LOGIC AND LOLLARDY

Abstract

Ex istis elicitur quod innocens nec arti liberali nec mechanice intendisset. Constat quidem quod ars in quantum huiusmodi dicit quandam erudicionem anxiam preter noticiam theoricam. Ideo stat quod homo sit, quantumlibet magnus philosophus, sine arte ... Ex istis colligitur quod grammatica nostra non convenit statui innocentis, nec per idem dialectica sive rhetorica; cum Veritas locucionis sine duplicitate et decencia sine difformitate innocentibus naturaliter convenisset et sic specularivam logice sine fastidio habuissent... Theorica autem istarum arcium que est proprie sciencia infuisset, cum multi post lapsum statim consenciunt plurimis conclusionibus doctrinalibus eciam per demonstrandi medium sine previo demonstrante. Unde miserum foret dimissa theorica sciencia in qua consisrit felicitas istis Septem arribus nimis attendere. Ideo istud indubie non fecissent innocentes, semper in melius operandum spiritu dei ducri, sed solum intendissent praxi theorice vel mediis necessariis ad eandem.1(From these facts it follows that man in his innocence would have had no need to apply himself to any one of the liberal or mechanical arts. For it is clear that 'art' in this sense calls for a degree of troublesome learning beyond theoretical knowledge. Therefore it is certain that man, in so far as he is a great philosopher, is not dependent on the arts ... From these preceding arguments it can be deduced that our art of grammar does not befit the state of innocent man, nor, by the same argument, does the art of dialectic or of rhetoric, since truthfulness and beauty in language without duplicity or deformity would have naturally suited mankind in the state of innocence. Thus man would have possessed the theoretical knowledge of 'logic'2 without any effort ... But the 'theory' of these arts, which is, strictly speaking, knowledge, would have been inherent to the state of innocence, since, after the Fall, many men arrived immediately at numerous doctrinal conclusions through the medium of demonstration even though there had been no such demonstration before. For this reason, it would be inappropriate, now that theoretical knowledge in which happiness consists has been forsaken, to pay too much attention to these seven arts. The innocents, doubtless, would never have done so, being always led by the spirit of God to do what was better, but they would have applied themselves only to the enactment of 'theory' or to the means necessary to achieve it.)Thus John Wyclif in his tract on prelapsarian being, De statu innocencie. The passage is characteristically Wyclif's in its febrile, synthetic, and edgy meditation on some of the classic Ion of medieval engagement with the ontology and epistemology of the liberal arts,3 in particular those of 'logic'. The main points of interest of the above passage, themes often burdened or enriched by a vast and venerable history of patristic and scholastic discussion, may be enumerated as follows: the necessity or otherwise of the liberal and mechanical arts before the Fall, the distinction between the speculativa (theoretical knowledge) of an art and its practice as well as its identity as a formal academic discipline, the relation of happiness - felicitas - to the possession of such theorica, the meaning of 'philosophy' and the truth-value of discourse, veritas locucionis. These are abiding themes in Wyclif's writings, broached repeatedly in other places, including De veritate sacre scripture and De benedicta incarnacione. In the latter work, Lucifer is identified as the first corrupt logician in that he asked the first questio, and thereby introduced into the fallen world the desire to dispute and win arguments. 'Unde omnis questio attestatur indubie super ignoranciam vel peccatum.'4 And though Aristotle held that God dignified man beyond all other beasts by endowing him with the intellectual faculties, Wyclif insists that, post lapsum, man is morally - moraliter - more imperfect than any other animal. …