FREEDOM AND NECESSITY DOWN THE AGES

is anything necessary ... the ancients were of two opinions ... parmenides said everything's necessary nothing's left to chance for nothing ever changes change is an illusion ... heraclitus disagreed nothing stays the same he said permanence crumbles anything can happen ... plato said if you want necessity you'll find him at home in the world of ideas but down here in the cave things are a mess ... aristotle reveling in the mess organized cataloged necessity expanding then limiting it to his own four causes and much preferred the slogan always or for the most part ... then came the skeptics his successors the resurrected sophists and took away the conjunction and made the slogan a sneer and an academic prerogative to ask the question who can say always isn't really for the most part ... and the epicureans in shock took to refined eating and the stoics built walls and the walls fell ... and rose again round cathedrals and universities where the word spread that only one thing was necessary ... it was that which made us free