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What has four legs in the morning, two at midday, and three in the evening.
The answer was man- who crawls as a child, walks upright as an adult, and hobbles on a cane once elderly.
Launa:
I think that is, at least according to Sophocles, the very idea of fate. Fate, by its very nature, is unavoidable. And if fate is something that can not be changed, then how can it be said that anything we do is of significance?
Oedipus was going to kill his father and marry his mother, it was impossible for anything else to happen. So in this sense, he really isn’t guilty at all. He is more like a pawn within the universe.
I suppose it boils down to trying to reconcile this very definitive understanding of fate with the conception that we have free will; that we are, at least in some way, able to decide what our future will look like.
Haha, I actually brought this up in the previous forum topic!
I remember reading a book on Aristotle where they asked something similar.
I think he proposed a situation where two men are arguing over whether or not there will be a ship battle tomorrow. One man says there will be a ship battle, the other says there will not be.
Sure enough, there is a ship battle.
So I think the problem became, not only is the first man right, but he was also right before the ship battle even happened. Because the statement “There will be a ship battle.” is necessarily either true or false. We can see that it was true, and so it would seem that there was never even the possibility of their NOT begin a ship battle.
I think the same problem appears with Oedipus.
If he was ALWAYS going to kill his father and marry his mother, then how can it be said that there was any say in the matter? If the statement “Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother” is true and has always been true, then how can Oedipus take any real blame? Seriously, can anybody else tell me?
I remembering wrestling with Oedipus Rex and the problem of fate back in my university days. I think the one thing that bothered me was the idea that fate was a plan written in stone. The whole point of Oedipus’ ordeal is that there literally could not have been any other outcome other than him murdering his father and marrying his mother.
But if fate is unavoidable, I often wondered why we are held responsible for anything. Sure, Oedipus unknowingly did all these things, but whether he was knowledgeable or ignorant the result would be the same no matter what. So how is it that there is any personal responsibility for anything ever? What’s going to happen is going to happen.
I guess what I’m saying is that if we are going to adhere to Sophocles’ interpretation of fate, then Oedipus should be regarded the exact same whether he had done these actions with or without knowledge. How should he be regarded? As innocent? As guilty? THAT, I’m not sure of.
