In addition to the Consolation, Boethius produced a number of important translations and treatises. He translated most, if not all, of Aristotle’s Organon as well as Porphyry’s Isagoge. He composed commentaries on several of the works that he translated, a series of handbooks on various topics in logic, a series of handbooks on the mathematical sciences, and five short theological treatises.
1. Translations. Boethius planned to translate and comment upon all the known writings of Plato and Aristotle (in De int. 2nd edn. 79-80). However, Boethius only managed to complete a fraction of his proposed project. Boethius probably produced a complete translation of Aristotle’s Organon. Versions of his translations of the Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Topics, and Sophistical Refutations survive and have been critically edited in the Aristoteles Latinus series (Minio-Paluello 1961-1975). Many scholars believe that Boethius finished a translation of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, but if it ever did exist, it is now lost. In addition to the Organon, Boethius translated Porphyry’s Isagoge, which is traditionally taken to be an introduction to Aristotle’s logic. Those works of Aristotle that did not get rendered into Latin by his hand were, by and large, lost to the West until the latter part of the twelfth century.
Boethius labored over his translations. Some of them seem to have gone through several editions. Boethius aimed for accuracy over elegance, and by most estimates, he succeeded at rendering Aristotle’s thoughts in a rigorous and faithful manner (Barnes, in Gibson 1981; Ebbesen 1990).
2. Commentaries. Boethius managed to comment on Aristotle’s Categories, Aristotle’s On Interpretation (twice, once in introductory form and once in intermediate), Porphyry’s Isagoge (twice, first based on Marius Victorinus’ translation, and later in a version based on his own translation), and Cicero’s Topics. He may have commented on at least some of the rest of the Organon, and he may have composed a greater commentary on the Categories, but only fragments of unknown authenticity survive (Hadot 1959).
Boethius’ commentaries on Aristotle and Porphyry belong to the tradition of Neoplatonic commentaries on these logical works. Boethius’ commentary on the Categories by and large follows Porphyry’s shorter question and answer commentary. His greater commentary on On Interpretation primarily follows Porphyry’s now lost commentary on that same work.
While Boethius tends to follow mainly Porphyry, he is well aware of the views of other Neoplatonists. At least one scholar has argued that Boethius attended lectures at the Neoplatonic school in Alexandria (Courcelle 1948, 299-300 [= 1969, 316-318]). However, the current consensus is that Boethius probably learned about
Neoplatonism in writings that he would have come across in Italy, and that he did not study in Egypt or Athens.
The commentary is a genre that places a premium on passing on the received wisdom of a particular school. Boethius’ commentaries are no exception to this general rule. One should not expect to find Boethius’ most original and creative work in his commentaries. However, one should be careful before subscribing to Shiel’s (1958) thesis that Boethius merely cobbled together material that he found in the scholia of his manuscripts of Aristotle. Boethius probably had to make decisions about what to include, what to omit, and what to emphasize (Barnes, in Gibson 1981; Ebbesen 1990). Furthermore, there are a number of excurses scattered throughout Boethius’ commentaries that do not appear to be slavishly copied from his source material.
Perhaps the most famous digression is Boethius’ treatment of the problem of universals in his second commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge (In Isag. 2nd edn., I, 10-11, 159-167; English translation in Spade 1994). Therein Boethius developed a series of intriguing arguments in favor of the conclusion that universals do not exist outside the mind. The main thrust of these arguments is that something exists outside the mind only if it is a unity, but universals cannot be a unity and also exhibit the property of universality, viz., to be common to many things. Boethius, then, posed a dilemma for those who believe that universals do not exist outside the mind. We surely have concepts that are universal. But if these concepts do not represent the world as it truly is, then these concepts appear to be empty and false. Boethius offered a solution that he attributed to the third-century Aristotelian philosopher Alexander of Aphrodisias. The mind is capable of considering things in a manner different from that in which they exist. In particular, the mind is able to consider and compare the features of concrete particulars without reference to the particular, even though these features cannot actually be separated from the particulars. By abstracting features in this manner, the mind is able to construct universal concepts. Hence, while universals do not exist in things as something common to many, the concept of a universal - since it is abstracted from things in the right way - can be truthfully attributed to many things.
3. Logical Handbooks. In addition to his commentaries, Boethius wrote several handbooks on logic. Five of these treatises survive: On the Categorical Syllogism, Introduction to the Categorical Syllogism (incomplete), On Division, On the Hypothetical Syllogism, and On Topical Differences. Boethius planned to write an overview of the study of logic entitled On the Order of the Peripatetic Disciplines, but no such work survives.
On the Categorical Syllogism and Introduction to the Categorical Syllogism introduce the student to the forms of valid syllogisms presented in Aristotle’s Prior Analytics and On Interpretation. These treatises were quickly superseded by Aristotle’s work once it became available again in the West.
On Division presents an introduction to the logical exercise of “division” and its correlative process “collection.” Division is a process of resolving wholes into parts; collection is a process of determining what items are contained by some whole. Hence, Boethius’ presentation of division requires that he discuss the varieties of parts and wholes. Boethius’ remarks about parts and wholes were instrumental in the development of medieval mereology (see the entry on Mereology in this Encyclopedia).
For historians of logic, Boethius’ treatises on the hypothetical syllogism and the topics are perhaps the most interesting. In part, this is due to the fact that they are almost the only surviving late ancient treatments of these important fields in the history of logic.
Boethius’ treatise on the hypothetical syllogism is the only surviving late ancient treatment of the conditional. Superficially, the treatise appears to present a version of the propositional logic that is credited to the Stoics. This impression has led to some puzzlement over Boethius’ peculiar views about the conditional. For example, Boethius appears to have assimilated p! —q to — (p! q), whereas modern logicians sharply distinguish these propositions from one another (Barnes, in Gibson 1981). But as Christopher Martin (1991) has shown, uncritically representing Boethius’ claims about conditionals in terms of propositional logic is highly misleading. In order to have a propositional logic, one must have the concepts ofpropositional content and propositional operations. According to Martin, Boethius had neither. Rather, Boethius worked with a muddled version of Aristotelian term logic. Once this fact is grasped, one is in a better position to appreciate the remarkable innovations of the twelfth century. Peter Abelard and his fellow twelfth-century logicians, not Boethius, were the true heirs to the Stoics.
The treatise on topical reasoning, along with his commentary on Cicero’s Topics, gives us a rare glimpse into the late ancient understanding of this complex outgrowth from Aristotle’s Topics. Topical theory focuses upon the discovery of dialectical arguments. Boethius’ discussion of the topics breaks down into two parts. One part consists of a list of key terms (the differentiae) that the dialectician seeks in order to construct an argument that will settle a dispute. The other part consists of a list of the ‘‘maximal sentences’’ that are associated with each differentia. The maximal sentence is a general proposition concerning the key term that will help the dialectician to construct his proof. Boethius noted that there are two different lists of topical differentiae, one handed down from Cicero and another handed down from Themistius. Boethius took it upon himself to show that these two lists really coincide.
As with his logical commentaries, most scholars believe that Boethius’ textbooks are largely derivative. Some are believed to be adapted from earlier Greek works. For example, it appears that Boethius consulted Porphyry’s commentary on Plato’s Sophist and perhaps some earlier Aristotelian material when he composed his On Division. In other cases, Boethius may have had a greater hand in the selection and presentation of the material. It is possible that On Hypothetical Syllogisms is, as Boethius himself claimed, his most original work.
4. Handbooks on the Quadrivium. In the ancient world music and astronomy (or astrology), in addition to arithmetic and geometry, were considered mathematical sciences. Boethius appears to have coined the term ‘‘quadrivium’’ to denote these four sciences. There is some historical evidence that Boethius composed treatises on all four topics. However, only Boethius’ treatises on arithmetic and music (in part) survive. There are a few fragments of a book on geometry that some have attributed to Boethius (Folkerts 1970), but this attribution has been questioned (Caldwell and Pingree, in Gibson 1981).
Boethius’ book on arithmetic is in large part a translation with elaborations of a book by the second-century Neo-Pythagorean scholar Nichomachus of Gerasa. It is concerned with the abstract properties of number.
Boethius’ treatise on music is probably also dependent upon the work of previous, mostly Greek, authors, but the arrangement of the material seems to be at least in part attributable to Boethius himself (Caldwell, in Gibson 1981).
5. The Theological Tractates (Opuscula Sacra). Over the course ofhis career, Boethius composed five short treatises on theological topics. Several of these were written in response to theological disputes that were raging during Boethius’ lifetime (see Chadwick 1981, chap. 4).
On the Trinity (Opusc. I) and, in much more superficial manner, Whether the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit Are Substantially Predicated of the Divine (Opusc. II), deal with the unity and diversity of the Trinity. In these works Boethius aimed to show that, one the one hand, statements involving the Trinity are not statements about
God’s substance - since that would compromise the unity of God; and, on the other hand, sentences pertaining to the Trinity are not merely figurative - rather, the Persons are real features of God, and there is a real difference between the Persons.
To extricate himself from this dilemma Boethius proposed a third way to predicate something of God - namely, by predicating the non-accidental relations of God (Opusc. I, 5; Opusc. II, 3). If the Persons are relatives, then the Persons are real aspects of the Divine, but they in no way compromise God’s substance. Boethius devoted the rest of On the Trinity to the defense of the notion of a nonaccidental relative. He allowed himself a caveat, however: if one cannot fully comprehend the way in which the Persons are non-accidentally related to one another and to God, this is a function of the fact that God is transcendent and his nature is intractably obscure to us (Opusc. I, 6).
The treatise How Substances Can Be Good in That They Are When They Are Not Substantial Goods (Opusc. III), which is known in the Middle Ages by the title On the Hebdomads, is perhaps the one work, apart from the Consolation, that has attracted the most scholarly interest (see Hadot 1963; MacDonald 1988; Nash-Marshall 2000; Marenbon 2003, and the bibliographies in the latter two works).
Boethius intended to explain how a corporeal substance is good in that it exists, even though it is not a substantial good. He began by presenting a list of terms and ‘‘rules’’ (regulae) that may or may not be axioms or even premises in his overall argument (Schrimpf 1966; De Rijk 1988). He then presented a dilemma. To illustrate Boethius’ dilemma let us pick a concrete example of a corporeal substance - say, an apple. The apple cannot be good by participation in the good, for if the apple were good by participation, the apple would be good in virtue of something else. It would not be good in virtue of itself. But this appears to conflict with a Neoplatonic thesis about being: everything that exists is good merely in virtue of the fact that it exists, which seems to entail that every independent being - i. e., substance - is good in virtue of itself. So, it seems that the apple must be good by substance, not participation. Yet, Boethius continued, there are reasons to reject the claim that the apple is good by substance. Anything that is predicated of God denotes God’s substance. God is good. Hence, God’s substance is the good. By hypothesis, the apple is also good in substance. Given that God’s substance is not shared by anything other than Himself, it follows that the apple is God.
Boethius resolved the dilemma by, in effect, forging a middle way between its horns. He invited the reader to imagine the impossible scenario where God does not exist. In this scenario, it would be clear that the apple’s existence is one thing and its goodness is something separate. The apple’s substance is not the good. Nevertheless, the apple in fact derives its being (esse) from God, and it derives its goodness from God in so far as He is the First Good. The apple is good merely in virtue of the fact that the First Good wills that the apple exist. Hence, it is proper to say that the apple is good in that it is, even though it is not a substantial good.
On the Catholic Faith (Opusc. IV) is a straightforward confession of Christian principles. It contains very little of the philosophical concepts and principles that inform the other theological treatises. In the past some have questioned the authenticity of Opuscula IV. The current consensus is that Boethius is the author.
In AgainstEutyches and Nestorius (Opusc. V) Boethius applied his Aristotelian tools to the Incarnation. The orthodox position is that Christ is one person who consists in two natures. But a person seems to be an individual substance - a view reinforced by Boethius’ preferred definition of a ‘‘person’’ as ‘‘an individual substance of a rational nature’’ (Opusc. V, 3, 171, 172) - and it is difficult to comprehend how any individual substance can have two natures. It is this difficulty that motivates the solutions that Nestorius and Eutyches respectively endorsed, and which Boethius attempted to undermine in favor of the orthodox position.
Nestorius’ position that Christ consists in two natures and in two persons is repugnant because either it entails that Christ is a universal, or it entails that ‘‘Christ’’ is no more than the name of an aggregate. Boethius thinks that neither result is acceptable (Opusc. V, 4).
Eutyches argued that, because there is only one person who is Christ, there can only be one nature. Boethius challenged him: which nature is now present in Christ? There seem to be only three options: (1) the two natures combine to form a divine nature, (2) the two natures combine to form a human nature, or (3) the two natures combine to form a new nature, which is neither human nor divine. The first and second options are ruled out because there is no common substrate that can stand under the exchange of corporeality for incorporeality, or vice versa. The third possibility is ruled out since a rational substance must either be corporeal or incorporeal (Opusc. V, 6, 497-541).
Hence, we must assert that Christ is one person who consists in two natures. Boethius attempted to make this
B
Intelligible by resorting to an analogy. The person of Christ is something like a gem-encrusted crown, which retains both the gem’s nature and the gold’s nature (Opusc. V, 7, 595-607). Just as the crown is one thing consisting both from and in two natures, Christ can consist in two natures.
6. Consolation of Philosophy. The Consolation is Boethius’ masterpiece. In it we find a thinker at the height of his intellectual and poetic powers. The work presents a vivid outline of a systematic, monotheistic theology and theodicy, which is inspired by Aristotle, the Stoics, and most of all the Neoplatonists. From the beginning, commentators have noted that the Consolation has a lack of unambiguously Christian doctrines. This has prompted a number of commentators, from the Middle Ages forward, to worry that Boethius was really a pagan. Most modern commentators, however, point out that there is nothing in the Consolation that would be objectionable to a Christian with Platonic sensibilities.
The setting of the Consolation is a prison where the character Boethius is awaiting execution. Boethius finds himself tormented not only by his current situation, but also by the more general suspicion that wicked people thrive, whereas the virtuous suffer. A personification of Philosophy offers to properly cure Boethius of his current distress. Despite appearances, Philosophy will argue, Boethius has lost nothing of true value, happiness is still within his grasp, and it actually is not the case that wicked people flourish at the expense of the virtuous.
In Book II, Philosophy argues that Fortune by her very nature is fickle. Humans have no claim on the goods that Fortune gives them. Hence, they should not lament the loss of those things that Fortune takes away.
In Book III, Philosophy discusses the nature of the Good and its relation to human happiness. Philosophy reminds Boethius that one must distinguish between true happiness and the image of happiness (III.1). All humans strive for true happiness. The problem is that most humans either have a distorted understanding of true happiness or they go after happiness in the wrong manner. Philosophy shows how the paths that are commonly thought to lead one to happiness (such as the paths of acquiring money or political power) fail to produce true human happiness (III.3-8).
In the latter part of Book III, Philosophy gives an account of true happiness. She shows that there is an intimate connection between unity, existence, and goodness. In very rapid succession, she demonstrates that the highest Good exists and that God is identical to the highest Good. The highest Good is the source of all other goods. God’s creations are by nature inclined to these goods because they are images of the creative source of everything. Something exists only insofar as it is one. If it is divided into many, it will cease to exist. This is why all creatures strive to preserve themselves. What an x strives for is the good for xs. Thus, the good is encoded into the very essences of creatures. To be happy, humans must discover their true nature and strive to realize fully that nature.
Despite agreeing with Philosophy’s propositions to this point, the character Boethius has not yet forgotten his sorrow. At the beginning of Book IV, he asks how evil is possible when God is good - a problem Boethius finds especially troubling because Philosophy has just asserted that the world and all its affairs are governed by Providence. Philosophy answers the character Boethius by showing that the virtuous are always powerful and the vicious always ultimately without power. Both the virtuous person and the vicious person aim for the Good. But while the virtuous person achieves the Good, the vicious person does not. Given that one is powerful only if one achieves what one aims for, the vicious person is not powerful (IV.2). Indeed, Philosophy adds, humans who actively choose evil abandon their true nature. They are no longer human beings, but rather irrational animals with a human shape. Hence, the vicious are punished for turning away from the Good, whereas the virtuous are rewarded. While Boethius suffers now, he has not lost the Good (IV.6). Philosophy adds that every hardship is part of the plan and in the end is a good. A bad change in fortune, such as the one Boethius now suffers, is an opportunity to improve one’s wisdom and virtue (IV.7).
At the end of Book IV, Philosophy discusses the relation between Fate and Providence. She argues that they are really two aspects of the same thing. Providence is the law of Nature viewed from the perspective of simplicity of the Divine Intellect. Fate is the law viewed from the perspective of the complexity of the Divine Will’s effects (IV.6). But this only prompts Boethius to raise a further worry: if everything is due to Providence, is there any room for chance (V.1)? For if there is no room for chance in the scheme of things, then there seems to be no room for freedom of the will. Philosophy rejects the notion that some event might be the result of random, uncaused motion, yet claims that there is room for freedom of judgment (V.1.8). Free deliberation is a necessary component of rationality. Hence, insofar as one is a rational being, one is a free being. Given that God is the perfect rational being, God is perfectly free. A human who exercises her rational capacities as they should be exercised is relatively free (V.2).
Given that God is the perfect rational being, God knows everything, including all future events. This prompts the character Boethius to voice his final worry: divine foreknowledge appears to be incompatible with human freedom, for if God knows what will be the case in advance, then what will be must happen (V.3). But if what will be must happen, then there seems to be no room for free human choices, for one’s choice is free only if one could have done otherwise. Boethius continues by articulating the repercussions of this line of thought. But if what I will do tomorrow is not something I could refrain from doing, how can I be punished or rewarded for doing what I do? In other words, Divine foreknowledge seems to threaten the very basis of retributive justice.
Philosophy tries to get to the heart of Boethius’ worry. It cannot be that Boethius is worried that somehow the fact that God knows that some event E will occur is the cause of E’s occurrence (V.4). The fact that E occurs causes the knower to know that E occurs, not vice versa. If knowing that E occurs does not cause E to occur, then foreknowing that E occurs will certainly not cause E to occur. An action will be free and contingent provided that the agent is free.
Philosophy’s considered diagnosis is that Boethius believes there is something fundamentally incoherent about the notion that a future event can be both contingent and foreknown (V.4.21-23). If someone knows that some event E is occurring, then he knows that E is occurring determinately. For if one were to comprehend an indeterminate event as if it were determinate, in no way could this be said to be knowledge. Only what is necessary can occur determinately. Hence, if God knows E is occurring, then E is necessary. But a future contingent event is, by definition, not necessary. Therefore, if God knows that a future event will occur, that future event cannot be contingent. It is logically impossible that there be any future contingent events that are foreknown.
Lady Philosophy responds to this worry by attacking the claim that someone knows that E occurs only if he knows that E determinately occurs. Philosophy insists, instead, that a knower does not know x as x is in its nature; rather, the manner in which x is known is dependent upon the power and nature of the knower (V.4-5). For example, a creature who possesses only the five senses will grasp the spherical properties of a ball in so far as these properties are manifested in this bit of matter. A creature with the power of imagination will be able to grasp the threedimensional properties of the ball abstracted from the ball’s matter. A rational being, such as a human, from its universal perspective can grasp the three-dimensional structure of the ball as it is manifested in a number of particulars. In other words, the senses grasp the spherical properties of the ball materially. The imagination grasps the same properties abstractly (yet particularly). And reason grasps these properties universally. God’s mode of understanding is superior even to reason. His understanding transcends universality and views the one simple form itself(V.4.30).
Philosophy applies this principle to the problem of foreknowledge (V.6). Humans dwell in a world of constant change. Things only ever partially exist at any one moment in time. Future things and their properties are especially obscure to us. Hence, we perceive them as if they were indeterminate and, thus, contingent. God, in contrast, does not exist in part by part fashion. He exists completely and all at once in what we might describe as an eternal ‘‘now.’’ From God’s perspective, all things and events have the same status. What I did yesterday, what I am doing now, and what I will do tomorrow are all comprehended by God as if these events are settled and determinate. Hence, from God’s perspective all events, including future events, are perceived as if they were determinate and necessary. But one cannot infer that some event is in its nature necessary from the fact that the event is known in a determinate manner.
Philosophy concedes that there is a legitimate sense in which one can know something only if the facts have been settled, and so if the character Boethius insists on saddling her with the word ‘‘necessity,’’ he may in the following sense (V.6.25 ff.). I can only know that there is a coffee cup on the table to my left if it is settled that there is a coffee cup and it is now to the left of me. It is even true that there is a sense in which if I know that there is a coffee cup to my left, it is necessary that there is a coffee cup to my left. If there were no cup there, I could not be said to know that it is there. But it does not follow from this ‘‘conditional’’ necessity that the cup is necessarily to my left on the table, where I mean by this that it could not have been the case that the cup were to my right (or that there was no cup at all). Clearly, the fact that I know that the cup is sitting to my left does not entail that stronger claim of ‘‘simple’’ necessity. Likewise, it does not follow from the fact that God knows that I will steal a bagel tomorrow morning that I could not have refrained from stealing the bagel simpliciter. All that the claim about foreknowledge entails is that if God knows that I steal the bagel tomorrow, then I in fact steal the bagel tomorrow. This is compatible with the notion that I could have done otherwise.
It is not clear whether Philosophy has really addressed the substance of Boethius’ puzzle, for Philosophy’s solution seemingly ignores the question whether any events really are contingent. When Philosophy lists the various Grades of knowing, she suggests that the higher grades are superior to the lower grades because they come closer to revealing things as they really are (V.4). Presumably God’s mode of existing and knowing things is superior to our mode of existing and knowing things. But this suggests that events really are fixed and necessary, despite the fact that humans comprehend them as if they were contingent.
The Consolation ends with a brief summary of the results of their investigation and an exhortation to follow the path of righteousness (V.6.44-48). Some believe that Philosophy has more or less succeeded at consoling the character Boethius. But other scholars are not so sure. Boethius consciously appropriates some of the stylistic elements of Menippean satire, another ancient literary genre exhibited most notably by Petronius’ Satyricon. Menippean satire is associated with works that ridicule those who pretend to make authoritative claims to wisdom. Hence, it has been suggested that the Consolation should be understood ironically as an account of the insufficiency of philosophy to provide consolation (Relihan 2007). A somewhat less extreme interpretation is that philosophy can provide arguments and solutions to many problems, but it cannot give us comprehensive understanding of our selves and our place in the universe (Marenbon 2003).
World History
