‘Τὰ τῆς νεωτέρας Ἑλλάδος φιλοσοφήματα εἶναι κυρίως μιμήματα τῆς τῶν Εὐρωπαίων Ἀριστοτελικοσχολαστικής και νεωτέρας φιλοσοφίας’. (Constantine Koumas, «Περὶ τῆς εἰς τὴν νεωτέραν Ἑλλάδα καταστάσεως τῆς Φιλοσοφίας», 1818).
Philosophical production in the Greek language after the Fall of Constantinople (1453) has customarily been addressed in contemporary historiography of philosophy in one of two fundamental frameworks. According to the first of these frameworks, this field of philosophy should be referred to as ‘post-Byzantine’. The meaning of this term is best illustrated through the description of a collection of kleine Schriften by one of its proponents, Linos Benakis:
In the studies republished here on the field of post-Byzantine philosophy, i.e. Greek philosophy during the centuries of Ottoman rule (τῆς μεταβυζαντινῆς φιλοσοφίας, δηλαδὴ τῆς ἑλληνικῆς φιλοσοφίας τῶν αἰώνων τῆς Τουρκοκρατίας), from the era of presence and influence of the most important figure in Greek intellectual life, the Athenian philosopher Theophilos Korydalleus, up to the era of the illustrious Ionian Academy in Corfu, a dominant – though not exclusive – feature throughout is undoubtedly the presence of Aristotle and Aristotelianism in the thought and works of the notable representatives of philosophy in the broader Greek world of that time. Our studies focus on the sources and the true character of post-Byzantine Aristotelianism (τοῦ μεταβυζαντινοῦ Ἀριστοτελισμοῦ), particularly in its early phase, and on a more accurate determination of its dependence on the Neo-Aristotelianism of Padua and the more immediate Greek-Byzantine tradition (τὴν πιὸ ἄμεση ἑλληνικὴ-βυζαντινὴ) beyond the late Greek-Alexandrian tradition; they also focus on the true nature of the reaction against the dominance of Aristotelian teaching and the turn toward modern science and philosophy in the eighteenth century, a teaching that is strongly evident in the work of the representatives of the modern spirit. All this is considered within the context and intellectual climate of the Christian humanism that dominated throughout Ottoman rule – even during the time of the so-called Modern Greek Enlightenment, or more accurately, the Modern Greek Renaissance.Footnote 1
Benakis claims two things: (a) that the philosophical activity of the Greeks between 1453 and 1824 – the year of the foundation of the Ionian Academy in the United States of the Ionian islands (then under British rule) – should be designated as ‘post-Byzantine’; and (b) that this post-Byzantine philosophy is essentially tantamount to post-Byzantine Aristotelianism. Benakis divides post-Byzantine Aristotelianism into two phases: the first revolves around the Aristotelian commentaries of Theophilos Korydalleus, a student of Cesare Cremonini at the University of Padua and later (1622) head of the Patriarchal School in Constantinople; the second corresponds to the Modern Greek Enlightenment, which, Benakis claims, bears Aristotelian elements despite ‘its turn toward modern philosophy and science’.Footnote 2 Benakis builds his historiography of philosophy upon a series of continuities. For him, (a) the historical entity between Byzantium and Modern Greece is post-Byzantium; (b) the philosophical current uniting Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and post-Byzantium is Aristotelianism in three phases (late antique or Alexandrian [ὑστεροελληνικὴ-ἀλεξανδρινή], Byzantine [ἑλληνικὴ-βυζαντινή], and post-Byzantine [μεταβυζαντινή]); and (c) post-Byzantine philosophy and the Modern Greek Enlightenment are united not only through the presence of Aristotle but also because they are both products of ‘Christian humanism’.Footnote 3 Benakis’ claim that the Modern Greek Enlightenment is best understood as the Modern Greek Renaissance, is meant to underscore his continuist and immanentist conception of Greek philosophy: the Greeks did not acquire their enlightenment externally; they were ‘reborn’ through the lights that they already possessed in antiquity and in Byzantium.Footnote 4
The other framework in which Greek philosophical writing after 1453 has been viewed is no less continuist. It was conceived by Nikos Psimmenos for his two-volume florilegium Greek Philosophy from 1454 to 1821.Footnote 5 As is evident from the subtitles of the two volumes (‘The Dominance of Aristotelianism – Pre-Corydallic and Corydallic Period’ and ‘The Predominance of Modern Philosophy – Post-Corydallic period’), Psimmenos built his own historiography upon the impact of the philosophical system of Theophilos Korydalleus, whose commentaries on select treatises of Aristotle have been transmitted by numerous manuscript copies, most from the eighteenth century. Psimmenos does not distinguish between, on the one hand, ‘Corydallism’, a term reflecting restrictions imposed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate after the condemnation of Methodios Anthrakites’ teaching in 1723,Footnote 6 and, on the other, philosophy as taught by Korydalleus himself at the Patriarchal School, which in fact Cyril Loukaris asked him to reform.Footnote 7 Like Benakis, Psimmenos detects an Aristotelian thread that unites Korydalleus’ philosophy with Byzantium. Here is how one reviewer presents Psimmenos’ approach:
One could argue on the basis of reliable evidence that there exists a continuity […] in the philosophical activity of the Greeks during the transition from the final period of Byzantium to the early period of Ottoman rule (ὑφίσταται μιὰ συνέχεια […] τῆς δραστηριότητας τῶν Ἑλλήνων στὸν τομέα τῆς φιλοσοφίας κατὰ τὴν μετάβαση ἀπὸ τὴν τελευταία περίοδο τοῦ Βυζαντίου στὴν πρώτη περίοδο τῆς Τουρκοκρατίας) […]. For instance, the debate between Aristotelians and Platonists, which began with George Gemistos Plethon, does not appear to have ended in 1460 or 1469 with the respective works of George Scholarios Gennadios and Bessarion, works that could arguably be considered as belonging more to Byzantine than to modern Greek philosophy. On the contrary, this debate seems to continue even after the death of the last representative of Byzantine philosophy, in a text written in 1511 by Manuel Korinthios, which, as the title itself suggests,Footnote 8 may be seen as an attempt to refute the Platonism of Plethon and Bessarion. Of course, the continuity of modern Greek philosophy from Gennadios or Bessarion up to Korydalleus cannot be established scientifically on the basis of a single work […] but it may be indicated by the close affinity that appears to exist between the Neo-Aristotelianism introduced by Korydalleus and the Aristotelianism that had already become a tradition in Greece (στὴ στενὴ συγγένεια ποὺ φαίνεται νὰ ὑπάρχει ἀνάμεσα στὸν Νεοαριστοτελισμὸ τὸν ὁποῖο εἰσάγει στὴν Ἑλλάδα ὁ Κορυδαλέας καὶ στὸν Ἀριστοτελισμό ποὺ εἶχε ἤδη καταστεῖ παράδοση στὸν ἑλληνικὸ χῶρο) following the burning of Plethon’s Laws by Gennadios. Furthermore, Korydalleus’ own decision to introduce Aristotelianism, rather than some other philosophical system, into Greece, as well as the relatively easy reception of his philosophy in the Greek world, can be more convincingly explained by the existence of such a tradition than, for example, by his exposure to the influence of his teacher, the Neo-Aristotelian philosopher Cesare Cremonini (ἡ ἐπιλογὴ τοῦ ἰδίου τοῦ Κορυδαλέα νὰ εἰσαγάγει στὴν Ἑλλάδα τὸν ἀριστοτελισμὸ καὶ ὄχι κάποιαν ἄλλη μορφὴ φιλοσοφίας […] ἐξηγοῦνται πειστικότερα μὲ βάση τὴν ὕπαρξη μιᾶς τέτοιας παράδοσης ἀπ᾽ ό,τι λ.χ. μὲ γνώμονα τὴν ἐπιρροὴ ποὺ αὐτὸς δέχτηκε ἀπὸ τὸν δάσκαλό του νεοαριστοτελικὸ φιλόσοφο Cesare Cremonini).Footnote 9
Like Benakis, Psimmenos downplays Korydalleus’ dependence on Cremonini. He claims that Korydalleus’ predilection for Neo-Aristotelianism was shaped prior to his departure for Padua by a local Aristotelian tradition, and that his commentaries on Aristotle were well received in Ottoman Greece precisely because of this existing tradition, which started with the predominance of Aristotle over Plato established by George Scholarios, the first Ecumenical Patriarch (as Gennadios II) after the Fall of Constantinople.Footnote 10 In direct contrast to Constantine Koumas (see the epigraph to the present article), both Benakis and Psimmenos minimize – if they do not entirely dismiss – the influence of the West on what they see either as ‘post-Byzantine’ or as ‘neo-Hellenic’ philosophy.
Research on the philosophical activity of the Greeks in the Heptanese and in the Ottoman empire has suffered from a lack of acquaintance with the sources. Theoretical schemes borrowed from the discipline of history have prevailed over the necessary Grundlagenforschung. The term ‘post-Byzantine’, privileged by Benakis and other scholars,Footnote 11 was established by Nicolae Iorga, who introduced the field of ‘post-Byzantine studies’ through his Byzance après Byzance (Bucharest 1935).Footnote 12 Based on what he refers to as the ‘stability (permanence) of Byzantine forms’ in culture and politics, the Romanian historian argued that Byzantinism (meant positively) survived far beyond the Fall of Constantinople, through the Patriarch and the Archons of the Orthodox Patriarchate and, more importantly, in the free ‘Romanian’ principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which were under Ottoman suzerainty. ‘This situation’, Iorga writes, ‘which gave the Romanian Principalities […] a role of supremacy which extended all the way to Tiflis, to Antioch, to Cairo, and which cannot be compared to the present importance of Romania, lasted from the fall of “the son of Satan”, Michael Cantacuzenus,Footnote 13 whose descendants soon established themselves along the Danube, until the imperial greatness and generosity of the boyar Lupu who, ascending on the throne of Moldavia, called himself Vasile, like the lawgiver Emperor Basil.’ According to Iorga, it was the rule of the Greek Phanariots (1711–1821) which promoted a new conception of freedom inspired by the ‘French philosophy of the eighteenth century’ and a ‘revolutionary internationalism’, which brought about the real end of Byzantium at the dawn of the nineteenth century.Footnote 14
Whether the term ‘post-Byzantine’ should be applied to philosophy in this way – i.e., as indicative of a certain permanence of Byzantinism, either in form or in content, within the philosophical thought of the Greek-speaking world during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – can only be determined through close examination of the texts. Benakis describes his collection of essays as an ‘investigation into the sources’ (Ἔρευνα στις πηγές), by which he means the texts of the ‘post-Byzantine’ philosophers. However, what is needed is an investigation into the sources of these sources, as this will reveal whether these sources are Byzantine or not. The lack of critical editions of the philosophical commentaries and handbooks from the post-Byzantine historical period has thus far hindered the proper mapping of the terra incognita of early modern Greek philosophy.Footnote 15
The present article provides an overview of the treatment and development of logic from Theophilos Korydalleus to Eugenios Voulgaris, whose Logic was published in Leipzig in 1766. Logic will be taken as a paradigmatic case, given the extensive number of commentaries and scholia on Aristotle’s Organon produced in Byzantium, particularly during the Palaeologan era (1261–1453). It will become evident that the structure and content of the commentaries and handbooks of logic produced in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries bear no connection whatsoever to Byzantine logic (or, for that matter, to late antique commentaries on Aristotle’s Organon) and cannot be properly understood through direct reference to Greek sources. I argue, therefore, that the term ‘post-Byzantine’ as descriptive of a certain philosophical activity and as a category within the history of philosophy must be abandoned, unless one is willing to reserve it for the limited teaching of philosophy by the ‘Great Rhetors’ of the Ecumenical Patriarchate during the late fifteenth and the sixteenth century.Footnote 16 There is no factual continuity between Byzantine philosophy and early modern Greek philosophy. Early modern Greek philosophers rarely, if ever, had recourse to Byzantine manuscript sources for their knowledge of the Greek text of Aristotle and his commentators; instead, they depended on the printed editions available at the time.Footnote 17
The history of logic from Korydalleus to Voulgaris can be divided into four successive but partly overlapping phases:
(a) The ‘authentic’ Aristotelian logic, revived by Cesare Cremonini in his polemics against the ‘modern’ Peripatetics (i.e. Scholastics), which Theophilos Korydalleus transferred to Constantinople and other parts of the Ottoman empire.
(b) Neo-scholastic logic: the transfer into Greek of the abridged ‘Peripatetic’ logic comprised in the Summa philosophiæ quadripartita (1609) by Eustachius a Sancto Paulo and in the Cursus philosophicus thomisticus (1663) by Ioannes a Sancto Thoma.
(c) Modern logic: the transfer into Greek of the Logic of Port-Royal (La logique, ou l’art de penser, 1662), which exhibits strong Cartesian elements in its epistemology.
(d) Eclectic logic: the transfer into Greek of the combined critical account of the logic of the ‘Ancients’, i.e. the (Neo-)Scholastics, and the ‘Moderns’.
Theophilos Korydalleus from Athens (1574–1646) was the principal, if not the sole, figure behind ‘authentic’ logic; Nikolaos Koursoulas from Zakynthos (1602–1652) and Georgios Sougdouris from Ioannina (1645–1725) were the main proponents of Neo-Scholastic logic; while Gerasimos Vlachos from Crete (1607–85) represents an earlier form of Neo-Scholasticism which preceded the Summa of Eustachius a Sancto Paulo, published in 1609. Anastasios Papavassilopoulos from Ioannina (c. 1670–1750) and Vikentios Damodos from Cephalonia (1700–54) composed compendia focusing exclusively on modern logic. Methodios Anthrakites from Ioannina (c. 1660–1736), Damodos, and Eugenios Voulgaris from Corfu (1716–1806) represent eclectic logic. With the exception of Voulgaris (for whom no relevant testimony exists), these intellectuals studied at the Pontifical Greek College of St Athanasius in Rome and/or the University of Padua, where two colleges (Collegio Paleocapa and Collegio Cottunio) had been established in the seventeenth century for Greek students.Footnote 18
‘Authentic’ logic
Korydalleus’ main treatise on logic bears the title Εἰς ἅπασαν τὴν Λογικὴν τοῦ Ἀριστοτέλους Ὑπομνήματα καὶ Ζητἠματα (Commentaries on and Inquiries into the entire Logic of Aristotle).Footnote 19 The term ὑπόμνημα recalls the late antique and Byzantine exegetical commentaries, but Korydalleus’ commentary bears no real resemblance to them. Late antique and Byzantine commentaries provide prolegomena and then divide Aristotle’s integral text into ‘lemmata’, which are successively quoted and explained. Korydalleus’ ὑπoμνήματα do not quote Aristotle’s text in an integral way; rather, they proceed in sections under different headings. For instance, the first lines of the Categories, though quoted in the form of a lemma, are more broadly construed through the headings Περὶ ὁμωνύμων and Περὶ συνωνύμων. A series of subsections is included under Περὶ ὁμωνύμων: Kείμενον (i.e. the lemma), Ἀνάπτυξις ἑκάστης τῶν ἐν τῷ ὁρισμῷ φωνῶν, Τί τὸ ὁριζόμενον ἐν ἑκάστῳ τῶν Συνωνύμων, Ὁμωνύμων, καὶ Παρωνύμων, Ἀνατροπὴ τῆς ἐκτεθείσης δόξης, Λύσις τῶν ἐπιχειρημάτων τῆς προληφθείσης δόξης, Ἀπορία, Ἀπάντησις, Ἀπορία, Ἀπάντησις, and so on. To cite another example, Porphyry’s Isagoge, which precedes the Categories, is structured according to the sequence of the quinque voces. Porphyry’s text is quoted when it comes to the first vox (Περὶ γένους. « Ἔοικε μήτε το Γένος, μήτε το Εἶδος ἁπλῶς λέγεσθαι, καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς), but it is totally abandoned in the subsequent sections (Περὶ εἴδους, Περὶ διαφορᾶς, Περὶ ἰδίου, Περὶ συμβεβηκότος »). The structure of Korydalleus’ commentary in fact recalls the summulae and commentarii used for teaching logic at European universities: printed editions that include explicative adnotationes in the margin and other para-texts. Between the Categories and the On Interpretation, Korydalleus inserts a section on the Postpraedicamenta (Περὶ τῶν μετὰ τὰς κατηγορίας), treating it as if it were a separate Aristotelian treatise; in fact, De Postpraedicamentis is the title of a separate lectio in Cesare Cremonini’s Dialectica (published posthumously in 1663). Korydalleus omits the Topics, as is also the case in Cremonini’s Dialectica. All this shows that the Athenian philosopher was not interested in adapting his Commentaries to Greek sources.Footnote 20 Even the titles Πρότερα ἀναλυτικά and Ὕστερα ἀναλυτικά, instead of the traditional ᾽Αναλυτικὰ πρότερα and Ἀναλυτικὰ ὕστερα, seem to complete Cremonini’s headings tractatus super libros priorum Aristotelis and tractatus super libros posteriorum Aristotelis. After all, εἰς ἅπασαν τὴν Λογικήν is not genuinely Greek but renders in totam Logicam; Greek and Byzantine exegetes would say εἰς ὅλον τὸ Ὄργανον.
The contents of Korydalleus’ commentary are likewise only indirectly connected to the Greek and Byzantine tradition. While explaining the division of Logic and the rationale behind the traditional sequence of the treatises in the Organon, Korydalleus adopts the Thomistic framework of ‘the three operations of the intellect’ (tres operationes intellectus).Footnote 21 Thomas Aquinas derived these operations from Aristotle’s De anima and, somewhat arbitrarily, linked each operation to specific parts of the Organon.Footnote 22 Korydalleus explains:
Since syllogism is a tool through which the activities of our intellect are corrected and directed towards the investigation of truth, and since the activities of our intellect are divided into three parts: (a) simple apprehension – when we grasp things simply, for example, when our intellect perceives ‘man’, ‘horse’, and similar [concepts] – which is also called apprehension of simple things; (b) complex [apprehension], considered in accordance with composition and division – when we affirm or deny something about something else, such as ‘man is rational’ or ‘horse is not rational’; (c) the third activity is discursive thought – when we derive knowledge of something unknown from known premises. For example, knowing that ‘man is rational’ and that ‘Socrates is a man’, we conclude that ‘Socrates is rational’. […] The first book is The Categories, the second book is the On Interpretation, which deals with terms and propositions as meaningful words and statements. The third is called Prior Analytics, where Aristotle examines terms and propositions as they relate to the structure of syllogisms (insofar as they are parts of syllogism) and about syllogism in general. After this, the various types of syllogisms are discussed.Footnote 23
In one of the ζητήματα,Footnote 24 Περὶ τῆς κατὰ νεωτέρους διαιρέσεως τῆς Λογικῆς εἰς χρωμένην, ὡς φασί, καὶ διδάσκουσαν, Korydalleus addresses the quaestio of whether logic is an art or a science. He follows Cremonini,Footnote 25 who revived the ‘authentic’ Peripatetic teaching that logic is not a science but an art; that is, an instrument rather than a part of philosophy:
In order to be not disturbed by the moderns, who are hasty in every respect, let us briefly discuss a few more things about the division [of logic] which they have devised in their madness. Indeed, the moderns divide the logical method into different logics. One part they call applied logic and place it among the practical [intellectual] possessions, thereby confusing the practical with the productive. The other part they assign exclusively to the theoretical branch of philosophy and wish to call it science; as if someone were to divide a horse, like the Centaurs in the myth, and declare that one part is a man and the other a horse.Footnote 26
The division of logic into χρωμένη λογική and διδάσκουσα λογική, which Korydalleus attributes to the ‘moderns’, has no precedent in the Greek or Byzantine tradition. Instead, it reflects the Scholastic distinction between logica utens and logica docens, a concept propagated through the logica modernorum, the third and less Aristotelian phase of Western medieval logic (following the logica vetus and the logica nova). This distinction appears as early as John Duns Scotus’ Parva logicalia (1295), but it was the Albertists of the late fifteenth century, the followers of Albert of Saxony, who, in their search for reliable knowledge in disputation, firmly distinguished between the practice of logic and the science of logic.Footnote 27 Cremonini, and subsequently Korydalleus, reacted against this anti-Aristotelian distinction, which was entirely unknown to the Byzantines. In the prolegomena addressed to his students, Korydalleus acknowledges his inspiration and source:
We, with God’s help, having made our most divine Professor the guardian of reason and having used for the most part his interpretation of logic, both from what we have received in writing and from what we have heard and carry in our memory, shall assist you in your studies of logic, employing both brevity and integrity of teaching in all things.Footnote 28
Neo-Scholastic logic
Recalling Korydalleus’ Logic, Gerasimos Vlachos’ Logic bears the title Εἰς ἅπασαν τὴν λογικὴν πραγματείαν τοῦ Ἀριστοτέλους παραφράσεις καὶ ζητήματα. Like Korydalleus, Vlachos structures his work in a scholastic, non-Byzantine way, organizing it with textual units such as ἀποδείκνυται πρῶτον…, ἀποδείκνυται δεύτερον etc., ἐπιχείρημα πρῶτον, ἐπιχείρημα δεύτερον etc., ἐρώτησις, ἀπάντησις, ἡ μείζων ἐστὶν ἀκραιφνής (= maior patet), ἡ ἐλάττων ἀποδείκνυται (= minor probatur), τηρητέον, and so forth. As in Korydalleus’ work, and inverting the title, Vlachos addresses the ζητήματα before the παραφράσεις. However, he appears entirely unaware of Korydalleus’ work. Regarding the quaestio of whether logic is an art or a science, Vlachos employs a slightly different Greek terminology (κεχρωμένη λογική and διδακτικὴ λογική instead of Korydalleus’ χρωμένη λογική and διδάσκουσα λογική) and sides with the ‘modern Peripatetics’. He introduces the problem as follows:
The question arises whether logic is only an instrumental [intellectual] possession or also a superior one. They answer that an instrumental possession is not a part of philosophy but merely a tool, whereas they admit that the superior possession is a part of philosophy. We shall keep in mind the following – tenth – point: possession of logic is twofold: one is didactic, i.e. a science, and the other is applied, i.e. an art. Having preliminarily clarified this, [we shall say that] the first view – as Ammonius says in his prolegomena to the Categories, and Philoponus in his commentary on the first book of the Prior Analytics – is that of the Stoics, who say that logic is but a part of philosophy and not an instrument. The second view is that of Plato, who says that logic is a part of philosophy in the Phaedrus and an instrument of philosophy in the Parmenides […]. The third view is that of the ancient Peripatetics, such as of Ammonius and Philoponus – in the texts mentioned earlier – and of Alexander of Aphrodisias – in his commentary on the Prior Analytics – who say that the method of logic is only an instrument of philosophy and not a part of it. The fourth view is that of the modern Peripatetics, who say that logic, insofar as it is didactic, is a part of philosophy, but insofar as it is applied, it is an instrument.Footnote 29
Vlachos refutes one by one the arguments of the ‘ancient Peripatetics’, which he presents under the heading Ἀποδεικνύουσιν οἱ παλαιοὶ τῶν Περιπατητικῶν τὴν λογικὴν μὴ εἶναι μέρος ἀλλ᾽ ὄργανον τῆς φιλοσοφίας. However, he is unaware of Korydalleus’ arguments. This is unsurprising, as Korydalleus’ work had not yet been printed and was unavailable in Venice, where Vlachos spent most of his career.Footnote 30
Vlachos’ references to various ancient sources are not drawn directly from the original authors but from Bartholomaeus Sylvanius’ Quaestio utrum pars an instrumentum philosophiae sit logice, a prolegomenon to his translation of Ammonius’ commentary on Aristotle’s Categories. Here is a characteristic passage regarding Plato’s stance to logic:
Mutatis mutandis, further Latin texts must have been the sources of Vlachos’ Logic.
Vlachos’ position on the nature of logic seems to reflect a state of affairs prior to Cremonini’s ‘authentic’ reading of Aristotle. Indeed, his understanding is close to Domingo de Soto’s In dialecticam Aristotelis commentarii (Salamanca 1543) and Stephanus Carvisius’ Catena aurea in totam logicam (Venice 1561). By contrast, Nikolaos Koursoulas’ Ἐπιτομὴ τῆς Ἀριστοτέλους διαλεκτικῆς πραγματείας and Georgios Sougdouris’ Εἰσαγωγὴ Λογικῆς, ἤτοι προδιοίκησις εἰς ἅπασαν τὴν λογικὴν μέθοδον τοῦ Ἀριστοτέλους stand on Neo-Thomistic ground. Despite their reference to Aristotle, neither work integrates Aristotle’s text.Footnote 32 They are mere handbooks of logic which structure logic into three books or parts according to the ‘three operations of the mind’: ‘simple apprehension’ (ἁπλῆ πρόσληψις), ‘complex apprehension’ (σύνθετος πρόσληψις), and ‘syllogism’ or ‘discursive thought’ (συλλογισμὸς ἢ διάνοια). In his Commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sententiae, printed in Paris in 1550, the Dominican Friar Durandus a Sancto Porciano (Guillaume Durand de Saint-Pourçain, 1270–1332), following Thomas, articulated the ‘triplicem actum intelligendi, sc. simplicem, componentem et discursivum’. Accordingly, the first part of the Neo-Thomistic Ars Logica of the Cursus philosophicus thomisticus (Lyon 1663) of Ioannes a Sancto Thoma – Joao Poinsot (1589–1644), a Portuguese Dominican friar educated at the University of Coimbra – comprises three books: I. De his quae spectant ad primam operationem intellectus. II. De his quae pertinent ad secundam operationem intellectus. III. De tertia operatione intellectus. The res dialecticae of the Summa philosophiæ quadripartita, de rebus dialecticis, ethicis, physicis et metaphysicis (Paris 1609) of Eustachius a Sancto Paulo – Eustache Asseline (1575–1640), a French Bernardine monk – comprise: I. Prima pars Dialecticae seu Logicae. De iis quae ad primam mentis operationem spectant. II. Secunda pars Dialecticae. De iis quae spectant ad secundam mentis operationem. III. Tertia pars Dialecticae. De iis quae spectant ad tertiam mentis operationem. Koursoulas’ and Sougdouris’ handbooks (the latter printed in Vienna in 1792 by Ioannis Karatzas) reflect the Neo-Scholastic or Neo-Thomist state of affairs in matters of logic.
Modern logic
Sougdouris, born in 1645, remained either unaware of or indifferent to the innovations brought about by the Logic of the Port-Royal Abbey, a highly influential handbook authored by Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole. Published anonymously in Paris in 1662 as La logique, ou l’art de penser, the Logic of Port-Royal was printed in Latin as Ars cogitandi in 1678 in London and in Venice in 1715. It introduced the reader to logic by exhibiting strong Cartesian elements in its discussion of the first ‘operation of the mind’, as the very term ‘cogitandi’ reveals. Logic was now divided according to quattor cogitationes mentis: (i) conceiving (apprehensio or perceptio), signified by single terms or words; (ii) judging (judicium), expressed in propositions; (iii) reasoning (ratiocinatio), carried out through syllogisms; and (iv) ordering knowledge according to the analytical or the synthetical method (methodus). Although the designation of logic as ars cogitandi was conceived as a subversion of Petrus Ramus, who had defined logic as ars disserendi, the section on method was indebted to the latter’s Institutiones Dialecticae (1547). Still, for the logicians of the Port-Royal, method did not only comprise synthesis (considered appropriate for teaching a truth that is known), as Ramus believed, but also analysis (considered necessary for discovering the truth).
The first quadripartite compendium of logic to be written in Greek was Anastasios Papavassilopoulos’ Σύνοψις γενικὴ τῆς λογικῆς ἕξεως,Footnote 33 composed in 1696, probably in Serres, where Papavassilopoulos taught before moving to his native Ioannina and then to Kastoria, where he succeeded Methodios Anthrakites. In the epilogue to his work, Papavassilopoulos makes clear that he had translated a Western source:
I have compiled most of these things from a certain author who is held in great esteem among the learned Latins. Taking his work as my starting-point, I have gathered a certain introductory knowledge of logic for the sake of your sagacity. If God grants it, I shall further elucidate the remaining aspects of logic in a more detailed manner – although I know well that I shall have many critics. For I know that there will be some who would rather find fault than imitate.Footnote 34
This source is the Institutio Philosophiae secundum Principia D. Renati Descartes: Νova Μethodo Αdornata, & Εxplicata. In Usum Juventutis Academicae of Antoine Le Grand (1629–99), an important intellectual figure who propagated Cartesian philosophy in England. This work was first published in London in 1672 and republished (third edition) in Nuremberg in 1695. It is unclear how Papavassilopoulos came to know Le Grand’s work. About three decades later, Vikentios Damodos wrote a Σύντομος ἰδέα τῆς λογικῆς κατὰ τὴν μέθοδον τῶν νεωτέρων, i.e. the Logicians of Port-Royal, but drew on eclectic sources.
Eclectic logic
In the Ἀφήγησις προεισοδιώδης οf his Logic, published in Leipzig in 1766, where he was resident at the time, Eugenios Voulgaris presents himself as the first proponent of the correct method of philosophizing, Eclecticism:
All [of our people who have occupied themselves with philosophy] adhere to the Peripatetic school and depend on the words of one person, Aristotle, accepting in their philosophizing nothing that is not a product of his mind, be it old or new. […] However, this is not the case among the philosophers of other nations of Europe, where philosophical studies in our day have flourished marvellously. These philosophers have abandoned sectarian philosophy as useless and vain […]. Instead, acting wisely, they have turned to the Eclectic method of philosophizing, believing that this alone should be embraced by the true lover of knowledge, namely whatever has been clearly and distinctly tested and approved by correct reasoning.Footnote 35
Voulgaris adopted the stance of several European philosophers who sought to discard Neo-Scholasticism and disputatious philosophizing. Nevertheless, Voulgaris’ claim is only partially true.
It is true in the sense that Voulgaris conceived of Eclecticism not merely as a comparative account of the teaching of the ‘Ancients’ and the ‘Moderns’, as was the case with previous eclectic works. He constructed for the first time a logic divided into five books or parts: A. Περὶ τῆς πρώτης ἐννοίας. B. Περὶ σκέψεως. Γ. Περὶ κρίσεως. Δ. Περὶ διανοίας. Ε. Περὶ μεθόδου. In the second, ‘sceptical’ part of his Logic, Voulgaris introduced the thoughts of Christian Wolff, the most important German philosopher between Leibniz and Kant, on the use of logic in the search for truth, as presented in Logica Practica of Wolff’s bipartite Philosophia rationalis sive logica (Leipzig 1728) – the first part of Wolff’s logic (Logica Theoretica seu de tribus mentis operationibus) was structured in accordance with the three operations of the mind.
Yet Voulgaris’ claim is false in that, prior to Voulgaris, Anthrakites, and Damodos had already composed eclectic handbooks of logic. Both translated parts of the five-volume work Institutiones philosophicae ad faciliorem veterum, ac recentiorum philosophorum lectionem comparatae by Edmundus Purchotius (Edmé Pourchot, 1651–1734), a professor of philosophy at the University of Paris. First published in Paris in 1695, Pourchot’s Institutiones went through several editions before it was published in Venice, where Anthrakites and Damodos spent some years of their career, in 1715 and in 1730. Anthrakites’ Λογικὴ ἐλάττων is essentially a translation of the compendium of logic contained in the fifth volume of Pourchot’s Institutiones. Damodos’ Ἀμφοτέρα λογικὴ ἐλάττων καὶ μείζων περιπατητικὴ τουτέστι καὶ νεωτερική is based both on the first and fifth volumes of Pourchot’s work. The terms ἐλάττων and μείζων roughly correspond to logica utens and logica docens, although they terminologically stem from Paulus Venetus’ Logica Parva and Logica Magna. Both Anthrakites and Damodos adopt the quadripartite conception of logic,Footnote 36 which was endorsed by the Cartesian Pourchot.Footnote 37
This overview of the sources of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Greek philosophy shows that, at least when it comes to the field of logic, there has been no ‘permanence of Byzantine forms’ but, rather, a range of types of dependency on Western philosophical sources. Mutatis mutandis, this must be true of the entire philosophical activity which, within the history of Western philosophy, has been misleadingly described as ‘post-Byzantine’. This label stems from an unwarranted transposition of a scheme drawn from cultural and political history into philosophy, whereas what has long been necessary is a close engagement with the sources, many of which lack critical editions.
Pantelis Golitsis is Associate Professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His main research interests focus on Aristotle and the reception of Aristotle in Neoplatonism, Byzantine philosophy, and beyond. He is the author of Les Commentaires de Simplicius et de Jean Philopon à la Physique d’Aristote. Tradition et innovation (Berlin 2008; prix Zographos de l’Association des Études Grecques, France). His recent publications include an annotated edition, with Modern Greek translation, of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Lambda (Herakleion 2021), an edition of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Berlin 2022), and Damascius’ Philosophy of Time (Berlin 2023).
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