Heidegger

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480-524) was born to a distinguished
family called the Anicii, near the end of the Roman Empire. When his father, a
Roman consul, died, Boethius was adopted by the equally distinguished Symmachus
family. Both the Anicii and the Symmachus were old Orthodox Christian
families, as were most of the aristocracy at the time. Theodoric, the king of Italy
from 493 to 526, however, was an Arian Christian, who largely distrusted the
Orthodox. Nonetheless, Boethius managed to achieve the rank of Magister
officiorum, the principle minister in Theodoric’s government, and earned the
king’s trust.

However, an intrigue at the court and an attempted assassination of the king
led to Boethius’ imprisonment at Pavia. A year later, Boethius was brutally
executed. No evidence actually pointed to his guilt. During his life, Boethius
produced two commentaries on the Isagoge of Porphyry, also a commentary on
Aristotle’s Categories, De Interpretatione 9, and Cicero’s Topics. He also
authored several short works on logic, including De syllogism hypothetico.
Today, Boethius is chiefly remembered for his masterpiece, On the Consolation of
Philosophy, written in the last year of his life while imprisoned at Pavia. It
is however, to the earlier writings that we will now turn. The longest and
most important discussion Boethius offers on universals is found in his Second
Commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge.

Boethius lays out the problem as follows: “Genera and species either exist
and subsist or are formed by the understanding and by thought alone.” Genera
and species are the Aristotelian terms relating to the classification of
things. They are, at this point, interchangeable with universals. So Boethius
effectively states that universals must either exist and have form, or they must
be merely mental concepts. The problem is to determine which situation is the
case. Boethius first turns to the argument against universals, which may be
considered as follows:

1. Something that is common to many cannot be one
2. The genus is common to many
3. The genus cannot be one
4. The genus cannot exist The same argument could apply to species.

A genera or species must apply to many things. `Dog’ refers to many
particulars, Fido, Fifi, or Fran. Each individual dog exists, but where is `Dog’?
Likewise, `Animal’ may refer to `Dog’, `Cat’, or `Sheep’. If these are mere
concepts, then `Animal’ is a step removed as a concept which picks out a concept.
There is no actual `Animal’ any more than there is an actual `Dog’, there
are only the particular examples of what one refers to under these universal
headings. Therefore, universals do not exist other than by thought alone.

Having demonstrated the argument against universals, Boethius goes on to
show the ridiculousness of considering universals real by restating the Third
Man Argument. Boethius writes:

Even if genus and species do exist, but are multiple and not one in number,
there will be no last genus. It will have another genus placed above it,
including that multiplicity in the word expressing its one name. For just as
several animals have a certain similar something, yet are not the same, and for
that reason their genera are sought out, so too a genus that is in several
things, and is therefore multiple, has a likeness of what is a genus. But this
likeness is not one, because it is in several things. For that reason, another
genus of that genus is also to be searched for. And when that has been found,
then for the same reason as was said above, once more a third genus is
tracked down. And the argument necessarily goes on the infinity, since the
procedure has no end.

Boethius then offers the argument in favour of universals. If genera and
species are grasped only by understandings and understandings arise from a
subject thing, then understandings of genus and species comes from the subject
thing in such a way as the thing understood is disposed. Therefore, they are not
posited in the understanding alone, but are also there in reality. Boethius’
solution is to recognize that the human mind is capable of abstraction. The
mind can unite two dissimilar things to create a new thing, for example a
horse and a man may be united to form a centaur. There is no such thing as a
centaur, yet the mind can envision such a thing by uniting two known things. One
can also abstract the parts of a whole. One could consider the mane of a
horse apart from the whole horse, or even more abstractly the triangular shape of
a roof apart from the roof. No one should consider talk of these things to
be false just because its grasped by the mind as if it were apart from bodies
even though it cannot exist beyond bodies. His point is that when genera and
species are thought, their likeness is gathered from the single things they
exist in. So, one looks to particulars and then abstracts universals. However,
just because these universals cannot exist apart from particulars is no
reason to doubt their veracity. Boethius seems to be foreshadowing the Formal
Distinction which will later be employed by Duns Scotus.

A. Smith

Lets pick up on this theme next time. ASmith

regards,

Jud Evans.
Personal Website: http://evans-experientialism.freewebspac…

Posted on Friday, February 16th, 2007 at 12:30 am
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