The purpose of this study is to focus on the coexistence, during the transmission of the doctrine on the Topics in the early Middle Ages, of two different interpretations: although both emerge from two commentaries on Cicero’s Topics, however, they gave rise to two different readings: the one transmitted by Marius Victorinus (ca. 280-365 AC) who thought the topics almost exclusively in the service of Rhetoric, the other conceived by Boethius (ca. 480-524 AC) who intended to restore the centrality that the Topics had in the Aristotelian Logic, by subordinating the rethorical Topics to dialectical Topics. My conclusion is that the Early Middle Ages can be considered, from an epistemological point of view, as a long boetiana aetas. Although the corpus of Boethius’s logical writings was not yet available until the second half of the 11th century, Boethius’s methodological approach on the Topics somehow continued to support the slow but constant absorption of the topical doctrine into the new Christian sensibility.
El propósito de este estudio es el de centrar la atención sobre la coexistencia, en el curso de la transmisión de la doctrina de los loci en el Alto Medioevo de dos interpretaciones, las cuales, aunque surjan ambas de un comentario a los Topica de Cicerón, han originado una diversa, aunque notable flexión interpretativa del texto ciceroniano: el primer comentario realizado por Mario Victorino (c. 280-365 d.C.), el cual concibió los loci casi exclusivamente al servicio de la Retórica, el segundo llevado a cabo por Boecio (c. 480-524 d.C.) quien, por su parte, intentó restaurar la centralidad que los Topica tuvieron en la lógica aristotélica, subordinando los loci retóricos a los loci dialécticos. Mi conclusión es que la Alta Edad Media puede ser considerada con justa razón desde un punto de vista epistemológico como una larga boetiana aetas. Aunque el corpus de los escritos de lógica boeciana no estuviera disponible sino hasta la segunda mitad del siglo XI, Boecio de algún modo continuó sosteniendo con su impostación de método el esqueleto de la nueva estructura especulativo-teológica.
The purpose of this study is to focus on the coexistence, during the transmission of the doctrine on the Topics in the early Middle Ages, of two different interpretations: although both emerge from two commentaries on Cicero’s Topics, however, they gave rise to two different readings: the one transmitted by Marius Victorinus (ca. 280-365 AC) who thought the topics almost exclusively in the service of Rhetoric, the other conceived by Boethius (ca. 480-524 AC) who intended to restore the centrality that the Topics had in the Aristotelian Logic, by subordinating the rethorical Topics to dialectical Topics. My conclusion is that the Early Middle Ages can be considered, from an epistemological point of view, as a long boetiana aetas. Although the corpus of Boethius’s logical writings was not yet available until the second half of the 11th century, Boethius’s methodological approach on the Topics somehow continued to support the slow but constant absorption of the topical doctrine into the new Christian sensibility.