Boetius of Dacia

Last updated

Boetius de Dacia, OP (also spelled Boethius de Dacia) was a 13th-century Danish philosopher.

Contents

Name

The rendering of his name Danske Bo ("Bo the Dane") into Medieval Latin as Boetius de Dacia stems from the fact that the toponym Dania , meaning Denmark, was occasionally confused with Dacia during the Middle Ages.

Life and accomplishments

Boetius was born in the first half of the 13th century. Not much is known of his early life. The attempt to connect him to known persons from Denmark or Sweden has been unsuccessful. [1] [ non-primary source needed ] All that is known is that he went to France to teach philosophy at the University of Paris. At the university, he associated with Siger of Brabant. He continued to teach for some time as arts masters rather than quickly moving on to study in the theology faculty or finding non-academic employment. He shared this unusual career path with Siger and others like Roger Bacon and Jean Buridan. He was condemned by Stephen Tempier in 1277 for being a leading member of the Averroist movement. [2] Boetius fled Paris with Siger and appealed to Pope Nicholas III. He was detained at the pontifical curia at Orvieto. He went on to join the Dominicans in Denmark.

Boetius was a follower of Aristotle and Averroes and a leading figure in the modists dogma. He wrote on logic, natural philosophy, metaphysics, and ethics, though some of his works have not survived. Some of his writings include; Modi Significandi, Super librum Perihermenias, and Quaestiones super librum De animalibus, where he comments on these topics at length. [3] His central position was that philosophy had to follow where the arguments led, regardless of their conflict with religious faith. For him, philosophy was the supreme human activity, and in this world only philosophers attained wisdom. In his book On the Highest Good, or On the Life of the Philosopher he offers a fervently Aristotelian description of man's highest good as the rational contemplation of truth and virtue. Among the controversial conclusions that he reached are the impossibility of creation ex nihilo, the eternity of the world and of the human race, and that there could be no resurrection of the dead.

Despite his radical views, Boetius remained a Christian; he attempted to reconcile his religious beliefs with his philosophical positions by assigning the investigation of the world and of human nature to philosophy, while to religion he assigned supernatural revelation and divine miracles. He was condemned for holding the doctrine of "double truth", though he was careful to avoid calling philosophical conclusions that ran contrary to religion true simpliciter: In each branch of knowledge, one must be careful to qualify one's conclusions. [4] The conclusions that the philosopher reaches are true "according to natural causes and principles" (De Aeternitate Mundi, p. 351).[ non-primary source needed ]

Much like his early life, researchers have not been able to find exactly when Boetius died or what he did after 1277. "The Stams Catalogue" (14th Century) is a collection of literature from Dominican writers that includes Boethius, so there is some evidence suggesting he became a friar after his career in liberal arts. [5]

Works and translations

Notes

  1. Boethius de Dacia, Verdens evighed, Det lille forlag, 2001, p. 8 (in Danish)
  2. Maurer, Armand (1955-01-01). "Boetius of Dacia and the Double Truth". Mediaeval Studies. 17: 233–239. doi:10.1484/J.MS.2.306768. ISSN   0076-5872.
  3. Ebbesen, Sten (2020), "Boethius of Dacia", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2023-09-18
  4. Lindberg, David Charles (1992). The beginnings of western science: the European scientific tradition in philosophical, religious and institutional context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 235. ISBN   978-0-226-48231-6.
  5. Ebbesen, Sten (2020), "Boethius of Dacia", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2023-09-18

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Kilwardby</span> 13th-century Archbishop of Canterbury, writer, and cardinal

Robert Kilwardby was an Archbishop of Canterbury in England and a cardinal. Kilwardby was the first member of a mendicant order to attain a high ecclesiastical office in the English Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John of Salisbury</span> 12th-century English philosopher

John of Salisbury, who described himself as Johannes Parvus, was an English author, philosopher, educationalist, diplomat and bishop of Chartres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Averroism</span> School of medieval philosophy

Averroism refers to a school of medieval philosophy based on the application of the works of 12th-century Andalusian philosopher Averroes, a commentator on Aristotle, in 13th-century Latin Christian scholasticism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siger of Brabant</span> Belgian philosopher, c. 1240–1284

Siger of Brabant was a 13th-century philosopher from the southern Low Countries who was an important proponent of Averroism.

The Modistae, also known as the speculative grammarians, were the members of a school of grammarian philosophy known as Modism or speculative grammar, active in northern France, Germany, England, and Denmark in the 13th and 14th centuries. Their influence was felt much less in the southern part of Europe, where the somewhat opposing tradition of the so-called "pedagogical grammar" never lost its preponderance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin of Dacia</span> 13th-century Danish scholar

Martin of Dacia was a Danish scholar and theologian. He authored De Modis significandi , an influential treatise on grammar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul of Venice</span>

Paul of Venice was a Catholic philosopher, theologian, logician and metaphysician of the Order of Saint Augustine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Burley</span> 14th-century English scholastic philosopher and logician

Walter Burley was an English scholastic philosopher and logician with at least 50 works attributed to him. He studied under Thomas Wilton and received his Master of Arts degree in 1301, and was a fellow of Merton College, Oxford until about 1310. He then spent sixteen years in Paris, becoming a fellow of the Sorbonne by 1324, before spending 17 years as a clerical courtier in England and Avignon. Burley disagreed with William of Ockham on a number of points concerning logic and natural philosophy. He was known as the Doctor Planus and Perspicuus.

Radulphus Brito was an influential grammarian and philosopher, based in Paris. He is usually identified as Raoul le Breton, though this is disputed by some. Besides works of grammatical speculation he wrote on Aristotle, Boethius and Priscian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew of Aquasparta</span> Italian Friar Minor and philosopher

Matthew of Aquasparta was an Italian Friar Minor and scholastic philosopher. He was elected Minister General of the Order.

Petrus de Dacia, also called Philomena and Peder Nattergal, was a Danish scholar who lived in the 13th century. He worked mainly in Paris and Italy, writing in Latin. He published a calendar of new moon dates for the years 1292-1367. In 1292, he published a book on mathematics that contained a new method for the calculation of cubic roots. He also described a mechanical instrument to predict solar and lunar eclipses as seen from Paris.

Ulrich of Strasbourg was a German Dominican theologian and scholastic philosopher from Strasbourg, Alsace. A disciple of Albertus Magnus, he is known for his De summo bono, written 1265 to 1272.

Berthold of Moosburg was a German Dominican theologian and neo-Platonist of the 14th century, teaching in Regensburg in 1327.

Jan Pinborg (1937–1982) was a renowned historian of medieval linguistics and philosophy of language, and the most famous member of the Copenhagen School of Medieval Philosophy pioneered by Heinrich Roos in the 1940s. Pinborg was a pupil of Roos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commentaries on Aristotle</span> Literature produced to explain and clarify the works of Aristotle

Commentaries on Aristotle refers to the great mass of literature produced, especially in the ancient and medieval world, to explain and clarify the works of Aristotle. The pupils of Aristotle were the first to comment on his writings, a tradition which was continued by the Peripatetic school throughout the Hellenistic period and the Roman era. The Neoplatonists of the Late Roman Empire wrote many commentaries on Aristotle, attempting to incorporate him into their philosophy. Although Ancient Greek commentaries are considered the most useful, commentaries continued to be written by the Christian scholars of the Byzantine Empire and by the many Islamic philosophers and Western scholastics who had inherited his texts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duns Scotus</span> Scottish Franciscan friar and philosopher (c. 1265/66–1308)

John Duns Scotus was a Scottish Catholic priest and Franciscan friar, university professor, philosopher and theologian. He is one of the four most important Christian philosopher-theologians of Western Europe in the High Middle Ages, together with Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure and William of Ockham.

Dominic of Flanders was a French-Flemish Dominican philosopher and Scholastic author, known to have been a renowned Thomist. His commentaries on Aristotle and on Thomas Aquinas were frequently printed, the most famous being his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics. This Commentaria is commonly known to have been dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici.

The Summa Grammatica or Speculative Grammar was a work by the medieval Modist philosopher John of Dacia.

James of Douai was a French philosopher who taught at the University of Paris.

Peter of Saint-Omer, sometimes called Petrus Danus, was an astronomer active in Paris around the period 1292–1303. Two works are attributed to him, one on the "new" quadrant recently devised by Jacob ben Machir ibn Tibbon and another, entitled Tractatus de semissis, on an equatorium he devised for determining longitudes. He has sometimes been equated with his contemporary, Petrus de Dacia, but they are probably distinct individuals.

References