The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville - Pot-pourri

that we may be permitted to say something else in the
meanwhile.] 17
xxii. Dialectic (De dialectica) 1. Dialectic (dialectica)
is the discipline devised for investigating the causes of
things. It is a branch of philosophy, and is called logic
(logica), that is, the rational (rationalis)powerofdefining,
questioning, and discussing. 18 Dialectic teaches,
with regard to many types of questions, how the true and
the false may be distinguished by disputation. 2.Someof
the earliest philosophers had ‘logic’ among their terms,
but they did not refine it to the levelofskillofanart.
After these, Aristotle brought the argumentative methods
of this discipline under certain rules and named it
‘dialectic’ (dialectica) because in it one disputes about
terms (dictum), for means “utterance” (dictio).
Dialectic follows the discipline of rhetoric because they
have many things in common.
xxiii. The difference between the arts of rhetoric and
dialectic (De differentia dialecticae et rhetoricae artis)
1. Varroinhis nine books of Disciplines defines dialectic
and rhetoric with this similitude: “Dialectic and
rhetoric are like the clenched fist and the open palm of a
man’s hand: the former pinches words, the latter extends
them.” 19 2.While dialectic is indeed sharper for examining
things, rhetoric is more fluent for those things it
strives to teach. Dialectic sometimes appears in schools;
rhetoric continually comes to the public forum. Dialectic
reaches very few students; rhetoric often reaches the
whole populace. 3. Before they come to explaining the
Isagoge (see chapter xxv. below), philosophers customarily
lay out a definition of philosophy, so that matters
that pertain to the Isagoge may be more readily set
forth.
xxiv. The definition of philosophy (De definitione
philosophiae) 1. Philosophy is the understanding of
human and divine things joined with the pursuit of
17 This ends the passage, sections 3–48, omitted in many
manuscripts.
18 In fact, the liberal art called “dialectic” nearly coincides with
the ancient and modern discipline of logic. On the verbal connection
of the logical with the rational see xxiv. 7 below.
19 On Varro see the Introduction, p. 11.
20 The traditional Seven Sages of Greece were Thales, Solon,
Periander, Cleobulus, Chion, Bias, and Pittacus.
The Etymologies II.xxii.1–xxiv.7 79
living well. It seems to consist of two things: knowledge
(scientia)andopinion (opinatio). 2.Knowledge obtains
when some thing is perceived by sure reasoning; opinion,
however, when an unsure thing still lies concealed and
is grasped by no solid reasoning – for instance whether
the sun is as large as it seems to be or is larger than
the whole earth, or whether the moon is spherical or
concave, or whether the stars are stuck to the sky or
are carried through the air in a free course, or of what
size and what material the heavens themselves may be,
whether they are at rest and immobile or are whirling
at unbelievable speed, or how thick the earth is, or on
what foundation it endures balanced and suspended.
3. The name ‘philosophy’ itself in Latin translation
professes the ‘love of wisdom’ (amor sapientiae), for
the Greek - means “love,” and means “wisdom.”
There are three kinds of philosophy: one natural
(naturalis), which in Greek is ‘physics’ (physica), in
which one discusses the investigation of nature; a second
moral (moralis), which is called ‘ethics’ (ethica) in
Greek, in which moral behavior is treated; a third rational
(rationalis), which is named with the Greek term
‘logic’ (logica), in which there is disputation concerning
how in the causes of things and in moral behavior the
truth itself may be investigated. 4.Hence physics involves
the cause of inquiring, ethics, the order of living, and
logic, the rationale of knowing.
Among the Greeks the first who investigated physics
deeply was Thales of Miletus, one of the Seven Sages. 20
Indeed, he before anyone else examined the first principles
of the sky and the power of natural things with contemplative
reason. Later Plato divided physics into four
categories: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.
5.Socrates first established ethics for the correcting and
settling of conduct, and directed his whole effort toward
disputation about living well. He divided ethics into the
four virtues of the soul, namely prudence, justice, fortitude,
and temperance. 6. Prudence(prudentia) has to
do with how the bad is distinguished from the good in
affairs. Fortitude (fortitudo), how adversity may be borne
with equanimity. Temperance (temperantia), how passion
and the desire for things may be reined in. Justice
(iustitia), how to each is distributed his own by right
judging.
7. Platoadded logic, which is called rational philosophy.
Through it, when the causes of things and conduct
had been dissected, he scrutinized the essence of those