Languages of Fate: Semantic Fields in Chinese and Greek

Languages of Fate: Semantic Fields in Chinese and Greek
Paper presented in the Workshop "Heaven's Will and Life's Lot: Destiny and Determinism in Chinese
Culture," Sponsored by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, Breckenridge Center, Brunswick ME, May
18-21, 2000
Lisa Raphals
University of California at Riverside
A.Introduction: The Rest of Your Life
I begin, anachronistically, and in keeping with the theme of this year's seminar series, with a look
into the future, specifically into the future envisioned in a science fiction story titled "Story of Your Life"
by Ted Chiang, published in the 1999 Best Science Fiction anthology. That story is a complex
narrative of two major threads. One concerns the life (and death) of the narrator's daughter; the other
concerns her efforts as a linguist Shanghaied by the government to decipher the alien language
Heptapod B. I must pass over many fascinating details. Suffice it to say that these seven-limbed aliens
have two distinct languages, the spoken language dubbed "Heptapod A" and a totally separate written
language, Heptapod B, whose script is not word-divided, allowing for a "semasiographic," rather than
"glottographic" writing system, than has no relation at all to the order of spoken language, not only within
the word, but within the sentence. 1 As the narrator gains proficiency in a linguistic but non-phonological
mode, she realizes that the organization of Heptapod B has consequences for thought, beginning with
the interchangeability of premises and conclusions! 2 Whilst humans interpret events causally and
chronologically, heptapods select attributes that were meaningful only a period of time. 3 The most
important consequence for purposes of the present discussion are the implications for free will: human
notions of free will are incompatible with the heptapod "simultaneous mode of consciousness" that, by its
very simultaneity, knows the future. 4 I leave for another day the complexities of this story, including the
possibility that the first thread is translated from Heptapod B, and turn to my own subject by asking
whether the story manages to depict an "alien" sensibility by using language and language acquisition as a
metaphor. It may prove an interesting reflection point for some of the important differences between
Greek and Chinese views of the interrelations of fate and free will.
B.Preliminary Considerations
Questions on the nature of fate or destiny and how it could be realized, negotiated or averted
informed a wide range of reflective thought in both China and Greece. In many of the Chinese texts,
1

understanding fate is the defining characteristic of a sage; Classical Confucian authors made the
understanding of ming a prerequisite for self-cultivation. On the Greek side, it is well known that
determinism (asserted and denied in both physical and ethical contexts) became a central problem of
post-Aristotelian Greek philosophy, but with some exceptions, the Hellenistic debate tended to eclipse
questions of fate, fatalism and necessity that engaged earlier Greek speculative thinkers since Homer.
Let me begin with a few methodological considerations. An initial obstacle to comparative
study of beliefs in fate or fatalism is simply the modern tendency to give both short shrift as objects of
serious consideration. On the one hand, histories of religion have situated belief in fate (undistinguished
from fatalism) as an early stages in a teleological evolution toward Christianity. 5 Other treatments
oppose belief in fate to free will, a cornerstone of modernity; and forget to distinguish fate and fatalism
from determinism, the doctrine that every event has a cause ( which implies neither fatalism nor that
events can be predicted.)
In The Consequences of Modernity, the sociologist Anthony Giddens suggests another
possibility: that new notions of risk and trust are a distinctly modern development that supplants earlier
notions of fate, fortune and fortuna. Giddens notes that "trust" appears frequently in everyday
language, but, some uses invoke deeper meanings of "faith," insofar as trust presupposes a relation to
risk and the unanticipated results of action. Nowadays, the unexpected comes, not from divine
intervention, but from risk. 6
Giddens' displaced notions of fate and fortune are in turn distinct from fatalism, the idea that
whatever happens must happen. Fatalism has been an object of discussion and critique from the first
Mohist attacks on Ruist "fatalism" in the Fei Ming chapters of the Mohist Canon to modern
attacks on theological fatalism and scientific determinism. Even more than belief in fate, it seems to
enjoy particular disrepute in the modern world:
If time confers respectability on philosophical problems, there are few issues in the history
of philosophy with more right to be carefully and charitably considered than fatalism.
Yet in the twentieth century, at least, this approach has certainly not been adopted.
Contemporary discussions of fatalism have been scattered and perfunctory, almost always
concluding with a summary dismissal of the fatalist's argument. Typically, the
fatalist is seen as making some rather sophomoric blunder — mistaking a tautology for a
substantive thesis about necessity, misunderstanding the scope of a `model operator',
2

misrepresenting facts about the future as facts about the past, and the like. 7
My approach to the methodological problem of comparison is much influenced by the
comparative work of Sir Geoffrey Lloyd on Chinese and Greek science. He emphasizes the need to
avoid two approaches he refers to as "generalization," the disregard of differences in time, place, and
subject matter, and "piecemeal," projecting of simple equivalents derived from one tradition onto the
other. 8 Univocal and undifferentiated formulations of "fatalism" or "belief in fate" ignore the contexts in
which concepts of fate, fatalism and necessity arose, the problems they were intended to address, and
the "work" they were intended to do, the systems of metaphors of which they were elements, and the
systems of beliefs and practices toward which they stood in relations of contrast or opposition, for
example, notions of luck and fortune (both good and bad). Today (and this is work in progress!) I
focus on their respective semantic fields and the systems of metaphors of which they were elements, and
the systems of beliefs and metaphors toward which they stood in relations of contrast or opposition, for
example, notions of luck, fortune, risk and chance. 9
Consider the truism that free will (and rationality) are peculiarly Greek and that Chinese
philosophy is passive, quietistic or fatalistic. If such generalities can be made at all, the label of fatalism
may better fit the Greek evidence than the Chinese. Homer presents a fair consensus that fate cannot
be gainsaid — whatever we make of the relation between Moira (Fate) and the will of Zeus. By
contrast, the accounts of fate in pre-Buddhist texts share a slightly unnerving focus on strategy, efficacy,
and "setup." 10 Put in such overly general terms, strategies toward fate may be an area of considerable
difference between Chinese and Greek philosophical speculation (to the extent that such generalities
can be used at all), and notions of strategy may be alternatives to fatalistic accounts of destiny.
I approach this problem by exploring some of the complex semantics of Chinese ming and
Greek mo›ra before either were assimilated into later hegemonic discourses: Confucian, Buddhist,
Neo-Confucian, Hellenistic, Christian, etc., starting from the premise that "fate" is not a unified, univocal
or unchanging notion. By fate or destiny I mean the notion that there is a set or immutable pattern to
the world: whether humanly knowable or ultimately inscrutable; whether personified as a God (.e.g. the
Greek Moirai or Latin Fortuna), under the power of one (Si Ming , Director of Destinies, or the
will of Zeus), or as an agency or power independent of, and beyond, the wills of gods (Homeric Moira
3

and, arguably, Tian Ming , the Mandate of Heaven), including the constancies of Nature.
A.China
I. The Semantic Fields
Much of what follows focuses on different interpretations of one word, ming ,fate or
destiny. The Shang oracle bone inscriptions present no separate graph for ming. Instead we find the
graph ling , command or decree, used in two arguably distinct senses: (1) ling command or
decree and (2) ming as noun, possibly a deity Ming or Si Ming, who received di sacrifice. 11 Note that
there is no separate graph for the two distinct concepts. They are separated through context.
The oracle bone evidence suggests that, in the Shang view, events reflected the will of deities,
such as Si Ming and other ancestors, who could be approached through sacrificial offerings and whose
commands could be interpreted. 12 (The Shang deity may not be same as the Zhou deity Si Ming or
"Director of Destinies," who had power over life and death.) These beliefs were inseparable from
divination. Most oracle texts were divinations about the future, whether assertive of human preference
or interrogative toward divine will. Note also that there is no notion of fixed or blind fate, or of
predeterminism here.
1.Zhou and Warring States
1) In the late Zhou and Warring States we find both a broader semantic field for words concerned with
fate, fatalism and destiny and an increasingly complex range of concepts associated (and debated)
with the word ming. Let me mention a few: The word ming overstood several distinct meanings.
i) The first of these was life and death, the extent of one's life span. Xunzi quotes Confucius as
averring that life and death are matters of fate
"life and death are decreed
13 According to Zhuangzi 6:
14 In this sense people could "make their ming long-lived"
shou ming . 15 And Xunzi refers to soldiers who flee for their lives as literally "running
towards their ming, ben ming . 16
ii) fate in the sense of what has been decreed. Zhuangzi has Confucius advise that "nothing is as
good as bringing about what has been decreed" or "nothing is as good as realizing one's destiny"
. 17
iii) Si Ming Director of Destinies (and other local divinities)
4

iv) Shang Di ming , the decree of Shang Di, the High Lord.
v) tian ming , the mandate or decree of heaven. The Odes and Documents frequently
repeat the idea that Heaven's decree is not constant, meaning that a ruler cannot count on it
unless he is worthy of it. Thus the Duke of Zhou tells Prince Shi that, even though the Shang has
lost the Mandate, he "does not dare to rest [certain] in the mandate of the Lord on High (Shang
Di ming ) because "Heaven's mandate is not easy [to preserve]; Heaven is hard to
depend on" (tianming bu yi; tian nan chen ); and because people let its
mandate fall (zhui ming ) because they cannot maintain the virtue of their predecessors. 18
vi) shi ming the fate of the times. 19 Also shi timeliness, the idea that personal destiny is
linked with the times
vii) guo zhi ming , the fate of a state, as in Xunzi's claim that "a person's fate lies with
Heaven; a country's fate lies in its rites" . 20
viii) A number of verb-object compounds reflecting Warring States debates, discussed below.
2) fen allotments called "fates" (ming) 21 variously understood as life span, longevity, prosperity, or
specific individual destiny, to be used and cherished, including by the force of human effort
3) jie , fate as decree or opportunity. Xunzi uses jie, literally a node or joint of bamboo, but more
broadly unexpected circumstance or opportunity, to define fate: "harming one's nature is called
illness; meeting the node (jie) is called fate . 22
4) bian hua , change and transformation, including the cycles of life, death and the seasons. In
the Zhuangzi the sage Wang Tai: "takes it as fated that things change ming wu zhi hua
. 23 Elsewhere the Zhuangzi has Lao Dan admonish Confucius that "ming cannot be
transformed" . 24 Similarly the Zhuangzi refers to the transformations of affairs as "the
movements of destiny" ming zhi xing . 25
5) shi configuration or "setup" A wide range of texts stress the importance of timeliness (shi )
and configuration or "setup" (shi ) in response to one's times and to fate, by understanding
whether or not the times or even more local strategic "configurations" of time and place held good or
malauspice.
6) sheng or sagacity, the notion that the activities of the sage or sheng ren prominently
5

included understanding, and coming to some kind of accommodation with, fate. (What this mean
varied widely.)
7) ji xiong , notions of good and malauspice
8) yi duty, a form of "command."
9) gu purpose or cause
10) chang constancy [in nature]
To these we can add a range of verb-object compounds, expressing Warring States doctrines
regarding ming, fate and heaven. In his discussion of these terms in a series of papers between 1957
and 1962, Tang Junyi took the view that all of them originated in the Zhou religion of the Odes and
Documents (and thus were not Warring States products) 26
i) the "understanding ming" (zhi ming ) of Confucius, echoed by Xunzi as "those who
understand themselves do not begrudge others; those who understand fate (zhi ming) do not
begrudge Heaven. 27 Though the skeptical thread in Zhuangzi questions even whether we can
know whether our lives are fated:: "Since we do not know the end of things, how can we say
they have no fates? Since we do not know the beginning of things, how can we say they have
fates? 28
ii) the "against ming" (fei ming ) of the Mohists, attacks on Ruist "fatalism" in the three Fei
Ming chapters (35-37) of the Mohist Canon.
iii) Mengzi's "establishing ming" (li ming , e.g. 7A/1 ), 29
iv) "conforming to fate" (shun ming ) of the Zhuangzi 30
v) "returning to ming" (fu ming ) in the Zhuangzi (discussed below) and Dao de jing
vi) the Xunzi's "controlling" or "causing ming" (zhi ming , e.g. 16/23),
vii) Zou Yan's "omen of receiving ming" (shou ming zhi fu ), 31
viii) the Zhong yong's "what heaven has decreed is called nature" tian ming zhi wei xing
, and
ix) "arriving at [awareness of] ming" zhi yu ming in the Xici commentary to the
Changes. 32
x) penetrating fate. According to the Zhuangzi, fate is in part a matter of strategy; and the
6

wise assess their times and decide how to act: "those of penetrating [insight] into fate (da ming)
do not trouble about what knowledge cannot remedy. 33 Or in the couplet "to grasp great fate
(da da ming) is true conformity / to grasp small fate (da xiao ming) is happenstance 34
xi) completing fate. According to the Zhuangzi, for someone who understands it, fate is
a means to let things come to completion, for example the adroit swimmer, who explains his skill
to Confucius "I begin with what is inborn, grow it by essential nature, and complete it by means
of fate" (cheng hu ming) ... I don't know why I do what I do; that is fate! 35
xii) returning to fate, as in the Zhuangzi "Sages who return to fate and take heaven as their
teacher become models for others. 36
xiii) sui ming or following destiny. The sage-king Huang Di says that "sages are those who
penetrate into true form and follow [the dictates of] fate. 37
xiv)shun ming conforming to fate, for example Xunzi's account of the junzi, who "conforms
to the decrees [of destiny] and thereby preserves his authentic singularity" 38
These debates can be classified into five broadly competing theories of the relations of virtue,
practical wisdom and chance: (1) ming received at birth predestines most or all acts during life, including
its length; (2) that prior virtue determines present ming, which is granted for a fixed period of time,
without regard to conduct during that time; (3) that virtue and wisdom somehow determine ming,
whether through the rewards of a conscious Heaven, the spontaneous generation of good and bad luck,
and (4) that the practice of virtue and wisdom predispose, but do not guarantee, a good life. Beyond
the practice, one can only "await fate" with serenity. Finally, (5) that there is no ming and no
predetermined connection between virtue, wisdom and the good life. 39 The relationship of these ideas to
each other, to Zhou (and Shang religion), their indebtedness to mantic practices, their views of free will
and fixed fate, and how they should best be classified, are all subjects of considerable scholarly dispute.
The consolidation of orthodox "Confucianism during the Han saw a continuation of this interest,
with particular concern for the idea that kings received mandate of heaven (di wang shou tian ming
). Other ideas about fate and ming from this period include a "mandate of good fortune" (lu
ming ), a "mandate of life" (zheng ming ), a "mandate of suffering" (zao ming ), a
7

"mandate of correspondence" (sui ming ), as well as correspondence theories of yin-yang and
wuxing; 40 and the notion of sui ming , following or mastering fate, something the virtuous can
accomplish by effective response Life span may be fated, but not what is in it; a virtuous person might
understand and master fate, and, by harmonizing with it, contrive to live out his or her own.
Ideas about ming and fate were also part of the discourse of Song (960-1279) and Ming
Neo-Confucianism. Zhang Hengqu viewed ming as the "ceaselessness of heaven" and the
"operation of cosmic energy. Cheng Yi (1013-1107) and Zhu Xi (1130-1200) thought
that heaven sent down ming and endowed humanity with the li that completed human nature. Liu
Jiuyuan (1139-1193) and Wang Yangming's (1473-1529) views that mind is the
universe culminated in the views of Wang Longqi and Luo Jinqi that original human
nature is ming. 41 Ming also became a concern of the Qing (1644-1911) scholars Yan Xizhai ,
Dai Dongyuan , Jiao Xun , Qian Dajin and Ruan Yuan .
2.Later Chinese philosophical terminology
Now let me turn to the question of Chinese philosophical terminology for the discussion of fate
and fatalism. Fu Sinian's Examination of the Evidence on Xing and Ming in Ancient
Teachings was published in 1952. His purpose, like that of Ruan Yuan, was to oppose Song scholars'
views. His focus was on the philology of ming and on competing doctrines of ming during the Warring
States. He identified five doctrines, which he described as: 42
i) ming ding or "predeterminism," the view that personal heaven controls predetermined
fate and cannot be altered;
ii) ming zheng or "moral determinism," the view that a moral heaven rewards virtue, with the
corollary that humans can determine their destiny through moral choices;
iii) si ming or "awaiting destiny," the Ruist view that heaven rewards virtue overall, but
unpredictably, with the implied recommendation to practice self-cultivation and await the
Mandate of Heaven. Fu considered Xunzi as the orthodox representative of Confucianism,
thereby attacking Neo-Confucian attribution of this role to Confucius and Mencius alone.
iv) ming yun or "fatalism," the view that destiny is fixed and controlled by mechanical and
predictable regularities,
8

v) fei ming or antifatalism, the specifically Mohist opposition to any belief in fixed fate Thus
the Mohist claim that [the doctrine of] fatalism is not fate, but to reject fatalism is to reject [the
reality of] fate [ ] 43
Before turning to Greece, let me mention a few more important elements to the Chinese picture.
3. Fate, luck, fortune, chance and skill
These terms and concepts, so far, have clearly come out of Classical literary and philosophical
uses. Before turning to Greece, let me broaden out to modern uses, to add a few more Chinese terms
for notions of luck, fortune, etc.
1) luck or fortune. The root meaning of Chinese yun is to carry, transport, or use, also to revolve.
The derivative meaning is fortune, luck, fate, for example in the phrases yun qi or luck, hao
yun or good luck.
2) A second term for luck, good fortune, or happiness is xing . These two senses of "lucky"
combine in xing yun very fortunate, or xing yun er , "fortune's favorite" and xing
yun zhi shen , "Lady Luck." 44
3) I am not readily able to find a clear equivalent in Chinese to the notion of chance, in the sense of
randomness or accident. Perhaps xing , "luck," is closer to "chance," as in the phrases jiao xing
, luckily or by a fluke, or xing de , to obtain by chance and xing shi , "something
that happened out of sheer luck." 45 My searches for Chinese translations for English "random"
referred more to the emotional disposition to be willful (e.g. sui yi , as one pleases or ren yi
, willful or arbitrary) than to the notion of randomness.
4) Risk. Similarly I am not readily able to find a clear semantic equivalent. The phrase mao xian
means to emit what is vicious, venomous, malicious or dangerous.
4.Summary
Let me attempt to sum this up. A problem in talking about the semantic field of fate in Chinese
texts is the considerable range associated with one term, ming. In particular, the word ming retains the
linked senses of command, and fate ("commanded," as it were). They must be separated by context.
After a brief discussion of the Shang oracle bone inscriptions, I began with a semantic field of
approximately Zhou and Warring States provenance, closely linked to or derived from ming, including a
9

group of verb-object compounds that reflected Warring States debated about fate, followed by several
post-Han additions. Moving forward in time, I mentioned Chinese philosophical terminology and
surveyed a range of terms for beliefs and practices than closely bear on any study of fate, most
particularly those related to divination. In concluded with a brief discussion of some more
contemporary terms for luck, and their imperfect fit with a range of English-language concepts
concerning luck, chance, randomness and risk. Now let me turn to Greece.
B.The Greek Semantic Field
Greek accounts of fate fall into two fairly distinct historical strata, before and after the fourth
century. 46 Pre-fourth-century texts, beginning with Homer, describe "fate" in several fairly distinct terms
and metaphors: (1) mo›ra or α‰σα, transparent metaphors of division, lots or portions, of destiny,
death or of allotted life span. Over time, these were replaced by (2) metaphors of spinning and binding,
in which fate is a thread spun about the "spindle" of each life. In later works, moira increasingly
becomes personified as the "Spinners," the Three Fates or Mo›rai. (3) the attribution of misfortune to
da¤mvnew, who variously gave out misfortune or guided individual destinies; (4) the problem of the
relation of fate and the gods, most specifically to the will of Zeus, king and most powerful of the gods. 47
To these we may add (5) the appearances of the Moirai of Fates as objects of cult as birth goddesses
(Hesiod, Pausanius, etc. Latin Parcae ("childbearing") were equivalent to the Moirai). (6) After the
fourth century, fate was viewed as principle ruling both the world overall and the lives of individuals,
expressed by the term efimarm°nh.
Today I sample three strata of the pre-fourth-century picture: Homer, Parmenides and Plato.
Each text defines one or more "problems of fate"; they precede, inform and significantly differ from later
uses of fate as a dramatic element in tragedy and Hellenistic debates on fate and fatalism. The Homeric
corpus first poses, and conspicuously does not resolve, problems of fate and fatalism. The relation of
fate to both the will of Zeus and the free will of mortals is ambiguous. Pre-Socratic philosophy "is
divided into two halves by the name of Parmenides," (b. 515-510) who abandons cosmogony in favor
of divine instruction on the "true" world of unchanging reality (including fate), and makes fate a vivid
aspect of unchanging being. Fate figures in Plato's (427-347) account of the soul and the defense and
10

self-representation of the Platonic Socrates. As an aspect of divination and discourses of
prognostication, it is also an indirect issue in the history of Greek medicine, the "inquiry concerning
nature," and the creation of the category of rationality. These texts, images and metaphors precede
Hellenistic rejections of determinism by Aristotle (384-322) and Epicurus (341-270) and defenses of it
by the Stoa, for whom fate assumed central prominence as a philosophical problem 48
1.Fate in Homer
Just as a range of meanings informed Chinese ming, a range of forms and meanings inform
Greek moira. Let me introduce the basic terms.
1) mo›ra, merow and α‰σα: lots or portions, of destiny, death or of allotted life span (Note the
transparent metaphor of division, as with Chinese fen.)
i) the verb me¤romai, "to receive a portion"
ii) êmorow, êmoirow or êmmorow, to be bereft of a thing, unfortunate, or to be without a lot or
share. Demosthenes (On the Halonnesus 7.40) refers to a piece of land as "no man's land"
(émmor¤ow).
iii) émor¤a (or émmor¤a), to be "fate-less" for example the statement that "Zeus knows well "the
Od. 20.76).
The oldest terms for fate, mo›ra (from me¤romai, "to receive a portion") and α‰σα referred to
a share, lot, or portion, most immediately of death, hence destiny as allotted life span. These shares
could be simple fact or special destiny, the result of the anger of a specific god or a decree of fate
beyond the will of the gods, or a combinations. Thus Achilles' tells Thetis that, once he has killed
Hector he will accept his own death at the hands of Zeus and the other immortals, for even Herakles
was conquered by his fate (moira), and the anger of Hera;
Œw ka‹ §g≈n, efi dÆ moi ımo¤h mo›ra t°tuktai,
ke¤som' §pe¤ ke yãnv.
and so, too, shall I lie, if a like fate has been worked for me
when I die (Il. 18.1190-21).
To be êmorow, êmoirow or êmmorow is to be bereft of a thing, unfortunate, or to be without
11

a lot or share. 49 And émor¤a (or émmor¤a) is to be "fate-less," for example the statement that "Zeus
knows well "the portions and bereftnesses of mortals" mo›rãn t' émmor¤hn te kataynht«n
ényr≈pvn (Od. 20.76).
For the most part, moira occupies a place apart from social status, the share of wealth, rank
and privilege that results from birth, though Iliad 3 describes Agamemnon as "born of good moira and
happy in [the protection of] a daimon" (moirhgen°w, ÙlbiÒdaimon, ll. 3.182)
Nor is moira the share that results from the "just deserts" of virtuous or unvirtuous action. It
referred rather to sudden reversals and situations that threaten to the order decreed by the gods. As
Hector boasts to Andromache that no man can kill him prematurely because fate is a power that cannot
be gainsaid by god or man.
oÈ gãr t¤w m' Íp¢r a‰san énØr ÖAÛdi proÛãcei
mo›ran d' oÎ tinã fhmi pefugm°non ¶mmenai éndr«n,
No man will hurl me to Hades beyond my portion,
but fate I say no one of mankind can flee (Il. 6:487-89)
iv) katå mo›ran "according to fate" and kat'a‰san "according to measure" and
v) Íp¢r mo›ran and Íp¢r a‰san
The above passage raises the problem of how or whether action "beyond fate" could occur.
The phrases katå mo›ran "according to fate" and kat' a‰san "according to measure" occur
frequently in the Homeric corpus; "beyond fated measure" — Íp¢r mo›ran and Íp¢r a‰san — are
relatively rare. More important, they are always in counterfactual in one of several senses, with a range
of meanings from physical to moral "impossibility." 50 The one instance of the phrase Íp¢r mo›ran in
the Homeric corpus occurs when Poseidon intervenes to save Aineas from Achilles, ostensibly to avoid
the wrath of Zeus, since he is fated (mÒrimon) to survive the war (Il. 20.301-2). Poseidon uses an
appeal to destiny to deter him from any further encounter with Achilles
mØ ka‹ Íp¢r mo›ran dÒmon ÖAÛdow e¤saf¤khai
lest, beyond fate, you go down to the house of Hades (Il. 20.336).
Apollo also intervenes to prevent the Argives from winning victory "beyond the portion of Zeus" (Íp¢r
12

DiÚw a‰san, Il. 17.321). We may read these instances in two ways. Taken at face value, the gods
intervene to preserve the decreed order and prevent mortals from acting outside it. Read rhetorically,
appeals to fate provide a powerful rationale for the gods to intervene according to their own wishes
(presumably, within the limits of fate).
In battle, "beyond fate" or "beyond measure" clearly refers to premature and violent death. In
other contexts, "beyond measure" has the broader connotations of impropriety or even impiety. On two
occasions, Paris agrees that Hector's reproaches are "according to measure" (kat'a‰san) and "not
beyond measure" (oÈd' Íp¢r a‰san, Il. 3.59 and 6.333). Excess also can verge on impiety. After a
pitched battle, the Greeks prevailed "beyond measure" (huper aisan), when they captured the body of
Kebriones and stripped him of his armor (Il. 16.780). In these cases, "beyond measure" labels an act
as morally, rather than physically "impossible."
In all these instances, it is noteworthy that moira does not seem to be linked to either divination
— attempts to understand and perhaps conform to a fated future — or to m∞ti˚, the skills and wiles
that Greek society so prized for dealing with unpredictable and rapidly shifting situations. 51 Metis, it
appears, was not used to thwart the decrees of fate.
2.Fate as spun bonds
We also see fate personified as several goddesses linked to notions of destiny, punishment,
retribution and justice, typically , revealed by oracles, omens, prodigies and signs. They also pose the
problem of the relation of fate and the gods:
i) The Goddesses Themis or Dike and
ii) Themis and Dike (Justice).
iii) Aνãγκη or Necessity,
iv) Fate or Mo›ra and
v) The Three Fates or Mo›rai,
The Three fates are variously represented as handmaidens of Dike and as the "Spinners" of
human fates. The fates appear infrequently in Homer as three figures who spin the thread of destiny
13

around each individual. Alkinoos describes the fates as "Heavy Spinners" Kl«yew, when he speaks
of the unusual destiny (aisa) of Odysseus, who, once he returns safely to Ithaka
will bear as much as his destiny and the Heavy Spinners
spun for him at birth with thread, when his mother bore him
pe¤setai ëssa ofl α‰σα katå Kl«y°w te bare›ai
geinom°nƒ nÆsato l¤nƒ, ˜te min t°ke mÆthr (Od. 7.197)
This "spinning" takes place primarily at birth, but also at marriage (Od. 4.207), where the Moirai
could be bearers of good fortune, and in some accounts, sing for the bridal couple. 52 In Homer, the
gods are also "spinners" of fate. In Iliad 24 "the gods spun life thus for afflicted mortals" (Õw går
§pekl≈santo yeo‹ deilo›si broto›si, Il. 24.525). The Odyssey begins when "the gods had spun
for him his return home" (t“ ofl §pekl≈santo yeo‹ o‰kÒnde n°esyai Od. 1.17). The gods spun
the destruction of Troy (Od. 3.208), the fate of Odysseus (Od. 11.139), and his beggar persona (Od.
16.64)
The division and personification of Moira into the Three Fates or Mo‰rai, who spin, weave,
and cut off the thread of each life, first appears in Hesiod (Theog. 904-6). Here the Fates are the
daughters of Zeus and Themis: Clotho, Lachesis ("getting by lot") and Atropos (from which one cannot
turn), and only reappear together in Plato.
In the climactic passage of fragment 8, Parmenides uses specifically Homeric language and
diction to describe "what-is" (¶stin) and to frame the claim that the truly real is unchanging and
immobile. 53
kraterØ gãr Anãgkh
pe¤ratow §n desmo›sin ¶xei, tÒ min émf‹w §°rgei
For strong Ananke holds it in bonds of chain that binds it all around (fr. 8, 30-31)
oÊd¢n går °stin ≥ ¶stai
êllo pãrej toË °Òntow, §pe‹ tÒ ge Mo›r §p°dhsen
oÔlon ãk¤nhtÒn t' ¶mmenai.
For nothing exists or will exist
other than what is, since Moira has fettered it
so as to be whole and immovable (fr. 8, 36-38).
Here the powers of Moira and Ananke come together to bind reality in strongly Homeric
14

diction: krateros (used of Zeus) and peiratos en desmoisi.
Plato's fullest account of the Moirai is in the Republic (Rep. 617b-621a), where they sing in
harmony at a common task Their activity is liked to Ananke and to the daimons that guide the fates of
individuals. In the passage, Socrates explains how souls choose their lives in the order of the lots they
draw. They are then brought before Lachesis, first of the Moirai, who:
§ke¤nhn d' •kãstƒ ˘n e·leto da¤mona, toËton fÊlaka sump°mpein toË
b¤ou ka‹ époplhrvtØn t«n aflrey°ntvn.
sends forth a daimon for each [soul] to guard his life and to bring to pass what he has
chosen (Rep 620e)
The daimon next leads the soul to Clotho. The turning of her spindle, ratifies the destiny
(mo›ran) the soul has chosen. Finally, the daimon leads the soul to Atropos, "she who cannot be
turned," who "fixes the web so as to be irreversible" (émetãstrofa tå §piklvsy°nta
poioËnta). From there, with no look back, it goes beneath the seat of Necessity (ÍpÚ tÚn t∞w
énãgkhw fi°nai yrÒnon). and finally to the Plain of Lethe (ı t∞w LÆyhw ped¤on, Rep. 621a).
3.Daimons
Psychopompic da¤mvnew or guides of the soul (from the root da- da¤v, dat°omai, to
divide, especially to cut up portions of meat, in sacrifice). These figures variously gave out misfortune or
guided individual destinies. Da¤mvnew were originally "sharers" who shared out allotments to
humankind. As such they are linked to the metaphor of apportionment that underlines the terms moira
and aisa. Like them, they were powers beyond human will, older than the anthropomorphic Olympian
gods and incomprehensible, daimÒniow. 54 They are not major presences in Homer, where they usually
cause illness (Od. 5.396) and such misfortunes as Odysseus' imprisonment on Ogygia:
éll' §m¢ tÚn dÊsthnon §f°stion ≥gage da¤mvn
only my unhappy self did the daimon lead to her hearth (Od. 7.248) 55
To some extent, the activity of daimons can be contrasted to that of the gods (yeÒi) as
thwarting and aiding human purposes, respectively.
In the poem of Parmenides, it is a beneficent daimon who guides the possibly shamanic journey
of a young man toward discovery of truth 56
15

‡ppoi ta¤ me f°rousin, ˜son t' §p‹ yumÚw flkãnoi,
p°mpon, §pe¤ m' §w ıdÚn b∞san polÊfhmon êgousai
da¤monow
The mares that bear me as far as my heart aspires
sent me on, when once they set me on the much-spoken road
of the daimon (Parm fr. 1, 1-3)
He reaches the gates of the paths of Night and Day, filled with huge doors, and Dike the
avenger (D¤kh polÊpoinow) holds the keys (9) 57 A goddess welcomes him and tells him to
xa›r', §pe‹ oÎti se Mo›ra kakØ proÎpempe ne°syai
Rejoice, for it is no ill Fate that sends you to travel
here (26).
Daimons play a major role in the self-representation of the Platonic Socrates, who claimed
repeatedly that a daimon guided his destiny, which he describes as unusual and remarkable. His
daimon figures in his defense in the Apology:
˜ti moi ye›Òn ti ka‹ daimÒnion g¤gnetai [fvnÆ] ... §mo‹ d¢ toËt' ¶stin §k
paidÚw érjãmenon, fvnÆ tiw gignom°nh, ∂ tan g°nhtai, ée‹ épotr°pei
me toËto ˘ ín m°llv prãttein, protr°pei d¢ oÎpote.
that something divine and daemonic would befall me ... ever since my early childhood a
voice of sorts would come to me, which, when it came, always turned me back from
what I was intending to do, and turned me toward what I was not... (Apol 31d )
He remarks to the jury that something marvelous (yaumãsiÒn) had happened to him. That
very morning, he had met with the approval of:
≤ går efivyu›ã moi mantikØ ≤ toË daimon¤ou §n m¢n t“ prÒsyen xrÒnƒ
pant‹ pãnu puknØ ée‹ ∑n ka‹ pãnu §p‹ smikro›w §nantioum°nh, e‡ ti
m°lloimi mØ Ùry«w prãjein.
the mantic voice of the daimon, to which I had become accustomed , in times past was
always close at hand to oppose the smallest thing I might intend in error (Apol 40a)
Socrates' account is reflected in the Euthyphro gives a quasi-humorous account of these charges:
manyãnv, Œ S≈kratew: ˜ti dØ sÁ tÚ daimÒnion fØ|w saut“ •kãstote
g¤gnesyai.
Socrates, it is because you say that something daimonic is always in attendance upon
you (Euth 3b)
The Theaetetus also makes clear that Socrates' daimon attends to the fine details of his life. In
his account of the midwifery of the soul, he describes how he chooses his association:
16

§n¤oiw m¢n tÚ gignÒmenÒn moi daimÒnion épokvlÊei sune›nai, §n¤oiw d¢ §ò,
with some, the daimonic [presence] comes and forbids me to associate, with others, it
permits it (Tht 151a)
Daimons also figure prominently in Plato is as guides of the soul before birth and after death. In
the Phaedo, individual daimons appear as psychopompoi after death:
l°getai d¢ oÏtvw, …w êra teleutÆsanta ßkaston ı •kãstou da¤mvn,
˜sper z«nta efilÆxei, oappletow êgein §pixeire› efiw dÆ tina tÒpon, o de›
toÁw sulleg°ntaw diadikasam°nouw efiw
It is said that, when each person dies, the daimon of each, who had charge of him while
he was alive, this same one tries to lead him to a certain place (Phaedo 107d)
The wise soul follows the guide, but a soul overly attached to the body lingers and "only after
much resistance and much suffering, and with excessive force, can it be led away by its guiding daimon
(toË prostetagm°nou da¤monow Phaedo 108b), who leads it to judgment
4.The Dios Boule
§peidån éf¤kvntai ofl teteleuthkÒtew efiw tÚn tÒpon o ı da¤mvn ßkaston
kom¤zei
when the dead come to the place to which the daimon leads each (Phaedo 113d).
The Diow boulh or "Plan of Zeus," most specifically the relation of fate to the will of Zeus,
king and most powerful of the gods. Homer never resolves the question of the relation of moira to the
will of the gods, and they coexist ambiguously. 58 Human affairs "lie on the knees of the gods" (Od.
1.267). The "destructive plan of the gods" (ye«n Ùloåw diå boulãw) causes the suffering of
Oedipus (Od. 11.276), and "the will of the gods" (ye«n fiÒthti) causes the death of Patroklos (Il.
19.9), the toils of Odysseus (Od. 7.214) and the Trojan War (Od. 12.190 and 17.119). Yet the gods
acknowledge a fate beyond their power to alter. For example, Poseidon grudgingly acknowledges that
it is Odysseus' aisa to escape death (Od. 5.288ff).
While fate appears not to be a problem for the gods in general, it poses a more particular, and
also unresolved, problem for the plan of Zeus (DiÚw boulÆ). As king of the gods, Zeus is more
powerful than all the other gods combined, and his will has a unique status. The beginning of the Iliad
makes it clear that the will of Zeus is brought to completion with the sack of Troy. In the Odyssey Zeus
is more accommodating to the will of the other gods, e.g. in the return of Odysseus. Nevertheless, Zeus
17

has no more power than the other gods to determine the span of an individual life. Zeus, as the
"steward of war for mankind" (Il. 19.224) may weigh the fates of antagonists in battle, and may even
attempt to defer the moira of a hero in battle (Il. 16.431-43 and 22.167-81), but his will inevitably and
seamlessly conforms to the fate of that individual. As Terence Irwin points out, Zeus and the fates point
to two distinct notions of (partial) order within the Homeric universe: the impersonal, inexorable, amoral
(and usually inscrutable) order of the fates, and the intelligent, moral justice-based rulership of Zeus. 59
The moralizing retrospective accounts of Hesiod, Pindar and Aeschylus linked the power of the Moirai
with government of Zeus; and led to the worship of Zeus as Moirag°thw, "leader of the Moirai" in the
fifth century.
Greek philosophical reflection on fate moves away from the Homeric problem of the limits of
the will of Zeus. As we have seen, Plato takes it up with the role of daimons and the destinies of
individual souls (Republic and Timaeus). Aristotle takes in up in the Nichomachean Ethics, De
Interpretatione, the Metaphysics and the Physics.
5.Hellenistic Greece
After the fourth century, the Moirai where increasingly replaced by the term efimarm°nh.
After the fourth century, fate was viewed as principle ruling both the world overall and the lives of
individuals. It is well known that determinism (asserted and denied in both physical and ethical contexts)
became a central problem of post-Aristotelian Greek philosophy. From the late second century B.C.E.
to the third century C.E., discussions of fate became part of a philosophical repertoire common to all the
philosophical schools. It was central to the Stoa for 400 years, though no Stoic treatise on it has
survived. Discussions of the topics of fate and providence appear in texts variously titled On Fate, On
Nature, On the Possible, On Providence and On the Gods. Surviving text titled On Fate begin with
Chrysippus of Soli (280-207 B.C.E.), followed by Cicero (106-43 B.C.E.) and Alexander of
Aphrodisias (2nd-3rd century C.E.). Surviving accounts refer to the views of Epicurus (341-270
B.C.E.), the skeptic Carneades (214-129 B.C.E.), and several figures associated with the Stoa: its
founder Zeno of Citium (335-263), Boethus of Sidon (2nd century B.C.E.), Posidonius (135-51
B.C.E.) and Epictetus (c.55-135 C.E.). Lost texts are attributed to the Platonist Plutarch (1st century
18

C.E.), Tertullian (2nd century C.E.), and second century Peripatetics and Stoics. There were also
fourth century Christian works titled "Against Fate" by Gregory of Nyssa and Diodorus of Tarsus.
II. Skills and Practices
Religious views of fate assumed varying degrees of human agency, ranging from "passive"
attempts to ascertain divine will to attempts to align individual destiny with the pattern of the cosmos or
even to trick, compel or negotiate with the gods. Relevant religious practices included divination by
various methods, the interpretation of signs (dreams, omens, anomalies, etc.), and the efforts of
specialists (oracles, mediums, etc.) to ascertain divine commands. A central problem in both traditions
was mantic access: who had access to this information and these techniques?
The semantic fields for fate and destiny were intertwined with the practice of a range of
techniques that furthered personal welfare through personal access to mantic knowledge," a formulation
I owe to Mu-chou Poo. 60 By the term mantic access I mean a range of techniques of prediction and
divination. Starting from our earliest written records (literally), a range of Chinese techniques have been
used for prediction and divination. There is evidence that mantic access was far greater in 'China than in
Greece. A detailed description of these, their provenance, local variations, etc. is beyond the scope of
today's discussion. Techniques included: (1) the interpretation of omens, including dreams and other
signs and prodigies. (2) Shamanism, including the activities of Chinese wu shamans and other
shaman office-holders and other shaman and mediums, probably including a fair range of practitioners
at the popular level and (3) Divination methods. In contrast to passive receipt of omens, specific
divination methods allowed the diviner to actively seek answers and ascertain (or direct) the will of
specific deities. This range of beliefs and practices is also an important part of any Chinese discourse on
fate and fatalism.
Chinese techniques began with the reading of oracle bone "cracks." Shang divination covered a
wide variety of subject matter: sacrifice, military campaigns, hunting, excursions, calendrics, agriculture,
weather, illness, childbirth, dreams, construction, tribute and requests for divine or ancestral approval
and assistance. 61 Other techniques of prediction and divination were based on "reading" of the clouds
and stars, Yi jing and milfoil divination, the use of daybooks, such as those unearthed in the tombs at
Shuihudi, to determine auspicious times for events such as marriages, campaigns, etc.; prediction of
19

individual destiny based on physiognomy (including by mothers of their children), the interpretation of
dreams and anomalies in nature, geomantic techniques such as feng shui, horoscopes, divination
boards, and the manipulation of personal names to avoid adverse fate.
Greek religion also included figures and techniques with special skills in divination and the
interpretation of signs, including seers (mantis), omens and oracles. Some of these religious beliefs
takes fate as the command of one or more deities who can be petitioned or whose will can be
ascertained. In this sense, belief in fate is inextricably connected with beliefs about mantic access.
III. Root Metaphors
There are four areas of common or contrasting metaphors between the Chinese and Greek
semantic fields of fate: (1) Fate as divine command, including involvement of divinities, problem of the
relation of fate to the power of the gods, and the possibility of predictive divination; (2) Fate as division
and allotment. A common metaphor of division or allotment informs the semantic fields of both Chinese
ming and Greek mo›ra; (3) fate as change or constancy in nature, and (4) the figure of the sage as
someone know knows how to act vis a vis fate.
Fate was also a powerful trope in a wide range of literature and rhetoric. Narratives of the
action of fate are prominent in such early canonical literature as the Homeric poems and the Classic of
Poetry (Shi jing). Fate was also a potent rhetorical device in Han dynasty memorials to errant
emperors and Greek tragedy. Finally, views on fate figured as a potential limiting factor on some
technical skills (e.g. medicine, military strategy) and as an impetus to several sciences (astronomy,
medicine).
There are, however, important differences in what "work" the concept of fate did in each of
these areas. (1) Fate and divine command. Important differences in the purpose and techniques for
divination and availability of mantic access. (2) Fate as division. what was apportioned, by whom, to
whom, and to what end differed both between and within the two cultural contexts. (3) Fate and
change. Here we find considerably disagreement. (4) Fate, sagacity and freewill. On the Greek side we
find metaphors of spinning and binding and expressions of human powerlessness. On the Chinese side
we find understanding of and harmony with fate (according to very different formulae) as a defining
20

characteristic of the sage.
A.Metaphor of divine command
Chinese metaphors concern the division and allotment of shares according to the commands of
the gods (or ancestors) whose orders had the force of fate. Greek fate metaphors shifted from shares
to spinners, who spun and bound the courses of individual human lives with the threads of fate. Other
more general senses of fate, such as punishment, retribution, the fruit of past actions (in this and former
lives), and more abstract notions of causality and constancy in nature, seem absent from both China and
Greece.
B.Metaphors of division and Allotment
Both Ming and moira portray fate as a lot or allotment of life span and as an autonomous
power of destiny. Both words partake of a root metaphor of division and allotment, from which it is
tempting, but dangerous, to overgeneralize. What was apportioned, by whom, to whom, and to what
end differed both between and within the two cultural contexts. The Greeks described the moira of
epic heroes and dramatic figures. Homer tells us little about what commoners believed about fate. By
contrast, Chinese ming appears in discussions of the lives of commoners, as soldiers fleeing battle or as
ordinary people trying to live out their lifespans undisturbed; some are even attributed to the commoners
themselves, albeit in texts of elite authorship.
C.Fate and change
The specific association of fate with inevitable change in the universe seems particular to the
pre-Buddhist Chinese accounts, where fate or allotment includes life span, wealth and fortune in
explicitly changing times. Fate in this sense may apply to individuals, families, nations, empires or
polities. By contrast, Parmenides uses fate as a metaphor for the specifically unchanging and immobile
nature of "what-is." Other Greek thinkers associated change with the action of fate (in association with
justice, necessity and retribution), but in rhetorical and intellectual contexts very different from the
Chinese. Anaximander describes a balance between coming into and passing out of being based on
necessity and mutual "penalty and retribution" (d¤khn ka‹ t¤sin), but it is based, not on fate, but on
"the assessment of time" (katå t∞n toË xrÒnou tãjin, KR 103, DK 12A9). Heraclitus speaks of
all things "undergoing alteration" (élloioËtai) and of even the sun being subject to the retribution of
21

the Fates, the handmaidens of Dike, but his focus is the integrity of the order of nature and the physical
world (KR 207 and 229, DK 22B90 and 94). References to the action of fate or justice became part
of the rhetoric of appeals to Nature (fÊsiw), expressed in legal and moral language, that appealed to a
wide range of fifth-century Greeks. These were used to justify diverse positions. 62 Pre-Buddhist
Chinese accounts, by contrast, include but do not emphasize notions of causality and constancy in
nature.
D.Fate and sagacity, or Fate and Fatalism
This preliminary Chinese and Greek evidence suggests some common notions of fate, but very
different attitudes toward fatalism. Pre-Buddhist Chinese accounts combine acceptance of fate with
strong antifatalism and well developed notions of strategy or maneuvering room within its decrees. Life
span may be fated, but within it, free will reigns. Change and resilience are the order of the day and
open to human strategy and ingenuity. A wide range of texts stress the importance of timeliness (shi )
and configuration or "setup" (shi ) in response to one's times and to one's fate. Thus longevity and
good auspice were fated and unknowable, but could be cherished and cultivated through knowledge
and sagacity. In this sense, both the Zhuangzi and the Xunzi take "strategic" attitudes toward
omnipresent ming.
Greek accounts of fate contain a significant fatalist element. Greek fates were variously
personified: as Moira, the Moirai, the power of Themis or Dike, as the will of Zeus or the activity of
daimons. These divinities alternatively hold fate in their power and coexisted with an autonomous
"fate" beyond their control. The decrees and commands of these divinities and divine agencies were
consistently portrayed as fixed, binding, and inexorable.
22

Summary Table
Greece China
SIMILARITIES
1) Divine command/mandate 1) Divine command/mandate
mantic access restricted wide range of techniques for mantic access
2) Apportionment and division 2) Apportionment: and division
of lots and chance subject to change and transformation
life and death in battle, the "lots" of heroes the "full" span of life fated at birth
daimons as "sharers" attribute of persons, times, places, states
DIFFERENCES
3) Fate and change 3) Fate and change
Parmenides' linkage of fate with unchanging Chinese linkage of fate with change
4) fate, sagacity and freewill 4) fate, sagacity and freewill
metaphor of spinning and binding problem of sagacity
human powerlessness object of understanding and mastery
discourse on free will and Dios boule discourse on sagacity
23

Bibliography
Austin, Scott. 1986. Parmenides: Being, Bounds and Logic. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Bernstein, Mark H 1992. Fatalism. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Bobzien, Susanne. 1998. Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
Burkert, Walter. 1977. Greek Religion. Translated by John Raffan, London: Basil Blackwell, 1985.
Chen, Ning. 1994. Concepts of Fate in Ancient China. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of
Pittsburgh.
Chiang, Ted. 1999. "Story of Your Life." In The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixteenth Annual
Collection, ed. Gardner Dozois. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Detienne, Marcel, and Jean-Pierre Vernant. 1978. Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and
Society, trans. Janet Lloyd. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
Eliade, Mircea, editor in chief. The Encyclopedia of Religion. 1987. editors, Charles J. Adams et al.
New York: Macmillan; London: Collier Macmillan. pp. 290-98
Fu Sinian . 1952. "Xingming gushun bianzheng" [Analysis of Ancient Views
of Xing and Ming]. in Fu Mengzhen xian sheng ji vol 3. Taibei.
Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press.
Graham, Angus. C. 1978. Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science. Hong Kong: Chinese University
Press, and London: School of Oriental and African Studies.
Graham, Angus. C. 1981. Chuang-tzu: The Inner Chapters. London: George Allen & Unwin; Unwin
paperbacks.
Greene, William Chace. 1944. Moira: Fate, Good, and Evil in Greek Thought. Cambridge Mass:
Harvard University Press.
Guthrie, W. K. C. 1962-1981. A History of Greek Philosophy. Vols. 1-6, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hastings, James, with John A. Selbie and Louis H. Gray. 1961. Encyclopaedia of Religion and
Ethics. New York : Scribner. Original edition 1875, revised editions 1955 and 1961.
Irwin, Terence. 1989. A History of Western Philosophy I: Classical Thought. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Jaeger, Werner. 1939. Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture. Translated by Gilbert Hight. 3 vols.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1939; 2nd edition, with notes, l945; paperback rpt. l973.
Jullien, François. 1995. The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy in China.
Translated by Janet Lloyd. New York: Zone Books. Originally published as La propension des
24

choses: Pour une histoire de l'efficacité en Chine. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1992.
Keightley, David N. 1978. Sources of Shang history: the Oracle-bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age
China. Berkeley; Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Lloyd, G.E.R. 1996. Adversaries and Authorities: Investigations into ancient Greek and Chinese
science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lü Shi chunqiu (LSCQ) [Springs and Autumns of Master Lü] SBBY.
Mozi yinde (Mo) [A Concordance to the Mozi]. Shanghai: Guji chubanshe, 1982.
Poo, Mu-chou. 1998. In Search of Personal Welfare: A View of Ancient Chinese Religion. New
York: State University of New York Press.
Raphals, Lisa 1992. Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China
and Greece. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Reding, Jean-Paul. 1996. "Light and the Mirror: Elements of Comparative Metaphorology. Paper
Presented at the Association for Asian Studies, Honolulu, Hawai'i, April 11-14, 1996.
Reding, Jean-Paul. 1997. "L'Utilisation Philosophique de la Métaphore en Grèce et en Chine." Revue
de Théologie et de Philosophie 129:1-30.
Rescher, Nicholas. 1995. Luck: the Brilliant Randomness of Everyday Life New York : Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 1995.
Ruan Yuan . "Xing ming gu xun." [Xing and Ming in the Ancient Classics] Yanjingshi
ji, vol. 10. SBCK.
Shang shu zhengyi (Shu jing) Shisan jing zhushu .
Tang Junyi . 1957. "Xian Qin sixiang zhong zhi tian ming guan."
[The concept of tian ming in Pre-Ch'in China.] Xinya xuebao 2.2:1-33.
Tang Junyi . 1962. "The Tien-ming (Heavenly Ordinance) in Pre-Ch'in China." Philosophy
East & West 11 (1962): 195-218.
Tang Junyi . 1963. "The Tien-ming (Heavenly Ordinance) in Pre-Ch'in China." Philosophy
East & West 12 (1963) 29-42.
Topley, Marjorie. 1973. "Cosmic Antagonisms: A Mother-Child Syndrome." In Religion and Ritual
in Chinese Society. Arthur P. Wolf, ed. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 233-49.
Von Falkenhausen, Lothar. 1999. Review of Mu-chou Poo's In Search of Personal Welfare: A
View of Ancient Chinese Religion. Havard Journal of Asiatic Studies 59.2 (December 1999):
598-613.
Xia Lu . 1980. "Buci zhong de tian, shen, ming." [Tian, Sheng and
25

Ming in Oracle Bone Inscriptions]. Wuhan daxue xuebao no 2.
Xunzi yinde (X). Shanghai: Guji chubanshe, 1986.
Zhuangzi yinde (Zz) . Shanghai: Guji chubanshe, 1982.
26

1 Chiang 1999, pp. 314-15.
2 Chiang 1999, p. 327.
3 Chiang 1999, p. 329.
4 Chiang 1999, pp. 330-32.
5 Cf. Hastings, Selbie and Gray 1961, p. 774.
6 Giddens 1990, p. 29-31.
7 Bernstein 1992, p. 1.
8 Lloyd 1996:3-6.
9 See Lakoff and Johnson 1980 (on metaphor) and Reding 1996 and 1997 (on Chinese
metaphorology).
10 See François Jullien's (1995) study of Chinese notions of efficacy.
11 Cf. Xia Lu 1980.
12 Cf. Chen, 1994 144. Chen argues that there was not yet a belief in fixed fate, despite modern and
Zhou accounts.
13 X 103/28/39
14 Zz 6:241. Translations are my own unless otherwise specified. I use both the terms decree and fate
to translate ming, to avoid introducing a kind of crypto-fatalism into the texts.
15 Zz 29:998
16 X 55/15/60
17 Zz 4:160
18 Shang shu, Zhou shu, Prince Shi (16):18b-19a, cf. Legge 475-7. Cf. Tang Junyi 1962:199.
19 Cf. Zz 16:555, Zz 17:596
20 Xunzi 58/16/4 (Strengthening the State, Jiang guo) and 64/17/43 (Discourse on Heaven, Tian lun)
21 The formless had allotments (fen ) but they were still not divided out, and they were called decrees
(ming, Zz 12:424).
22 X 83/22/6
23 Zz 5:189. Graham (1986, p. 76) takes ming as naming rather than as ordering destiny: "he does his
own naming of the transformations of things".
24 Zz 14:532
25 Zz 5:212
26 Tang Junyi 1957:1-2 and 1962:196-7.
27

27 Xunzi 9/4/21. .
28 Zz 27:958. The translation of this passage depends on whether we read and as
referring to the cycles of heaven and earth described earlier in the passage or to the span of human lives.
I have taken it in the former sense. In the latter sense the passage would read: "Since we do not know
our ends, how can we say we are not fated [to die]; since we do not know how we began, how can we
say we are fated?"
29 Note also zheng ming at 7A/2
30 Tang Junyi 1957:1. This formulation is Tang Junyi's. I can find no instance of in the Zhuangzi,
despite several concordance searches. Shun ming is discussed below.
31 Cf. Tang Junyi 1957:1-2 and 1962:196-7.
32 49/Shuo/1.
33 Zz 19:630
34 Zz 30:1059 /
35 Zz 19:657-8
36 Zz 25:880
37 Zz 14:507. . Note also: "People
who do not follow their destinies distort their natural abilities and ruin their lives" (Zz 19:663).
38 X 7/3/30
39 The schema is indebted to, but not identical to the first major twentieth-century study on the subject
by Fu Sinian, which classified Warring States views of fate into five competing doctrines. In her
discussion of these, Michael Nylan (1993) restates and modfies Fu's schema. My discussion is
indebted to both. Unlike Fu or Nylan, my account focuses on the issue of predetermination, on which,
more later.
40 Tang 1962: 196-7.
41 Tang 197-8.
42 Fu Sinian 1952:305-8.
43 Mo 79/46/20-21. Mozi, Names and Objects 16 (Graham 1978, p. 489-90). The Lü Shi chunqiu
chapter "Living Out One's Lot" (Jin shu ) provides an apt example of this argument It describes
how sages use knowledge of yin and yang to understand what benefits the myriad creatures and live
out their allotted lifespans, without either augmenting or cutting them off (LSCQ 3.2, pp. 3b-5a).
44 Far East Chinese-English Dictionary, p. 424
45 Far East Chinese-English Dictionary, p. 424
46 These themes appear consistently in treatments of the subject in Classics (e.g. Greene 1944), history
of philosophy (Guthrie 1962-81 passim and Irwin 1989:16, 157, 171 and 180) and religion (Burkert
28

1977:129-30).
47 These include Themis or Dike (In addition to their later roles as deities of Justice and Punishment,
Dike is associated with an orderly flow of time, as is Moira with the orderly division of space) and
éνãγκη (Necessity), revealed by oracles, omens, prodigies and signs.
48 For Parmenides' dates see Guthrie II, pp. 1-2, based on Plato's (Parm 127a-c) description of a
meeting between the old Parmenides and the young Socrates. For the inquiry concerning nature see
Lloyd 1987, pp. 1-4 and 38-49. Conspicuously absent from this preliminary study are medical and
other scientific works. For discussion of fate as an area of speculation that offers "some of the greatest
problems for, or the maximum resistance to, any scientific takeover," see Lloyd 1987, pp. 4 and 38-49.
As he points out, much of the discourse on prediction in medicine and astronomy concerned prognosis
of the course of disease or the prediction of the positions of the sun, moon and planets. These
predictions did not significantly involve the operative notions of fate.
49 Demosthenes (On the Halonnesus 7.40) refers to a piece of land as "no man's land" (émmor¤ow).
50 Of the 101 instances of mo›ra in the Iliad and Odyssey, only one is in the phrase huper moiran.
Uper aisan occurs five times out of 40 instances of aisa.
51 Detienne and Vernant 1978. For "metic intelligence" in China see Raphals 1992.
52 For example, at the marriage of Peleus and Thetis and Zeus and Themis.
53 Parmenides also wrote in Homeric hexameter and began his poem, in the Homeric manner, with a
claim for divine inspiration.
54 Greene 1944, p. 12.
55 For other examples see Il. 9.600 and Od. 3.166, 5.396, and 12.295
56 Guthrie considers the daimon to be Helios, the sun, Austin takes her as "the goddess."
57 For discussion See Austin 156-57 and Guthrie vol. 2, pp. 7-9.
58 e.g. Il. 1.5, Od. 11.297
59 Irwin 1989, pp. 16-17.
60 Poo 3ff.
61 Keightley 1978, pp. 33-35.
62 According to Greene (1944, p. 228), these included naive individualists, super-patriots (in defense of
the state's right to exist), democrats (in defense of the status quo), aristocrats (in defense of a
reactionary coup), and the Athenian empire itself (in defense of the conscription of Melian neutrals).
29