ON ARISTOTLE'S PERI HERMENEIAS 16A1–18: THE CASE OF AN ANONYMOUS ARMENIAN COMMENTARY

The anonymous Armenian commentary was transmitted together with the Armenian translation of Aristotle's Peri Hermeneias (sixth century or earlier). It was composed in the Hellenizing style and commonly associated with the figure of David the Invincible, a philosopher of the Neoplatonic School of Alexandria. This article presents a general structural analysis of the commentary followed by a comparative study and translation of its first chapter. It argues that the commentary was indeed written in the tradition of late antique Greek commentaries but was probably not associated with late Neoplatonism. The Armenian commentary shares many common features with Ammonius’ commentary, but also departs from it on many crucial aspects. From a philosophical standpoint, it has much more in common with Boethius’ and Alexander of Aphrodisias’ commentaries than with those of the Neoplatonic School of Alexandria, thus suggesting an early writing date.

Il “nome” nel Maqṣad di al-Ġazālī: Note di grammatica araba e logica aristotelica sulla tradizione dei commenti al Peri Hermeneias

In his famous treatise “The ultimate scope in the explanation of the meanings of God’s beautiful names” (al-Maqṣad al-asnā fī šarḥ maʿānī asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā), al-Ġazālī (d. 1111) presents a broad introduction on the concept of “name”. As is well known, the topic of the names of God represents an important moment in Muslim theology and mysticism. The argument uses philosophical concepts, starting from the discussion about the relationship between name and named subject. These concepts can be traced directly to the tradition of the commentaries on Aristotle’s De interpretatione (Περὶ ἑρµηνείας), which allowed al-Ġazālī to provide a logic-semantic solution to the identity between name and named subject, and subtends his indebtedness to the Peripatetic tradition.

Legal hermeneutics

Legal hermeneutics studies the interpretation and meaning of written law. By way of contrast with the related discipline of forensic rhetoric, the study of oral argumentation and persuasion in court, legal hermeneutics is best defined as a textual discipline which dates back to the classical codifications of Greek and Roman law. While the term hermeneutics is derived from the messenger god Hermes and is used by Aristotle as the title of a work concerned with the logic of interpretation, Peri hermeneias, legal hermeneutics really only developed with the growth and medieval reception of Roman law. The Roman legal tradition was pre-eminently a tradition of ius scriptum or written law, of codes and codifications. The custody, interpretation and transmission of the great texts of Roman law gave rise to an exemplary discipline of hermeneutics. Its task was that of preserving, collating, translating and applying the archaic, foreign (Latin) and fragmentary texts of the legal tradition to contemporary and vernacular circumstances far removed in time and space from the original contexts of the written law. In later eras and particularly in periods of crisis or renewal of the legal tradition, the problems of text, interpretation and meaning in law have led to the revival of the concerns and traditions of legal hermeneutics.

Jan Dullaert of Ghent on the Foundations of Propositional Logic

Jan Dullaert (1480-1513) was a direct student of John Mair and a teacher of Gaspar Lax, Juan de Celaya, and Juan Luis Vives. His commentary on Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias addresses the foundations of propositional logic, including a detailed analysis of conditionals (following Paul of Venice’s Logica magna) and the semantics of logical connectives (conjunction, disjunction, and implication). Dullaert’s propositional logic is limited to the immediate implications of the semantics of these connectives, i.e., their introduction and elimination rules. In the same context, he discusses several alternative treatments of semantic paradoxes, paying most attention to the approaches derived from Martin Le Maistre (based on the idea that sentential meaning is closed under entailment) and John Mair (based on the idea that self-falsifying sentences are false).

La construcción de una ética articulada para una política Peri hermeneias

El objetivo del texto es hacer un análisis crítico de la construcción de una ética articulada desde el estudio político y cultural, con la finalidad de comprenderdos condiciones íntimamente ligadas en el modus operandi cotidiano.

L’unité du dernier chapitre du Peri Hermeneias : traduction et commentaire d’Aristote, De l’interprétation, 14

L’objectif de cet article est de montrer l’unité du chapitre 14 du Peri Hermeneias, chapitre dans lequel Aristote retourne au fondement de l’échange dialectique, à savoir la doxa. Je montre ainsi que ce chapitre expose progressivement les trois conditions sémantiques que des points de vue doivent respecter pour être contraires : le sujet doit être le même, l’objet (le prédicat) doit aussi être le même, mais le mode de prédication doit être contradictoire.