JUAN LUIS VIVES AGAINST THE PSEUDODIALECTICIANS

Transcription

1 JUAN LUIS VIVES AGAINST THE PSEUDODIALECTICIANS

2 SYNTHESE HISTORICAL LIBRARY TEXTS AND STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY Editors: N. KRETZMANN, Cornell University G. NUCHELMANS, University of Leyden L. M. DE RIJK, University of Leyden Editorial Board: 1. BERG, Munich lnstitute of Technology F. DEL PUNT A, Linacre College, Oxford D. P. HENRY, University of Manchester 1. HINTIKKA, Academy of Finland, Stanford University, and Florida State University B. MATES, University of Ca/({ornia, Berkeley 1. E. MURDOCH, Harvard University G. PATZIG, University of Gottingen VOLUME 18

3 Plate of Juan Luis Vives from Boissard, leones Virorum Illustrium. (Reprinted by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library.)

4 JUAN LUIS VIVES AGAINST THE PSEUDODIALECTICIANS A Humanist Attack on Medieval Logic The Attack on the Pseudodialecticians and On Dialectic, Book III, v, vi, vii from The Causes of the Corruption of the Arts with an Appendix of Related Passages by Thomas More The texts, with translation, introduction, and notes by RITA GUERLAC D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY DORDRECHT :HOLLANDjBOSTON: U.S.A. LONDON :ENGLAND

5 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Vives, Juan Luis, Juan Luis Vives against the pseudodialecticians. (Synthese historical library; v. 18) Bibliography: p. Includes index. CONTENTS: Adversus pseudodialecticos. - De causis corruptarum artium, Book IH, De dialectica, v, vi, vii. - Appendix 1: Thomas More to Erasmus. Passages from Thomas More to Martin Dorp. - Appendix 2: Lax, G. Passages from Exponibilia: De "immediate." I. Logic, Medieval. 1. More, Thomas, Sir, Saint, II. Guerlac, Rita. III. Vives, Juan Luis, '540. De causis corruptarum artium. Book 3. De dialectica. Pts English & Latin IV. Lax, Gaspar, V. Title. VI. Title: Against the pseudodialecticians. VII. Series. BC34.V IfiO ISBN-I3: e-isbn-13: : / Published by D. Reidel'Publishing Company, P.O. Box 17, Dordrecht, Holland Sold and distributed in the U.S.A., Canada and Mexico by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Inc., Lincoln Building, 160 Old Derby Street, Hingham, Mass , U.S.A. All Rights Reserved Copyright 1979 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland and copyright holders as specified on appropriate pages within No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner

6 To H.G.

7 T ABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE xi INTRODUCTION Adversus pseudodialecticos De causis corruptarum artium Book III, De dialectica, v, vi, vii APPENDIX I Preface Thomas More to Erasmus Passages from Thomas More to Martin Dorp APPENDIX II Gaspar Lax: Passages from Exponibilia: De 'immediate' NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

8 PREFACE The humanist treatises presented here are only peripheral to the history of logic, but I think historians of logic may read them with interest, if perhaps with irritation. In the early sixteenth century the humanists set about to demolish medieval logic based on syllogistic and disputation, and to replace it in the university curriculum with a 'rhetorical' logic based on the use of topics and persuasion. To a very large extent they succeeded. Although Aristotelian logic retained a vigorous life in the schools, it never again attained to the overwhelming primacy it had so long enjoyed in the northern universities. It has been the custom to take the arguments of the humanists at face value, and the word 'scholastic' has continued to have pejorative overtones. This is easy to understand, because until recently our knowledge of the high period of medieval logic has been slight, and the humanists' testimony as to its decadent state in the sixteenth century has, for the most part, been accepted uncritically. Within the past two decades important work on medieval logic has recovered the brilliant achievement of thirteenth and fourteenth century logicians, philosophers, and natural scientists. New studies are constantly appearing, and the logico-semantic system of the terminists has become fruitful territory not only for historians of logic but also for students of modern linguistics and semiotics. These humanist treatises show why the word 'scholastic' came to be identified with pedantry and quibbling. They were composed by men antagonistic to the scholastic system, whose program for replacing it focused upon the use of clear, concrete, and correct Latin. Accordingly the humanists attacked and made fun of the scholastic subtleties, distinctions, and abstractions, including the sophismata and logical puzzles that, designed in the medieval period to be unravelled by experts, offered copious material for ridicule when taken out of context, misquoted, and garbled. It is not that the humanists - Vives in particular - did not know scholastic logic. They used their knowledge to undermine it. At the same time these translations of Luis Vives and Thomas More, xi

9 xii PREFACE set in historical context, should be of interest and use not only to historians of medieval logic, but perhaps even more so to students of northern humanism and Renaissance culture. They set forth, in abundant detail and relative brevity, the reasons for the humanists' impatience and weariness with contemporary scholasticism. They also demonstrate, en passant, the intellectual sympathy and common purpose between these two friends of Erasmus, leaders of the humanist movement, and major figures of the northern Renaissance. Works such as this present certain difficulties. I have not found it possible to track down all of Vives's quotations. Sometimes he quotes from memory and makes slight mistakes. In other instances his versions of the texts are not the same as ours; for example he quotes a passage from the Second Philippic that [ could not find in the text we have today. He believed in the authenticity of Quintilian's Declamations, and his citations from Paul of Venice, Gregory of Rimini and others still remain to be recovered for us by present and future historians of medieval logic. Furthermore a work that spans two disciplines confronts one with special problems. Historians of logic may feel that I have documented the obvious and skimped on humanistic information. Renaissance scholars will find terminist logic a new area in which they will need all the help they can get. To understand and appreciate these treatises requires a minimal acquaintance with the technical vocabulary of terminism, and in the Introduction I have tried to explain these terms as briefly as possible. In their way these small works may serve as a tempting introduction to terminist logic. A reader who enjoys logical and verbal puzzles may be curious to look into the serious purpose behind the sophismata that Vives and More airily misquote and ridicule. Anyone who would like to read more widely about terminist logic will find a brief list of introductory works attached to the general bibliography. The text I have used is that of the Majans edition, Valencia 1782, which accurately reproduces the first (Selestat) edition of the Adversus pseudodialecticos. I have omitted the editor's marginal glosses, and the chapter headings in the De dialectica, and made a few small corrections in the texts only where grammar seemed to call for them, e.g., non for nun, earum for eorum, etc. Let me acknowledge first my debt to the Libraries and Librarians who have helped me in my research and made it pleasant: to Dr Felix Reichmann of the Cornell University Libraries, and to the Libraries' staff; to

10 PREFACE xiii the courtesies of the Folger and Widener Libraries, the Boston and New York Public Libraries; and to the Bibliotheque Nationale, the Bodleian, and the Cambridge University Library. I am grateful to the friends who have encouraged me in this project and read all or parts of both the translations and the Introduction, in particular James Hutton, Lisa Jardine, and Margaret Mann Phillips. Francesco del Punta has given me invaluable advice, and E. J. Ashworth and Eleonore Stump have generously helped me over a number of obstacles. Above all I wish to thank Norman Kretzmann, who first suggested this book, has guided me through many thickets of medieval logic and the inscrutabilities of Gaspar Lax, and has been an inspiring and perceptive critic. Finally I would like to express my gratitude to the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University. All those I have named have been associated with it either as Fellows or visitors, and I have profited from their seminars and their conversation. An earlier version of my Introduction was first read at a seminar conducted at the Society by Lisa Jardine in Ithaca, New York December 1977 RITA GUERLAC