Cleante e Crisippo sul rapporto tra provvidenza e fato. A proposito di Calc. in Plat. Tim. 144

In this paper is examined a controversial testimony from Calcidius (in Plat. Tim. 144) concerning the way in which Cleanthes and Chrysippus conceived of the relationship between Providence and Fate. The purpose is first of all to weigh the doxographical reliability of this passage, then to try to understand whether there has been a real disagreement on this point between Cleanthes and Chrysippus. The view expressed here is that Calcidius' testimony is as a whole unreliable. From this follows that it is not possible to uphold the thesis according to which Cleanthes distinguished Providence and Fate. The most that can be said is that the difference between Cleanthes and Chrysippus is not doctrinal but it is something like the distance that separates a complete philosophical theory of fate from a still popular and poet-ic representation of it.