Open AccessDemonstrability of Categories: the viae divisivae and their criticisms
Author(s) -
Mário João Correia
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
mediaevalia.textos e estudos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2183-6884
DOI - 10.21747/21836884/med37a3
Subject(s) - arbitrariness , completeness (order theory) , scope (computer science) , epistemology , philosophy , mathematics , computer science , mathematical analysis , programming language
From an early stage, the Aristotelian list of ten categories was seen with suspicion. Authors discussed not only the scope of the list - expressions, concepts, realities -, but also its alleged arbitrariness. One of the attempts to give an account of the completeness and sufficiency of the Aristotelian categories was inspired by a passage in Aristotle’s Topics: a via divisiva, in a shape of a tree, which covers all the possibilities. At least since Porphyry, several authors applied this scheme to the ten categories. With this work, I intend to present some of the viae divisivae created by 13th century authors, i.e., Robert Kilwardby, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. In a second moment, I will give an account about Duns Scotus’ critique to this kind of procedure. According to Scotus, theviae divisivae do the opposite of what is intended.