Boethius, Commentaries on the <<Isagoge>> of Porphyry

This volume contains Severinus Boethius's two commentaries on Porphyry's Isagoge, or "Introduction" to Aristotle's Categories. The Boethian texts are presented here in their original Latin together with an English translation. Although partial English translations of the second commentary exist, this is the first time that these commentaries are published together, complete, and in English. Boethius's first commentary includes Marius Victorinus's earlier Latin translation of the Greek text, while the second commentary has Boethius's own rendering of the text.

In these commentaries, Boethius expands upon Porphyry's own intention in writing his work, namely, to introduce the readers to what are known as the five predicables: genus, species, difference, property, and accident. Aristotle's text presupposes a knowledge of these predicables, without which the reader may only approach the Categories with difficulty. Porphyry's work served as a preamble to the ancient corpus of logical works known as the Organon. Boethius's commentaries, therefore, can be seen as an introduction to the study of the liberal art of logic.

Both commentaries offer an answer to the medieval problem of universals, i.e., whether such predicables as genus and species have real or merely mental existence. The second commentary contains Boethius's mature consideration of the matter, and its moderate realist solution - that the universals exist as particular in real things while being universal only in the mind - was an important contribution to the medieval discussion, and it remains of interest in philosophy today.