Stoická teorie jednání: pojem ctnosti a svobody

The paper offers an interpretation of two basic paradoxes in Stoic ethics: the paradox of virtue, which represents the goal of every human endeavour though it has no particular content; and the paradox of human freedom, which represents human perfection in a deterministic world. The author’s presentation of the basic tenets of Stoic ethics allows him to propose a solution to the first paradox which consists in integrating virtue into the rational motion of kosmos performed by providential nature. The same solution is then offered for the notion of freedom which thus turns out to be a complementary view of that very same perfection, described elsewhere as virtue. Both notions manifest a particular conception of the relation between the human being as the part and the kosmos as the whole.