Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

630 E. Jennifer Ashworth
Elenchi is taken up in turn. However, medieval material is used to supplement
Aristotle in various places. Exponibles are discussed, albeit in a simplified form;
some non-syllogistic consequences dealing with truth and modality are listed, and
the material about supposition and related doctrines is presented as an aid to
understanding fallacies. Fonseca warned that these doctrines were “unrefined, uncouth,
and remote from use”, and that to dwell on them at length was dangerous to
good language. However, he remarked, some loss would come from ignoring these
doctrines altogether. 107 He had nothing to say about other specifically medieval
doctrines covered in the treatises on insolubles and obligations.
The second thing to be noted is the general style and manner of Fonseca’s approach.
He was frequently concerned to explain the precise intention of Aristotle’s
remarks, and in his attempt to understand Aristotle, he drew on his knowledge of
the Greek language and of Greek authors. He cited not only those who commented
on Aristotle, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias and Ammonius, but also Plato and
Pindar. Among Latin authors, he drew heavily on Cicero, and there are references
to Horace and Virgil. Later authors used include the great Arab commentator
Averroes. In all of this Fonseca reflected the renewed Aristotelianism of the sixteenth
century. There is a strong philological emphasis, based on the new study of
the Greek language, and Aristotle’s text is to be read through the eyes not of late
medieval logicians but of the Greek and Arab writers. Wider Classical learning
is used to illuminate points and to provide apt examples. Insofar as Fonseca did
make use of authors from the medieval Latin West, he tended to focus on Thomas
Aquinas. Ockham is cited, but the next logician in chronological order to be cited
is Rudolph Agricola. The authors popular fifty years earlier have dropped out of
sight. In many ways, Fonseca’s logic text is far closer to the Coimbra commentary
of 1606 than it is to the work of his Spanish predecessors such as Fernando de Enzinas
or Domingo de Soto. Nor is this surprising, given that Fonseca taught at the
University of Coimbra, and was one of the moving spirits behind the production
of the Conimbricenses.
Part Two: Claims about Humanist Logic
One of the chief claims about humanist logic is that it rhetoricized logic. For
instance, Kristeller spoke of “the attempt to reform logic by subordinating it
to rhetoric”; 108 Rita Guerlac remarked “Agricola succeeded in rhetoricizing dialectic”;
109 and John Monfasani wrote: “in making inventio not merely a part
of logic, but as Agricola insisted, the greater part, the Northern humanists transformed
logic, in all but name, into an expanded version of rhetorical invention”. 110
One can see this supposed rhetoricization as the simple result of humanist literary
107Fonseca, Instituições Dialécticas, pp. 676–678. P. 676: “[...] inculta, horrida, et ab usu
remota [...]”
108P.O. Kristeller, “Rhetoric in Medieval and Renaissance Culture” in Renaissance Eloquence,
p. 18.
109Guerlac, Juan Luis Vives, p. 32.
110Monfasani, George of Trebizond, p. 303.