Chrysippus Quote on Fate: The Cylinder and the Cone

Quote

"The cylinder rolls and the cone spins: the same push, different natures — and so it is with fate and the person: the occasion is given, and the response is the nature's own. The responsibility is the response." — Chrysippus, as reported in the doxographical tradition (3rd century BCE)

Author

Chrysippus (c. 280–207 BCE) was the third head of the Stoic school and its greatest systematizer. His account of fate and freedom, preserved through the doxographical tradition, shaped the entire history of the problem of free will.

Source

The account of the cylinder and the cone is preserved in Cicero's On Fate and in Aulus Gellius's Attic Nights, which transmit the doctrine of Chrysippus. The translation follows the reconstruction of the doctrine in Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (1987).

Context

The image belongs to the Stoic defense of fate and freedom against the critics who objected that determinism destroys responsibility. Chrysippus's answer is the compatibilism: the external circumstances (the push) are given by fate, but the response is determined by the nature of the agent — the cylinder rolls, the cone spins, because their natures differ. The occasion is fated, the response is the nature's own, and for the response — the assent, the choice — the person is responsible.

Meaning

The quotation states the Stoic compatibilism with complete clarity. "The cylinder rolls and the cone spins" — the image: the same push produces different motions, because the natures differ. "The same push, different natures" — the analysis: the push is the occasion — the external circumstance — and the motion is the response — determined by the nature. "And so it is with fate and the person" — the application: the occasion is given by fate, the response is the person's own — the character, the judgment, the assent. "The occasion is given, and the response is the nature's own" — the division: the fate gives the occasion, the person gives the response, and the two are not in conflict. "The responsibility is the response" — the conclusion: the person is responsible for the response — the assent, the choice — and the responsibility is the ground of the praise and the blame. The quotation is the foundation of the Stoic compatibilism, and it grounds the Stoic wisdom tradition's account of freedom and fate.

Related Wisdom

The quotation belongs to the Stoic doctrine of determinism and freedom and the philosophy of responsibility. Its account of the cylinder and the cone is the ancestor of every modern compatibilism, and it grounds the Stoic wisdom tradition's reconciliation of fate with the moral life.