Erik Hermans
Villanova University
The dissemination of certain rudimentary concepts of Aristotelian logic across multiple geographic, cultural and linguistic boundaries in medieval times is exceptional. Whereas most texts and ideas of classical Greco-Roman antiquity were received in either the Latin West, Byzantium or the Caliphates, Aristotelian logic was received in all three and subsequently diffused across large swaths of Afro-Eurasia, ultimately reaching areas of the world as far apart as northern India, West Africa and Scandinavia. This paper will investigate this impressive dissemination and argue that it can be explained because some ideas from the logical treatises of the Corpus Aristotelicum were seen as useful concepts for intellectual discussions and were hence transmitted as part of educational curricula in Latin, Greek, Arabic and other languages. Finally, this paper will explore the extent to which one can speak of the reception of ‘Greek’ culture, especially when many medieval readers and students did not trace their ‘Aristotelian’ ideas back to Aristotle.