The Aeneid is qualifiedly Augustan. It does not suppress the problems of Augustus’ rise. It foregrounds human tragedy within the range of events in suspension, fortunae, though these cannot impede providential World Fate. Dido and Turnus make choices against fate that are up to them; the fact of fate’s providence makes these and other tragedies even more cruel. Virgil combines the Stoic concept of cosmic fate with the contemporary view that the Roman empire was coterminous with the inhabited world, and he innovatively adds that Rome’s universal fate is Stoically providential. He complicates that model with his emphasis on the human tragedy involved in Rome’s establishment. Rather than being Augustan or anti-Augustan, the Aeneid is realistic in its acceptance of the problems of Augustus’ rise and guardedly optimistic chiefly because of Virgil’s independent didacticism for Augustus. He presents as exempla for Augustus Hercules and Aeneas, though the latter’s defective inclemency to Turnus is meant to encourage Augustus’ well-advertised exercise of clemency. Anchises’ words at Aeneid 6.851–3 have a special didactic application to Augustus: ‘tu regere imperio .... memento’.

One of the most provocative chapters in Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed is part 3, chapter 13. In this chapter, Maimonides criticizes anthropocentrism and teleology. He argues, inter alia, that it is pointless to seek the telos of the universe; that the universe was not created for the sake of humans; and that all beings were intended for their own sakes, not for the sake of something else. These views were rejected by many later philosophers, like Thomas Aquinas, Levi Gersonides, Moses Narboni, Hasdai Crescas, Isaac Arama, Saul Morteira, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Narboni wrote: “I am very perplexed by the Master! … [His words] contradict all the sciences. For the goal of all the sciences is to know the final end … This is no less than the abolition of the nature of the intellect!” Crescas wrote: “[It cannot be] what appears from the literal sense of the Master’s words. Heaven forfend that it should be attributed to God what would be a grave defect in any intelligent being,” namely, acting with no purpose! Arguably “[the most] systematic effort to rebut Maimonides’ discussion [in Guide 3.13]” was that of Saul Levi Morteira, Spinoza’s teacher. Spinoza, however, was not convinced by him. Indeed, he was the first major philosopher to embrace wholeheartedly Maimonides’ criticisms of anthropocentrism and teleology. Maimonides’ discussion in Guide 3.13, formatively influenced Spinoza’s celebrated assault on final causality in his appendix to part 1 of Ethics.