Thinker · TH-0085
Boethius
Boethius was a Roman statesman and philosopher who served the Ostrogothic king Theodoric before being imprisoned and executed on charges of treason; his exact…
Also known as Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
c. 475 – c. 526 · Rome, Ravenna, Pavia
Traditions: Medieval Christian
Boethius was a Roman statesman and philosopher who served the Ostrogothic king Theodoric before being imprisoned and executed on charges of treason; his exact dates are uncertain. His translations and commentaries on Aristotle's logic and Porphyry shaped early medieval learning. Written in prison, The Consolation of Philosophy argues that divine foreknowledge does not necessitate free choice, because God knows all things in a timeless eternal present rather than by foreseeing them in time.
Key ideas
- God's eternity is the complete possession, all at once, of unending life.
- Divine knowledge is timeless, so it sees free acts without causing or necessitating them.
- True happiness lies in the highest good, not in fortune's gifts.
- Fortune's wheel turns for everyone, and what it gives can be taken away.
Major works
- De consolatione philosophiae (The Consolation of Philosophy, c. 524)
- Opuscula sacra (theological tractates)
- Translations of and commentaries on Aristotle's Categories and De interpretatione and Porphyry's Isagoge
In the conversation
- Question How do you choose a translation when you can’t read the original?
- Question Did the Latin scholastics really receive Aristotle through Arabic?
- Reading group Reading group: Porphyry’s Isagoge and the three questions he refused to answer
- Debate Aquinas’s metaphysics is unintelligible without Ibn Sina