A 15th-Century Handbook on Aristotelian Logic: The Anonymous Logica “Quadrupliciter”

Abstract

The present paper offers a description and analysis of a fifteenth century handbook on logic, preserved in the ms. Zwickau, Ratsschulbibliothek XXXIII.I.14, ff. 3r-223v. The volume comprises a set of commentaries on Porphyry's Isagoge (ff. 3ra-35vb); on Aristotle's Categories, including the Liber sex principiorum, introduced in f. 66ra as Postpredicamenta (ff. 36ra-70vb); on De interpretatione (ff. 70ra-92vb); on the Prior analytics (93ra-129rb); on the Posterior analytics (129va-169vb); on books I-IV of the Topics (170ra-200ra); and on Sophistici elenchi (200va-223vb). These commentaries are not included in the several lists and indexes of Aristotelian commentaries currently available, neither separately nor as a whole. With few exceptions, all commentaries of the set follow the same, sctrict pattern: a fourfold division of questions, arguments, objections and answers, usually introduced by the word quadrupliciter, which suggests that the set should be considered as one single handbook compiled by an anonymous master as an repository of arguments available for disputations at the Arts Faculty. Given the extension of the volume, the paper focuses mainly in one section in particular, namely the commentary on the Topics, to analyse more closely certain features that make this work worthy of closer study, with particular attention devoted to the meticulous use of different sources for its composition.