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from F
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 January 2025
The Latin term fortuna, mostly translated as fortune, traditionally has a wide range of meanings, referring to chance, luck, coincidence, but also fate or destiny. It can refer to what happens accidentally, good or bad, but also to what is needed so that something good happens. In the Spinozist lexicon, the term is prominent, but far less frequent than other systematic concepts. Its usage is not uniform: colloquial meanings stand next to a complex and quite original conceptual employment. Spinoza was evidently aware of the relevance of the term in the Stoic tradition and in the writings of the Roman historians he frequently quotes, but also in many humanist texts, and in particular in Machiavelli’s doctrine of virtue, occasion, and fortune. It also bears reminding that as a quasi-pagan category, as the name for the goddess of fate, fortuna also stands in tension with the Christian (and particularly Protestant) notion of providence which Spinoza violently opposes on philosophical grounds.
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