Boethius

477-524 · Roman · Late-Antique Philosophy, Logic, Theology, Consolation Tradition

If there is a God, whence evil? If there is not, whence good?

Boethius was the most learned man in a collapsing world. The Western Empire had fallen, classical learning was vanishing, and this Roman senator set himself a staggering rescue mission: to translate all of Aristotle and Plato into Latin and reconcile them, preserving Greek thought for a Latin future. He finished only the logic before politics destroyed him. A consul and master of offices under the Ostrogothic king Theodoric, he was condemned for treason and, awaiting execution around 524, wrote his masterpiece in prison.

Topics Boethius addresses

• the consolation of philosophy
• the wheel of fortune
• divine providence and the problem of evil
• eternity as the simultaneous and complete possession of unlimited life
• divine foreknowledge and human freedom
• conditional necessity vs absolute necessity
• the highest good (summum bonum)
• true happiness vs the false goods
• divine simplicity
• participation in God
• the universals problem
• the translatio project
• the second commentary on Porphyry's Isagoge
• the commentary on Aristotle's Categories
• the commentary on Aristotle's De Interpretatione
• the Opuscula Sacra
• applying logic to theology
• the Trinity and logical analysis
• Christological problems and categorical analysis
• topical reasoning and types of argument
• hypothetical syllogisms
• the theory of division
• the quadrivium: arithmetic and music
• Lady Philosophy as dialectical guide

Converse with Boethius on Symposium. Every reply is grounded in Boethius's own writing and cites the page it came from. The corpus is public-domain text.