Aristotle defined chance as "those things whose cause is undefined and which do not occur for a purpose, and not always, or not usually in some ordained way." (86) I'm all about the life motto about it all working out in the end, but I'm still not convinced that *chance,* as Aristotle describes it, truly exists. I don't believe that anything in life just happens for absolutely no apparent reason at all. Nobody becomes poor for no reason, nor does anyone prosper without some defined cause. Sure miracles happen, but there's a defined cause. I guess what I'm getting at is does chance exist? And if so, where and what are some examples of the undefined causes happening?
Jodi - I'd think of "chance" not in terms of some general philosophical principal here, but in terms of things that are available to a rhetor in a discussion of judicial rhetoric. If you are trying to pin down how something can be understood as wrong-doing, you have to ask, first, did it happen by chance or by intent. This of course becomes a central issue in many criminal cases, yes? It's useful, as you think through Aristotle, to step back from a perspective that he's making grand claims about the world and more to think: what kinds of questions should I ask if I am going to make claims about this sort of thing."
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