## 1. Life and Relations to Predecessors


### 1.1 Life



Boethius of Dacia, in Latin Boethius de Dacia or Boethius Dacus
("B. from Denmark / the Dane") was a master of arts at the
university of Paris in the early 1270s, and probably already in the
late 1260s. Nothing is known about his background except his
nationality. His Latinized name is likely to have rendered the Danish
name "Bo". Some twentieth-century scholars refer to him as
"Boethius of Sweden", but this rests on a misunderstanding
of the evidence, as shown by Jensen (1963).



According to near-contemporary evidence, Boethius was, along with
Siger of Brabant, one of the main targets of the great condemnation of
March 1277 when bishop Stephen Tempier of Paris issued a list of 219
theses the teaching of which he prohibited (Hisette 1977: 11f.).
Modern research has, indeed, confirmed that several items of the list
reflect passages in works by Boethius (Hisette 1977; Piche
1999). It is unknown whether Boethius was still alive in 1277; he may
have either died or left France some time before, for when in November
1276, as a prelude to the condemnation, Simon du Val, inquisitor for
France, cited some arts masters to appear before him, Siger was
included, but Boethius was not. A fourteenth-century bibliography of
works by Dominican writers ("The Stams Catalogue")
includes Boethius, so it is possible that after his career in the arts
faculty he became a friar.


### 1.2 Relation to predecessors and contemporaries



Boethius is a very independent thinker, and self-consciously so.
Except for one unclear reference to Albert the Great, Boethius never
names contemporaries or close predecessors, and so far only one source
of influence has been identified with certainty: Albert the Great.
However, Albert's influence is only noticeable in the questions
on *Meteorology* IV (see Fioravanti 1979), and only regards
matters of little philosophical importance. Some passages in the
remaining oeuvre may indicate influence from Thomas Aquinas
(*Summa contra gentiles, Summa theologiae*), but there is no
scholarly consensus on this issue.



In much of modern historiography Boethius has been labelled
"Averroist" or "radical" or "heterodox
Aristotelian", and has shared those labels with Siger of
Brabant. The "Averroist" label has little to recommend it.
Like all his contemporaries, Boethius respected and used Averroes, but
he did not accord him any special status among authoritative authors
(cf. Bianchi 2017). In particular, there is no sign that he defended
the doctrine of a pan-human material intellect that was considered
Averroes' signature theory, and in his treatise on dreams he
parts company with all known near-contemporaries by totally neglecting
Averroes' optimistic views about the prognostic value of dreams.
The epithet "heterodox" or "radical
Aristotelian" comes with the tacitly understood counterpart
"orthodox and moderate like Aquinas", and thus only makes
sense from a certain religious point of view. Boethius was very much
an Aristotelian, but, as was normal at the time, his Aristotelianism
contained elements originating in Avicenna and the neo-Platonic
*Liber de causis*. Siger and Boethius were contemporaries and
taught the same authoritative books, so they inevitably shared some
standard assumptions and topics of discussion, but philosophically
they were not particularly close to each other.


## 2. Works



Boethius produced question commentaries on Priscian's
authoritative Latin grammar and on several of Aristotle's works,
all of them presumably composed in connection with university courses
and first presented orally to his students. In addition, there are two
big sophismata, which are redacted reports of university disputations,
and at least three *opuscula* (items
 20,
 23, and
 26
 on the list below) that do not directly reflect university teaching.
The majority of his attested works are no longer extant, but what
remains suffices to reveal some main features of his thought.



In the following list an asterisk (\*) indicates that the work is still
extant; an obelus (+) that it is referred to by Boethius
himself in one of the extant works, and a paragraph sign (SS) that
it is mentioned in the fourteenth-century "Stams
catalogue". All extant works have been edited in *Corpus
Philosophorum Danicorum Medii Aevi ("CPhD")*, vols.
IV-VI, VIII-IX, and XIV, Copenhagen 1969-2020. A few
have also appeared in earlier editions, which cannot, however, be
trusted.


### Grammar


1. \*+SS *Modi Significandi = Quaestiones super
Priscianum Maiorem ("Modi Sign".)*. On Priscian books
I-XVI (morphology). Cited by Boethius himself as *nostra
grammatica*. Edition by Jan Pinborg and Heinrich Roos in
*CPhD* IV, 1969. An abridged version has been translated into
English (McDermott 1980).
2. + *Quaestiones super librum
Constructionum*. On Priscian books XVII-XVIII (syntax).
3. + *De naturali ortu omnium accentuum ex ipsis
proprietatibus rerum* ("On the natural origin of all accents
in the properties of things"). Probably a by-product of a course
on Ps.-Priscian, *De accentibus*.
4. \* *Sophisma Syllogizantem ponendum est terminos*.
Edition by Irene Rosier-Catach in *CPhD* IX, 2020.


### Logic


5. + *Super librum Perihermenias*. On
Aristotle's *De interpretatione*. Probably
questions.
6. + *Ars demonstrativa*. Either questions on
Aristotle's *Posterior Analytics* or--more
probably--a work presenting the essentials of its doctrine.
7. \*+SS *Quaestiones super librum
Topicorum* ("*Quaest. Top.*"). Edition by Niels
Jorgen Green-Pedersen and Jan Pinborg in *CPhD* VI.1,
1976.
8. + *Quaestiones super librum
Elenchorum*.
9. + *Ars de modis arguendi sophistice et
solutionibus eorum* ("Treatise on the types of sophistical
argumentation and how to solve them"). Possibly identical with
item 10 and/or 11.
10. + *Sophistria*. About how to solve
sophismata. Possibly identical with item 9 and/or 11.
11. + *Ars sophistica*. Possibly identical
with item 9 and/or 10.
12. \* *Sophisma Omnis homo de necessitate est
animal*. There are two versions: *F*, first edited in
Grabmann 1940 and available in a partial translation into English
(Stump 1998); *B*, first edited in Roos 1962. *B* is
considerably longer than *F*, but the extra material is not by
Boethius, and the Boethian part of the text has been revised by a
medieval editor. Edition by Sten Ebbesen in *CPhD* IX,
2020.


### Natural philosophy


13. \*SS *Quaestiones super libros Physicorum*
("*Quaest. Ph.*"). Only partially preserved.
Edition by Geza Sajo in *CPhD* V.2, 1974. The
text is rather corrupt, and there are some editorial mistakes. See
corrections in *CPhD* IX.
14. SS *Quaestiones super librum de Caelo et
mundo*.
15. \*SS *Quaestiones super De generatione et
corruptione*. Only partially preserved. Edition by Geza
Sajo in *CPhD* V.1, 1972. The text is rather corrupt,
and there are some editorial mistakes. See corrections in
*CPhD* IX.
16. \* *Quaestiones super quartum Meteorologicorum*.
Edition by Gianfranco Fioravanti in *CPhD* VIII, 1979.
17. + *Super librum De minerabilibus*. A
commentary, probably in question form, on *De mineralibus*, an
extract from Avicenna's *Shifa* that was attached to
the Arabo-Latin translation of Aristotle's
*Meteorology*.
18. \*SS *Quaestiones super librum De anima*. Only
an abridged version of the questions on books I-II preserved. It
is anonymous in the one and only manuscript, and some scholars have
expressed doubts about the attribution to Boethius; see, in
particular, Calma 2011. Edition by Robert Wielockx in *CPhD*
XIV, 2009.
19. SS *Quaestiones super libros De sensu et sensato,
De somno et vigilia, De longitudine et brevitate vitae, De morte et
vita*.
20. \* *De somniis* ("On Dreams"). No
doubt based on the lost questions on *De somno et vigilia*
(item 19). Edition by Niels Jorgen Green-Pedersen in
*CPhD* VI.2, 1976. Translated into Danish (Green-Pedersen
2001), English (Wippel 1987), Italian (Sannelli 1997).
21. + *Quaestiones super librum De
animalibus*.
22. SS *Quaestiones super librum De plantis et
vegetabilibus*.
23. \*SS *De aeternitate mundi* ("On the
Eternity of the World") ("*De aetern.*").
Edition by Niels Jorgen Green-Pedersen in *CPhD* VI.2,
1976. Translated into Danish (Green-Pedersen 2001), English (Wippel
1987), German (Nicki 2000), Italian
(Bianchi 2003), Portuguese (Santiago de Carvalho 1996).


### Metaphysics


24. + *Metaphysica*. Probably questions on
Aristotle's *Metaphysics*. Echoes of the work have been
found in Anonymus Lipsiensis' *Quaestiones Metaphysicae*,
edited by Gianfranco Fioravanti in *CPhD* XIV (2009) under the
title *Anonymi Boethio Daci Usi Quaestiones Metaphysicae*. For
the echoes of Boethius, see Fioravanti 2009.


### Ethics


25. + *Quaestiones morales*. Questions on or
linked to the *Nicomachean Ethics*.
26. \* *De summo bono* ("On the Supreme
Good"). Edition by Niels Jorgen Green-Pedersen in
*CPhD* VI.2, 1976. Translated into Danish (Green-Pedersen
2001), English (Wippel 1987), German (Wohler 1990), French
(Imbach 1986; Imbach & Fouche 2006), Italian (Fioravanti 1984,
Bottin 1989).


### Rhetoric


27. + *Rhetorica*. Probably questions on
Aristotle's *Rhetoric*.



## 3. Philosophy


### 3.1 Ontology



From the neo-Platonic *On Causes* (*Liber de causis*)
Boethius borrowed the term *fixio*. To be "fixed"
is to have a place in reality. The First Cause is fixed entirely by
itself, lower entities (separate substances, material substances,
matter, accidents) all need the support of the First Cause, and, as
one descends the hierarchy, increasingly more support from elsewhere.
The relation between the First Cause and other beings is also called
*factio*, "making", but this does not imply
creation in the traditional sense; it does, however, mean that
everything "made" is existentially dependent on the First
Cause and thus fundamentally contingent (Ebbesen 2005, Donati
2017).



Boethius may be classified as a moderate realist. 



> 
> 
> Every being (*ens*) is either a thing (*res*) or a mode
> of a thing (*modus rei*). [...] Among things, some are
> natural, others mathematical, and a third group divine. [...]
> Every mode of a thing is reducible to the thing itself as its cause
> and has been derived from it, for it cannot be a pure figment of the
> intellect. (*Quaest. Top.*, 3-4) 
> 
> 
> 



Boethius operates with "things" (*res*) on such a
high level of abstraction that, like Avicennian quiddities or common
natures, they are undetermined as to particularity or universality,
but have modes or ways of being (*modi essendi*) either this or
that; thus the concrete term *album* "(something)
white" and the abstract *albedo* "whiteness"
signify the same, though in different ways, reflecting two different
modes of being of that "thing" (Ebbesen 1988). On the
other hand, he is clear that the fundamental furniture of the world
consists of particulars, and while believing in essences, he refuses
to hypostatize them: he rejects the notion that existence
(*esse*) is accidental to essence and that an uninstantiated
universal can function as a verifier of a proposition by virtue of
some "essential being" (*esse essentiale*), as some
of his contemporaries claimed.



Ordinary things, including humans, are compounds of matter and a form.
The human form, the soul, has several functions, but it is not a
compound of several forms--one like that of inorganic things, one
like that of plants, one like that of irrational animals and, finally,
an intellect:--it is one and the same formal entity that takes
care of the different functions that some of Boethius'
contemporaries assigned to semi-independent parts of the whole soul.
On this point he agrees with Thomas Aquinas. He also holds that the
intellect is an eternal substance and can be separated from the body,
but, he says, then it ceases to be a form and a soul. Hence, in
whichever sense somebody's intellect continues to exist as a
substance after the person's death, it would seem that it ceases
to be human. Boethius does not, in his preserved writings, expand on
how to understand the continued existence of the human intellect after
death, but whatever he thought about this matter, his theory can
hardly have made room for a bodily resurrection of human individuals,
which, by his own lights, was all right (see
 SS3.3.2,
 below). That had to be left to faith. (For the questions treated in
this paragraph, see in particular Wielockx 2009: 50-55. The
unity of the human form is strongly defended in the sophisma *Omnis
homo &c.*).


### 3.2 Language



Boethius is a towering figure among the so-called
"modists", the thinkers in whose linguistic theory
*modus significandi* "mode/way of signifying" is a
central concept. On modism and Boethius' linguistic theory in
general, the fundamental works are Pinborg 1967, Rosier
(Rosier-Catach) 1983, and Marmo 1994. Also important is Beuerle
2010.



There is no clear starting date for modism, and it only gradually
disappears in the late Middle Ages, but the height of creativity was
reached in the last third of the thirteenth century. The basic idea is
simple: the verb "to run" and the noun "a run"
signify the same "thing", but in different ways. This
could be generalized to cover cases like the concrete
"white" and the abstract "whiteness", as well
as other parts of speech than just nouns and verbs: "a
pain" "it hurts" "hurting"
"painfully" "ouch!" could all be seen as
having a common significate, only signified in different ways.
Similarly, the different cases of a noun, or the different tenses or
persons of a verb could be described as different ways of signifying
(*modi significandi*) the same, and in general all grammatical
categories could be understood to be based on different *modi
significandi*. Add to this (a) a series of rules about how two
words may be construed with each other in a sentence depending on
which modes of signifying they possess, and (b) the assumption that at
bottom all languages share the same grammar with the same repertoire
of modes of signifying, and you have a fairly strong linguistic
theory.



The claim about the identity of grammar across languages is based on
the assumption that (1) all humans conceptualize external reality in
the same way, even though they express their concepts in ways that are
culture dependent (as taught by Aristotle in *De
interpretatione* 1); and (2) that this conceptualization does not
only result in core concepts like run, pain but also in an awareness
of different modifications of the core things underlying the concepts,
different *modi essendi* "modes of being". This
awareness, in turn, means that we harbor different corresponding
*modi intelligendi* "ways of understanding", that
we can then encode in sound, creating words with different *modi
significandi*. How this encoding is done, is a matter of
convention, as Boethius repeatedly stresses. What one language
expresses by means of case endings, e.g., may be lexicalized in
another; the difference is only skin-deep ("accidental"),
he holds. He may have held that all languages actually have the
resources for expressing all reality-based modes of signifying; at
least he held that all languages hold the potential for so doing. One
of the consequences of Boethius' views is that although grammar
maps the ways in which words may signify, it does not allow one to
predict what any actual word in any language means, and whatever some
word means is irrelevant for its grammatical categorization:
"chimera" and "nothing" are nouns as truly as
"horse" and "thing", for grammar is about
*how*, not *what*, words signify. Boethius'
conception of grammar as a science of linguistic structure, not
content, was matched by a similar conception of logic (Ebbesen
2016).



Some of Boethius' contemporaries considered the step from modes
of being to modes of understanding to be so automatic that they
claimed that the two types of mode were fundamentally identical.
Boethius disagreed. According to him, there is not an exact one-to-one
correspondence between features of external things and their
reflections in the intellect. The intellect has a certain degree of
freedom. It can grasp the same mode of being in two slightly different
ways. Thus the same real property (mode of being) can give rise to the
mode of understanding that results in the mode of signifying of a
proper name and to the "intention" (concept) of a
particular; and similarly with the mode of signifying of an
appellative name and the intention of a universal. The intentions, in
turn, are the basis for "local habitudes" (*habitudines
locales*), i.e., relationships between them, such as that between
the particular and the universal, which can be fleshed out in rules
about inferences. Thus, in some cases the same feature of reality may
be reflected in grammar and in logic, but somewhat differently (more
details in Ebbesen 2016 and Green-Pedersen 1984: 228-30).



While holding that the signification of words reflects our concepts,
Boethius rejected the time-honoured notion that words signify concepts
directly and things indirectly. In his view, they directly signify
whatever the corresponding concepts are concepts of
(Mora-Marquez 2014, 2015).


### 3.3 Science/knowledge


#### 3.3.1 Generalities



In what follows "knowledge", "science" and
"scientific knowledge" all represent the Latin
*scientia*, which fundamentally means the sort of knowledge
about things and their causes that finds expression in the theorems of
a particular science. Also, it should be noted that in accordance with
medieval practice "proposition" is used indiscriminately
for what we now call a proposition and its linguistic counterpart (a
sentence).



Evidence for Boethius' views about *scientia* is found in
all of his works. The relation between *scientia* and faith
(*fides*) is a central theme in *De aeternitate mundi*
and *De summo bono*. The present account follows the
interpretation of Boethius' theory presented in Pinborg 1974 and
Ebbesen 2000, 2002, and 2005 (cf. also Donati 2017). For a different
interpretation, see Schick 2013.



Boethius' theory of scientific knowledge and science is
fundamentally Aristotelian. Any particular science is an axiomatic
system with its own primitive terms, primitive propositions (axioms,
"principles" in medieval terminology), and deduced
theorems ("conclusions"). All of a science's
propositions are universal and necessary, and thus can only be grasped
by the intellect. Yet, the primitive terms and propositions have their
origin in sense-perception, and the truth of an affirmative
proposition of the form "Every *S* is *P*"
depends on the instantiation in reality of the composition of subject
and predicate that it signifies, and thus requires that the subject
term have at least one individual referent. Several particular
sciences may form a cluster subordinated to a superior science, whose
primitive terms and propositions they may use, but they each add their
own set of primitives.


#### 3.3.2 The autonomy of the sciences



Boethius is keen to stress the autonomy of each branch of science.




> 
> 
> No specialist (*artifex*) can grant or deny anything except on
> the basis of the principles of his own science, 
> 
> 
> 



he says time and again. This means, for instance, that a grammarian
*qua* grammarian must abstract from whatever knowledge he may
have about the meaning of particular words. Knowing that
"donkey" means donkey, and what a donkey is, is none of
the grammarian's business. "Donkey" is a primitive
term in zoology, and if the grammarian happens to be also a zoologist,
he should be careful not to mix the two sciences he masters. Boethius
even reprimands the great authority in grammar, Priscian, for
introducing non-grammatical considerations into his work (*Modi
sign.*, 47).



Aristotle's description of scientific procedure in the
*Posterior Analytics* is couched in disputational language, and
in Boethius' own age disputations were a very important part of
university teaching and, indeed, of philosophical research, some of
them being genuine debates with several participants, others fictive
ones in the form of *quaestiones* with the teacher presenting
both the arguments *pro* and *con* and the solution. In
Boethius' trademark formulation of the autonomy of each science,
the expression "grant or deny" (*concedere vel
negare*) belongs in the context of a disputation where a
questioner puts forward propositions of the form "Is *S*
*P* ?" and a respondent typically answers "I grant
it" or "I deny it". Boethius seems to have conceived
of scientific activity as fundamentally similar to participating in a
disputation, and keeping within the limits of a particular science as
being similar to obeying the rules of a particular type of
disputation. Hardly by chance, he describes an unusual variant of the
disputational exercise called *ars obligatoria*. In his
version, an opponent puts forward a number of propositions to a
respondent, who must grant them all, irrespective of their
truth-value, rejecting only such as are incompatible with something he
has already granted. After some time, the disputation passes to a
second stage, in which the opponent puts forward further propositions,
but this time the respondent is allowed and obliged to grant only such
as follow from what he had granted in stage 1. The opponent's
job is to try to force him to contradict himself (*Quaest.
Top.*, 329-30; cf. Yrjonsuuri 1994, 31-35). This
exercise imitates the gathering of a tentative set of axioms of a
science, followed by a test of the set's consistency.



Within a university disputation, what counted as a "true"
answer depended on the rules of the particular sort of disputation. In
a dialectical one, the respondent should only grant a proposition if
it is probable; in that context, granting an improbable proposition
amounts to speaking untruly (*mentiri*) even if in reality it
is as the proposition states (*Quaest. Top.*, 139). The
analogous situation within a specific science is granting a
proposition that is at odds with the principles of the science in
case. It is a fundamental principle of (Aristotelian) physics that
every movement presupposes a previous movement, hence the claim that
there once was a first movement must count as false in physics.



This means that even if Christian theology, or "faith", as
Boethius usually says, were a science, some of its dogmas could not be
incorporated in any of the natural sciences. A temporal beginning of
the world (creation) cannot, and similarly the notion of a first human
being coming into existence without being generated. Nor do the
sciences have room for the resurrection of the flesh, for in
scientific language that means that an individual may perish
("be corrupted") and later return numerically the same,
and this is not compatible with the Aristotelian science of generation
and corruption (cf.
 SS3.4,
 below).



As a matter of fact, faith is not science (knowledge)--*fides
non est scientia* (*De aetern.*, 366)--and no
comprehensive science of the divine is possible. Metaphysics might be
a candidate, for all sciences are subordinated to metaphysics, and
*qua* metaphysician a philosopher will know that there is a
First Cause (like all of his contemporaries, Boethius held that causal
chains cannot be infinite). However, knowing that there *is* a
First Cause does not imply knowing it to a degree that one can capture
it in a definition that delimits its possible effects and can be used
as a premise in an Aristotelian demonstration--that would require
it to have causes through which it could be known. No such knowledge
is possible, it would amount to knowing the divine will, which is not
accessible to rational investigation. Hence, as the First Cause is
fundamentally inscrutable, it is not possible to simply deduce the
axioms of lower sciences as theorems of metaphysics.



Sciences must be built the Aristotelian way, and their theorems must
be accepted as true. We have no alternative. But they are only as true
as their axioms, which may be imperfect approximations to reality as
they are not derived from a total understanding of the First Cause,
and have a built-in presupposition that the sort of things they
mention are instantiated in reality (see
 SS3.3.3,
 below).



The fact that certain religious tenets have no place in the sciences
does not, however, mean that a scientist cannot be a believer. The
analysis of the causal system showed that the First Cause may have
inexplicable effects, and one may believe that any such effects
claimed by faith are real, for all their being inexplicable and in
conflict with science. The information about them that revelation
provides must be accepted as brute facts. To the believing scientist
the truths of faith are truths unconditionally, scientific truths are
so only conditionally. But we still need science to make sense of our
world.


#### 3.3.3 Necessity and truth of scientific propositions. The sophisma test



An important test for a thirteenth-century philosopher's theory
of truth and knowledge was how well it could handle the sophisma
"Every man by necessity is an animal" (*Omnis homo de
necessitate est animal*), and in particular how it would evaluate
the truth-value of the sophisma in the supposed situation that no man
exists.
 Item 12
 in the above list of Boethius' works is one of more than thirty
treatments of this sophisma from his century. Two major ones by other
authors have been published and commented on (Libera 2002; Libera
& Gazziero 2008; see also Ebbesen & Pinborg 1970).



Boethius asks (a) whether 



(1)
 "Every man by necessity is an animal" 


is true if 



(*O*)
 no man exists, 


(b) whether the destruction of the object of some piece of knowledge
implies the destruction of the relevant knowledge, and (c) whether the
destruction of the things signified by a term implies that it loses
its meaning ("falls from its significate" is the
formulation). Similar discussions occur in several near-contemporary
texts, but Boethius' answers are not standard ones.



Some of Boethius' contemporaries rejected the thought-experiment
involved in the sophisma because in an Aristotelian sempiternal world
the presupposed state of affairs, *O*, cannot occur, as
no natural species is ever uninstantiated. Others held that (1) is
true because man can neither be nor be conceived of without animal
being or being conceived of. Many held that the destruction of the
individuals of a species would not imply the destruction of their
essence, and so the essence of man would still be around to be the
significate of "man", an object of knowledge and the
truth-maker of (1).



Boethius, for his part, held that *O* is a possible state
of affairs, human beings are contingent beings, and so the necessity
operator in (1) makes the proposition false in all circumstances, and
the argument that man cannot possibly be or be conceived of without
animal fails because it is not necessary for man to be or to be
conceived of at all. Boethius agrees that in a world that does contain
at least one human, the human essence is the cause of the inherence of
the predicate animal in man, and hence of the truth of 



(1\*)
 "Every man is an animal", 


but if *O* were to obtain, (1\*) would also be false,
because essences presuppose existent carriers. He rejects the claim
that "existence is accidental to an essence"
(*essentiae accidit esse*); prior to the generation of a human
being its essence was nothing, he says, and after the
individual's destruction it again is nothing. In short: if no
human exists, there is no human essence and no composition in reality
of man and animal as required for (1\*) to be true. He further holds
that in a world void of men



(2)
 "Man is man" (*Homo est homo*) 


is false, with the consequence that 



(2\*)
 "Man is not man"


becomes true, because the truth-maker of a negative proposition is the
non-occurrence in reality of the composition signified by the
corresponding affirmative. Most of Boethius' contemporaries
would defend (2) with the claim that "No proposition is truer
than one in which something is predicated of itself".



Boethius' solution to question (a) makes the status of
scientific axioms and theorems problematic, because according to
Aristotle they are necessary. Moreover, some axioms regard phenomena
like eclipses and rainbows that are not always instantiated even in a
sempiternal Aristotelian world.



In his answer to question (b) Boethius claims that while the object of
knowledge must be extant in order for us to acquire knowledge about
it, we need not lose that knowledge if it ceases to exist, only it can
no longer be knowledge that the object *has* a certain
predicate, but knowledge about precisely which causes such a thing
will have if it comes into being. As for (c), he similarly holds that
a word does not become meaningless by losing its referents, because it
is still possible to entertain the corresponding concept. So, we can
retain a concept of *such a thing* just as we can keep our
knowledge of *such a thing* even when there is no longer such a
thing. Boethius' answer to (b) combined with remarks elsewhere
suggests that he took causal structures to remain in place in all
circumstances and scientific theorems of the form "Every
*S* is *P*" to be necessary in the weak sense that
*if* some *S* exists, and *no* superior cause
unaccounted for in the relevant science intervenes, *then*
*S* cannot fail to have the predicate *P*.


### 3.4 Eternity of the world



Boethius' *On the Eternity of the World* is not about
eternity in the theological a-temporal sense, but about sempiternity,
existence in a time that neither had any beginning nor will have any
end. The crucial question is "Does the notion of a temporal
beginning, a creation, make philosophical sense". Boethius holds
that there is no way to definitely prove or disprove that the world is
"new", i.e., that it has come into existence a definite
time ago. He refutes arguments purporting to show the *actual*
sempiternity of the world, but not arguments adduced to show that such
sempiternity is *possible*, while he characterizes traditional
would-be proofs of a temporal beginning as invalid
("sophistic").



The central piece of the work is a demonstration that no branch of
philosophy can prove the "newness" of the world. The
natural scientist cannot, because that would require relying on an
assumption that is not included in the principles of his science and
would make them an inconsistent set if included. The natural scientist
can explain how something comes into being by some pre-existing matter
acquiring a form, but that is generation, not creation, and nature
only produces new things through generation. Hence, the natural
scientist can neither, *qua* natural scientist, assume the
creation of the world and the existence of a first man nor the reality
of the future resurrection; indeed, he must deny all three. To the
mathematical sciences it simply does not matter whether the world is
new or sempiternal. Neither can a metaphysician deliver the desired
proof. In the first place, the metaphysician cannot demonstrate that
an effect may be delayed in relation to its sufficient cause; i.e.,
metaphysics presupposes the principle "If a sufficient cause is
posited, so is its effect" (*posita causa sufficiente ponitur
effectus*). Second, there is no way a metaphysician may prove that
the world is not coeternal with the divine will, for that would
require an insight into the divine will that is not accessible to
humans; claiming to have such insight amounts to madness, Boethius
says.



So, the upshot of the discussion is that when doing natural science
one should stick to Aristotelian principles, but remember that
*qua* scientist one is limited to dealing with what is
accessible to human reason, so that while conceding the necessity of a
conclusion deduced from natural causes one may still concede that
things may be factually different due to the First Cause.



At the end of the treatise Boethius lashes out at people like bishop
Tempier, who cannot understand how it is possible to be a Christian
and a philosopher at the same time: 



> 
> 
> If someone, whether enjoying a position of dignity or not, cannot
> understand such difficult matters, then let him obey the wise man and
> let him believe in the Christian Law, (Wippel's trl. [1987: 67])
> 
> 
> 
> 



but, he adds, "faith is not knowledge/science".


### 3.5 Astrology and dreams as predictors of future events



Like all his contemporaries, Boethius believed in astral influence,
and he seems to have believed in the "great year", i.e.,
that every so many years (some said 36,000) all heavenly bodies are
aligned in the same way, meaning that if everything happening on Earth
depended on celestial causality, history would be cyclical. Yet, he
points out that such a cyclical view of history is unwarranted, for
there is at least one independent causal factor that can override the
celestial influence: human free will (*Quaest. Ph.*,
247-253). The thesis about the great year and the exact
repetition of history was condemned in 1277; perhaps bishop
Tempier's men found it defended by some other master, perhaps
they just read Boethius too superficially.



Aristotle in his *De divinatione per somnum* ("On
Prophesy in Sleep") rejects the common assumption of his
contemporaries that gods may send dreams that inform about future
events.Agreement between dream content and a later event is either (1)
due to the fact that the dream reflects a bodily affection of the
dreamer's such as an incipient fever that stands in a known
causal relationship to a later event such as the unfolding of a
disease, or (2) because having had the dream makes the dreamer do what
it suggested, or (3) mere coincidence. In *De somniis*
("On Dreams") Boethius follows Aristotle in this, and in
so doing deviates sharply from all known near-contemporary
commentators on *De divinatione*, who*--*encouraged
by Averroes, among others--left more room for supernatural
intervention in dreams or, at the very least, left plenty of room for
information about the future conveyed by celestial influence, a view
for which they believed they could find support in Aristotle's
text (Ebbesen, forthcoming). In his treatise Boethius mocks
"stupid people" who for entirely physiological reasons
dream of dark persons or white angels and on waking up claim they have
seen devils or that in a rapture they have seen genuine angels. He
piously adds that he will not deny that by divine will a devil or an
angel may appear to someone, but this looks like a subterfuge, and was
taken as such by the men behind the 1277 condemnation, which features
the proposition "That raptures and visions do not take place
except through nature".


### 3.6 Ethics



Boethius' lost *Quaestiones morales* was probably a
question commentary on Aristotle's *Nicomachean Ethics*.
There he must have discussed human free will, because elsewhere he
says that topic belongs to ethics. But in particular, he is likely to
have concentrated on the nature of the supreme good (= happiness), to
which he (later, presumably) dedicated a small treatise.



*De summo bono* ("On the Supreme Good") is a
passionate defense of the thesis that the ideal life is that of an
intellectual, a philosopher, who spends his life in the pursuit of
truth. It is a rhetorical masterpiece, containing one of the longest
periods in all of Latin literature that keeps the reader in suspense
for about two pages. According to Boethius, the supreme good possible
for man consists in "knowing the true, doing the good, and
taking delight in both". By concentrating on the quest for
truth, the philosopher comes to act in a morally correct way (a)
because of the insight he has gained in what is base and what is
noble, (b) because being absorbed in theoretical work and enjoying it
he will not be tempted by sensual pleasures, and (c) because, as
opposed to other activities, theorizing cannot be overdone. So, the
philosopher "lives as man was born to live".



Special attention is paid to the philosopher's quest for
knowledge about the First Cause, alias God, but what Boethius claims
we can know is actually just that it/he is the cause of the
"production" of all beings, of their mutual order in the
chain of being, and of their conservation (cf.
 SS3.1,
 above).



Boethius' argumentation is primarily based on the Aristotelian
*ergon* argument: the highest good for a human being is to
develop to the full the capability that is specific to humans, i.e.,
our rationality or intellect, and there are many echoes of
*Nicomachean Ethics* X, but his explanation of why the
philosopher will act virtuously is not easily compatible with the
Aristotelian insistence that ethics is not a theoretical science and
that habituation is central to making people virtuous.



The happiness that Boethius is concerned with is entirely
this-worldly. A future life is only mentioned once, in an ambiguous
remark to the effect that the more one manages to obtain the happiness
that reason tells us is possible in this life, the closer one is to
the happiness that faith makes us expect in a/the life to come. It
could mean that virtuous behavior betters one's chances on
doomsday, but it could also just mean that the philosopher's
happy contemplative life is the closest approximation to the bliss of
the beatific vision.



One of the theses condemned in 1277 is a slightly altered, but
basically correct quotation of a passage in *De summo bono*. It
says: 



> 
> 
> That there is no more excellent state [of life] (*status*) than
> to dedicate oneself to philosophy. 
> 
> 
> 



No reason is given why it is wrong, but the bishop and his men
probably thought that a life in holy orders or as a theologian ought
to be considered a more excellent *status*.


## 4. Influence



In the 1290s the wealthy scholar Geoffrey of Fontaines personally
wrote down abridgments of Boethius' *Modi Significandi*,
the questions on *Topics* and *De anima I-II*, as
well as the *opuscula* (see the introductions to the
editions).



*Modi significandi* had a considerable diffusion, evidenced by
six extant copies from the thirteenth, five from the fourteenth, and
two from the fifteenth century. Strong influence from Boethius has
been detected in the anonymous question commentary on *Priscian
Minor* known as *Innata est nobis*, where he is referred to
as "a famous man" (Pinborg 1967: 93-4). The
*Summa grammatica* of John of Dacia (1280), while more
dependent on Martin of Dacia's *Modi significandi*, also
owes a considerable debt to Boethius (Pinborg 1967: 87). According to
Pinborg (1967: 91-2), Boethius further left his mark on Michael
of Marbais' *Summa de modis significandi*, but this has
been called in doubt (Kelly 1995: XLV).



*Questions on the Topics* had a fair number of readers for a
long time, surviving in eleven manuscripts from the thirteenth to the
fifteenth centuries plus Geoffrey's abridgement, and being
quoted as late as the fifteenth century (Green-Pedersen 1984:
388-9).



The commentaries on *Physics, On Generation and Corruption*
("*GC*"), *Meteorology* and *De
anima* are only preserved in one manuscript each, and so,
presumably, had little impact. Those on *Physics* and
*GC*, which are transmitted in the same manuscript, repeatedly
deal with controversial matters like the eternity of the world. The
last question on *GC* has been rendered almost entirely
unreadable by overlining, presumably the owner's reaction to the
1277 condemnation, for the title of the question was "Whether
the first movement can be perpetual" and from what remains of
the question it is clear that Boethius argued that, scientifically
speaking, the world cannot be "new", although according to
faith it is so. Other copies of the two works must have existed, but
fear of being denounced to ecclesiastical authorities may have stopped
the production of new ones after the condemnation.



Traces of Boethius' lost questions on the *Metaphysics*
have been discovered in an anonymous set of questions that may be from
the 1270's (Fioravanti 2009). Only a handful of manuscripts
transmit *De aeternitate mundi* and the same is true of *De
somniis*, whereas there is a score of text witnesses to *De
summo bono*, whose success was helped by a common misattribution
to the famous sixth-century Roman Manlius Boethius, and in some
manuscripts to Thomas Aquinas. Finally, only one manuscript carries
the sophisma *Syllogizantem*, while *Omnis homo
...* is found in two, but in one of them the text has been
revised and enlarged by a slightly later scholar.



The 1277 condemnation did not make arts masters stop praising the
philosopher's life in the introductory lecture with which they
habitually began every question course on an authoritative book, and
in practice most kept Boethius' distinction between science and
faith, though without his provocative formulations.


## 5. Literature



There is no book-length study of the philosophy of Boethius of Dacia.
A comprehensive treatment is found in Ebbesen 2002, but, being in
Danish, it is accessible to rather few. A good short introduction is
found in Pinborg 1974; see also Ebbesen 1998: 282-6. The main
features of his thought are covered in Lanza and Toste 2011 and in
Donati 2017. For Boethius's theory of language, see in
particular Pinborg 1967, Rosier (Rosier-Catach) 1983, Marmo 1994,
Beuerle 2010.