The syllogistic treatises of Boethius: His sources, history and influence in Latin Christianity

In this article, the author describes the contents of a treatise on Aristotelian logic, written by Boethius in the sixth century A.D., titled in our modern editions as De syllogismo categorico (DSC). It is possible to show, through the contents: (i) the importance of this treatise for the transmission process of Aristotle's logic to the Latin medieval period; (ii) its relation to another, similar monographic treatise, titled by modern criticism as Introductio ad syllogismos categoricos (ISC) and its thematic relation to DSC; (iii) the most probable sources of both treaties; and, finally (iv), its influence upon the Latin medieval period. The hypothesis that the present article defends is that the logical contents of this treatise, in particular the classification of the categorical propositions, contained in the heart of the DSC, give not only the thematic object to the treatise, but also argumentative coherence and unity. The study of this classification, especially, permits one to demonstrate the unity of DSC and, in particular, that the second book of DSC is genuine-not spurious as was claimed, not long ago, by the investigators Murari and McKinlay. In addition, this same classification allows one to appreciate its difference from ISC, by the fact that this latter treatise possesses a classification that is different from that of DSC. The basis of the proposed hypothesis is found in that the aforementioned classification is an attempt to generate, from the propositional elements, the principal logical operations defined by Aristotle in his writings on logic, a matter that, in De Rijk's revision (1964), was not entirely established.