Hans Jonas, ancient Stoicism, and the problem of freedom

Among the Hellenistic schools, Jonas attributes a decisive role to Stoicism. The new position held by ancient Stoicism should be considered crucial, because (over, above and better than Aristotle) it seems to represent the first philosophy, that examines the idea of freedom from a strong, systematic, holistic point of view. The Stoic idea of ‘destiny’ and more generally its notion of ‘determinism’ is a form of heimermene; it has also a theological value and must be identified with a specific form of ‘providence’/pronoia, although all that cannot seem to exercise its power up to single human lives in their minute, minimal details. After reconstructing the Stoic idea of freedom, however, Jonas begins to advance his objections: Stoicism seems to embrace a radical form of fatalism, that risks to destroy any autonomous power of moral agents, any space for their responsibility and therefore denies any possibility of changes/modifications.