INTRODUCTION

In the medieval Latin philosophical tradition, the thirteenth century is set apart from other periods as perhaps the one most dominated by the influence of Aristotle. After the rediscovery and re-translation of many Aristotelian texts in the middle of the twelfth century, Aristotle's works quickly became the foundation of teaching in the Arts faculties of the universities of Paris and Oxford in the first few decades of the thirteenth century. While the new Aristotelian material from the Physics and Metaphysics gave rise to censure and a teaching ban in Paris in the 1210–1230s, this ban did not extend to logic, which was never especially controversial and remained largely unaffected by bans (see Section 5.4). Once the early controversies surrounding Aristotle's natural philosophy were resolved, the commentary tradition that developed around his texts eventually became one of the main literary forms of philosophy in the thirteenth century. In tandem, the rise of logic as a foundational subject in the universities resulted in the introduction of logical textbooks which explored radically non-Aristotelian approaches to logic and semantics.

Boethius had already translated all of the logical works of Aristotle, except Posterior Analytics, into Latin in the sixth century (see the chapter “The Legacy of Ancient Logic in the Middle Ages” in this volume). Although Categories and On Interpretation had been commented on since at least the ninth century, the others were not systematically studied before 1120, and it was not until the late twelfth or early thirteenth century that commentaries on these works started to appear in the Latin West. These commentaries were influenced by Arabic commentaries, especially those by Averroes, which we'll discuss below. With the expansion of commentaries and the growing importance of Aristotle's texts for university teaching, the need for new or fresh translations soon became apparent. In the 1260s, William of Moerbeke translated Aristotle's works anew or revised Boethius’ old translations. At the same time, he also translated several of the Greek commentators. Others wrote new commentaries. The most important Latin commentators from the mid-thirteenth century that are known by name are Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), Robert Kilwardby (d. 1279), Albert the Great (d. 1280), Boethius of Dacia (d. c. 1280), Simon of Faversham (d. 1306) and Radulphus Brito (d. 1320). Many more commentaries from this time are anonymous.