Aristotle Supplemented

Description

Convenors:

Dr John Marenbon 
Dr Christophe Erismann
Dr Margaret Cameron

The conference will examine how, from antiquity through to the late Middle Ages, Aristotle’s logical Organon was supplemented, often transforming his thought or opening up new areas in the subject. The aim of our meeting is to ask about the philosophical importance of this process and to examine comparatively how it took place in the Latin West and in the world of Islam.

Some details on the Theme of the Conference. 

The process of supplementing Aristotle begins at least as early as the adoption of Porphyry’s Isagoge as the first text in the Aristotelian curriculum.  In the Latin West, Boethius’s monographs on the Topics and on hypothetical syllogisms were studied from the eleventh century onwards and, in the twelfth century, were probably more influential on the way in which Aristotelian logic was conceived than any text by Aristotle himself.  Even in the thirteenth and fourteenth-century curriculum an extra work, the twelfth-century Liber de sex principiis was regularly studied along with the Organon.  And, most important, Aristotelian logic was supplemented by the branches of the logica modernorum.  How, exactly, do these relate to Aristotelian logic?  What, for example, are the connections between the theory of consequences and syllogistic, or between study of the Topics and the practice of obligationes?  In Arabic logic, the story is rather one in which Avicenna’s interpretation of Aristotle’s logic becomes the main text for study and commentary, but then itself tends to make way for independent text-book presentations of logical theory.  We hope in the conference to explore the different stages of this process, which is only beginning to be understood by historians of logic. 

Speakers:

Jenny Ashworth
Margaret Cameron
Caterina Dutilh
Christophe Erismann
Sten Ebbesen
Khaled El-Rouayheb
John Marenbon 
Chris Martin
Stephen Read
Paul Thom

All are welcome to attend any of the session.  The conference is free and open to all.

If you are interested in attending, please contact John Marenbon  by clicking on the Booking email link  on the right. 

To see  the Programme please click on the appropriate links on the right hand side.