Boethius was born in 475 around Rome. He was almost obsessed with the Alexandrian philosophy and was keen to preserve the Greek philosophy as well. Unlike many other philosophers, who wrote their philosophy in Greek, Boethius’ philosophy was written in common Latin. He also translated Aristotle to littery Latin, so that more people could read it. Boethius died in 524, being executed after a proces in which he was accused of treason and practicing magic.
Boethius’ works were not extremely orginal: he wrote about the debate about universals like ‘justice’. Boethius was on the nominalist side, meaning he denied the existence of universals. His argument for this was that even if universals existed, it can not be possible that one thing can be many things at once; if one thing can be called ‘justice’, how can another thing also be called ‘justice’, when one thing cannot exist multiple times at once?
I think Boethius’ argument here is incomplete and can be disproved easily. Universals are terms that are used for many different things. They do exist, but not in the way Boethius would want them to. His claim makes it look like universals are somehow tactile, and thus not possible to exist multiple times at once, but I think this is a mistake in his thinking. For example, no one in our world would or could deny that the word ‘horse’ cannot be an actual true concept, since ‘horse’ exists multiple times at once. If I would try to convince anyone about this statement, I would be declared crazy. I am not saying that the opinion of the multitude decides what’s true and what’s not, but I think that this example shows perfectly why Boethius’ claim is too narrow.
Furthermore, Boethius claims about the universals that they are empty thoughts, and that they correlate with nothing. Again, if you ask me, this can be easily disproved by using the ‘horse-example’ again.
Boethius has further focused on hypothetical syllogisms (the use of the word ‘if’), nexuses (necessities in philosophy) and on what we can say about God. Is he powerful, merciful, good? Here Boethius differentiates between intrinsic predications and extrinsic predications, intrinsic being ‘God is powerful’, and extrinsic ‘God is a woman’. This part actually makes a lot of sense.
Boethius’ text we read for this week was quite interesting and we discussed some questions about it. One that I found very interesting was about the gender of Lady Philosophy Boethius describes in his text. Her gender is extremely interesting and important, since one can compare the caring and loving character of a female, a mother in particular, and the role philosophy can have in one’s life. Boethius sees philosophy as a way to care for your soul and for yourself.
I am happy to conclude this weeks blog with not per se a religious point of view, but more a view about philosophy and how it effects your life. I think Boethius makes some excellent points, but just like any other philosopher, he also shows defects in his philosophy, especially when it comes to universals.
