The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth: Robert Grosseteste on Universals (and the Posterior Analytics)
Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 48, Number 2, pp. 153-170.
By Christina Van ***
The reintroduction of aristotle's
Analytics to the Latin West—in particular, the reintroduction of the
Posterior Analytics—forever altered the course of medieval epistemological discussions.
1 In the memorable words of Jonathan Barnes, "Aristotle's sweet
Analytics ravished generations of European scholars and scientists. The
Prior Analytics displayed the pure discipline of logic, well-formed, elegant, seductive; the
Posterior Analytics beckoned
to deeper mysteries, offering a sure path to scientific progress, clear
and imperious in its injunctions, delicious in its rigor."
2 Although the
Analytics fell decidedly from grace in later centuries, the sophisticated account of human cognition developed in the
Posterior Analytics appealed
so strongly to thirteenth-century European scholars that it became one
of the two central theories of knowledge advocated in the later Middle
Ages.
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