De definitionibus
De definitionibus is a script from the field of logic that was created in Latin in the middle of the 4th century . Since it was handed down in several manuscripts together with logical elaborations by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius , he was considered an author for a long time (also with Jacques-Paul Migne : Patrologia Latina , 64). Hermann Usener convincingly proved the authorship of Gaius Marius Victorinus .
Content and sources
(Since the text is not structured, the citation is based on the number of pages and lines carried out by Andreas Pronay in his edition.)
In terms of content, the text is divided into the following 3 parts:
- Treatises on the term definition (1,1-16,14)
- The 15 types of deinition (16.14 - 29.12)
- Definition error (29.12 - 32.29)
Treatises on the Concept of Definition
Victorinus defines definition and explains its importance within the dialogue and discussion. He refers to Porphyrios ( Isagoge ), but mainly to Marcus Tullius Cicero ( Topica , De inventione ). which he also mentions several times. He already quotes (2,3) as a fundamental statement:
"Definitio est" ut Tullius in Topicis ait "oratio quae id quod definit expicat quid sit (Topica, §26) Definition ist eine sprachliche Äußerung, die von dem, was da definiert werden soll, darlegt, was es ist (Übersetzung Hans Günter Zekl)
The 15 types of definition
In the main part of the script, the 15 types of definition, Victorinus also frequently quotes Cicero, but the sources for the Greek terms and quotations cannot be determined. The description of the 15 terms is based on uniform criteria, but since the definition types overlap and some are only just sketched out, the overall presentation is inconsistent:
- Substantial definition as outlined above
- ennoematic definition ( έννοηματική ), after the presentation; the other types of definition can also be described as non-substantial and thus ennoematic.
- qualitative definition ( man is a being who laughs )
- descriptive definition
- Definition by a single word ( devastate = devastate )
- Definition by difference
- Definition by metaphor ( youth is the prime of life ... )
- Definition by negation ( God is neither body nor any of the elements, nor soul, nor spirit, nor sensation, nor mind, nor any of the things that we can grasp )
- Definition by briefly visualizing the definition object
- Definition through examples
- mathematical definition. The less meaningful example - 1/4 As is a monetary unit, 1 As 3/4 As is missing - and the unclear explanation is possibly an echo of thought schemes that were developed in the Topik of Aristotle .
- Definition formulated as praise ( peace is undisturbed freedom )
- Definition by analogy ( man is a small universe )
- Definition by relation
- causal definition ( the day is the course of the sun over the earth )
Definition error
In the last part, Victorinus goes into definition errors. A fundamental mistake is to explain a definition with too many or too few definitions (similar to Cicero Topica § 29: ... cite properties, ... until a property that is peculiar to it is formulated that cannot be transferred to any other object ) . Further errors are listed using the example of Cicero's Philippine speech against Marcus Antonius .
Living on and tradition
The work was used frequently in late antiquity . Both Cassiodorus ( Institutiones divinarum et saecularium litterarum , II, 3) and Isidore of Seville ( Etymologiae , Book 2, XXIX) adopted the 15 types of definition in their overview of the knowledge of their time. Boethius also dealt with this in his commentary on Cicero's Topica . The reception of the script decreased in the early and high Middle Ages. Numerous manuscripts have survived - anonymously or following writings by Boethius.
A text edition was published by Thomas Stangl in 1888 . In 1997 Andreas Pronay edited the text with extensive commentary and a translation into German.
expenditure
- Andreas Pronay (Ed.): C. Marius Victorinus: Liber de definitionibus , Frankfurt am Main 1997.
literature
- Hermann Usener: A fake writing by Boethius in Anecdoton Holderi. A contribution to the history of Rome in the Ostrogothic period , commemorative publication to welcome the XXXII. Assembly of German philologists and schoolmen in Wiesbaden, Bonn 1877.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hermann Usener: An inauthentic writing of Boethius
- ↑ Andreas Pronay (ed.): C. Marius Victorinus: Liber de definitionibus , pp 29-38
- ↑ Hermann Usener: An improper writing of Boethius , p. 60f
- ↑ Andreas Pronay (ed.): C. Marius Victorinus: Liber de definitionibus , p.16
- ↑ Andreas Pronay (ed.): C. Marius Victorinus: Liber de definitionibus , p 37
- ↑ Andreas Pronay (ed.): C. Marius Victorinus: Liber de definitionibus , S. 230f
- ↑ Andreas Pronay (ed.): C. Marius Victorinus: Liber de definitionibus , p 270
- ↑ Hermann Usener: An improper font of Boethius , p. 63f
- ↑ Andreas Pronay (ed.): C. Marius Victorinus: Liber de definitionibus , p.24
- ↑ Thomas Riesenweber : C. Marius Victorinus, Commenta in Ciceronis Rhetorica , Volume 1, Berlin, 2015, p. 7.