The Idea of Justice in Historiosophy of Antiquity

Abstract

The article asks a question about the influence of historiosophy on how the notion of justice is understood in Greek and Roman philosophy of law. Historiosophy, named also the philosophy of history, has been defined as an effort to explain general history in categories of sense and aim by proving that there is a general rule leading the historical process. In the course of the discussion there are two such historiosophical rules presented. Chronologically, the first of them is Homeric Moirai, which throughout the development of the Greek philosophy has been replaced by a notion of providence. Moirai was the rule of destiny controlling destinies of both men and gods. In this approach, justice was understood as a certain “share” or “allocation”, seen as a role given to each person who needed to play it in history. The same content element was included in the notion of providence. In the philosophy of stoics providence was the ordering force that created nature and at the same time constituted an indirect source of justice and law.