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Boethius John Marenbon OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS boethius great medieval thinkers Series Editor Brian Davies Blackfriars College, University of Oxford, and Fordham University duns scotus Richard Cross bernard of clairvaux Gillian R. Evans john scotus eriugena Deirdre Carabine robert grosseteste James McEvoy boethius John Marenbon (cid:1) boethius John Marenbon 1 2003 3 Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Copyright © 2003 by John Marenbon Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York, 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Marenbon, John. Boethius / John Marenbon. p. cm.—(Great medieval thinkers) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-513406-0; 0-19-513407-9 (pbk.) 1. Boethius, d. 524. I. Title. II. Series. B659 .Z7 M346 2002 189—dc21 2002074896 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper to sheila and maximus This page intentionally left blank acknowledgments I have had the chance to read papers on Boethius to a Boethius conference in Paris, organized by Alain Galonnier; at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, at the invitation of John Magee; and at a conference on happiness and rationality in ancient and early medieval philosophy at Buf- falo, organized by Jorge Gracia; as well as in Cambridge, at the Philosophy of Religion, and History of Philosophy seminars. I am grateful both for these invitations and for the valuable and stimulating discussion I had from those who attended. More recently, I have received useful criticism in response to papers based on drafts of this book given to the Oxford University Medi- eval Society and at King’s College, London. I am particularly grateful for the comments, on these occasions or at other times, I have received from Brad Inwood, Scott MacDonald, Chris Martin, Thomas Pink, Peter Sarris, and Martin Stone. Anthony Speca kindly sent me, and allowed me to use, a copy of his important book on Boethius and hypothetical syllogisms while it was still in press. Jonathan Evans read my chapter on the problem of prescience with enormous care and perspicacity and sent me a list of criticisms that led me to change my analysis. Peter Dronke read through the whole manuscript and gave me valuable criticisms and suggestions. I have a very special debt indeed to John Magee, who read through each chapter as I wrote it and gave me advice, corrections, and (not least) encouragement. Finally, I would thank Brian Davies, the editor of the series, for asking me to write on Boethius for his series and thus setting me to a task that has proved far more difficult— and far, far more interesting—than I had anticipated. This page intentionally left blank series foreword Many people would be surprised to be told that there were any great medieval thinkers. If a great thinker is one from whom we can learn today, and if ‘medieval’ serves as an adjective for describing anything that existed from (roughly) the years 600 to 1500 AD, then, so it is often supposed, medieval thinkers cannot be called ‘great’. Why not? One answer often given appeals to ways in which medieval authors with a taste for argument and speculation tend to invoke ‘authori- ties’, especially religious ones. Such invocation of authority is not the stuff of which great thought is made—so it is often said today. It is also frequently said that greatness is not to be found in the thinking of those who lived be- fore the rise of modern science, not to mention that of modern philosophy and theology. Students of science are nowadays hardly ever referred to litera- ture earlier than the seventeenth century. Students of philosophy in the twentieth century have often been taught nothing about the history of ideas between Aristotle (384–322 BC) and Descartes (1596–1650). Modern students of theology have often been frequently encouraged to believe that signifi- cant theological thinking is a product of the nineteenth century. Yet the origins of modern science lie in the conviction that the world is open to rational investigation and is orderly rather than chaotic—a conviction that came fully to birth, and was systematically explored and developed, during the middle ages. And it is in medieval thinking that we find some of