Optimum, Consilium, Voluntarium, Violentum.Problematic definitions in 13th-Century commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics

BUFFON, VALERIA

Porto Alegre

Congreso; XIV INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF THE SIEPM - Homo ? Natura ? Mundus: Human Beings and their Relationships; 2017

UFRGS-UNISINOS-PUCRS

During the reception of Aristotle?s Nicomachean Ethics, the newly received text is included into an already existent philosophical framework that supposed some methodological and epistemological outlines. These outlines where based on Aristotle?s own Logical treatises and its western interpretations, although not exclusively. This paper examines the treatment that Masters of Arts of the 13th Century make of come problematic definitions found in Nicomachean Ethics. The problematic definitions such as the highest good (optimum) include negations, or questions, such as the definition of deliberation (consilium), which do not fit into the most general consideration of definition (gender and specific difference) but can be saved considering other aspects of definition analysed in the logical treatises. Other problematic definitions are not challenging as definitions but rather present some unclarified terms in them, such would be the case of the voluntary (uoluntarium) and the violent (uiolentum). In addition, the problems with Ethical definitions seem to be dissolved as the century advances and the masters acquire more insight in the commented text, fixing a ?common-ground? interpretation.