing reality can be a useful tool to think with -- or, on the other hand, may lead us into disastrous misunderstandings. There are ways out. But first, by observing how fatalism manifests itself in our daily lives, in everything from table manners and shopping to sport, we understand our profound attachment to fate, so that we can consider its role in our lives and our cultures.

Index

Abbott, Edwin Abbott, 150 n. 18

accidents, 59–60, 63, 89

addiction, 2, 81, 82–83, 84, 141–142

Aeschylus, 59

The Oresteia, 54–55, 101

agoraphobia, 95

anangké, 36–37, 63, 100, 109, 128, 150 n. 19

animals, 5–6, 85, 119–120, 132

as metaphors, 2–3, 102–103

Antigone, 115

area, areas, 13–15, 20, 34, 95, 98, 101–102, 105, 106, 107, 133, 134

see also land, moira

Aristotle, 153 n. 3

astrology, 11

até, 55, 97–98, 99

atoms, 65, 67, 86, 118

attention, 127, 139, 143, 144

audience, 32, 39, 41, 43, 46, 51–52, 56, 97–98, 108–113

authenticity, 51

author, 32–33, 115, 130

balance, weighing in the, 40, 149 n.8

ball bearings, 24, 61

beard, see hair

Beckett, Samuel, 14

beheading, 99

billiard balls, 66, 77

binding, 14, 20, 22, 32, 37, 53, 94–95, 101

See also boundaries, chains, ropes

birth, 12–13

blindness, 118

of fate and chance, 86, 89

blood, 53, 101

See also family

blueprint, 11, 119

body, human, 5–6, 24, 51, 100, 123, 126, 144

body of people, 24

book of fate, 21, 119

boredom, 79, 80–81, 140–143

boundary, boundaries, 13, 14–15, 18, 19, 20, 25, 41, 52, 53, 54, 89, 94–96, 99–102, 107, 111...