"Free will"--now there's a slippery, and tricky, concept!
The possibly-related distinction that is really important here is that between Providence and Fate. As a historical matter, the Stoics seem to have treated these as synonyms, and therefore trapped themselves in a fully deterministic cosmos. As Platonists, we can realize that Providence is above Fate, and so we become free when we step above Fate, while always remaining within the Gods' Providence.
There's a really nice discussion of some of these issues in the comment thread of this old blog post, by the way.
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Date: 2021-12-31 04:43 am (UTC)The possibly-related distinction that is really important here is that between Providence and Fate. As a historical matter, the Stoics seem to have treated these as synonyms, and therefore trapped themselves in a fully deterministic cosmos. As Platonists, we can realize that Providence is above Fate, and so we become free when we step above Fate, while always remaining within the Gods' Providence.
There's a really nice discussion of some of these issues in the comment thread of this old blog post, by the way.