Nicolau de Paris e a suficiência das categorias: estudo introdutório, edição e tradução de Rationes super Praedicamenta Aristotelis, proémio e questão 3

Abstract

Aristotle's list of the ten categories in Categories, chapter 4, generated serious problems for the interpreters since its early reception stage. Firstly, it is not clear what is the goal and the scope of the list. Is it an attempt to establish the most general genera of words, of things, of concepts, of all of them? Secondly, Aristotle enumerates the categories, but he does not present a justification for their number and completeness. This gap made the interpreters forge various attempts to solve these two problems. In the context of Latin medieval scholasticism, both for didactical and theoretical reasons, the reception of these problems was made through the discussion of a via divisiva or sufficientia that could demonstrate the completeness of the Aristotelian list. However, for it to be coherent, it is necessary to establish the scope of the list first. The intention of this article is to present one of the first texts of the 13th century where these problems were addressed: Rationes super Praedicamenta Aristotelis, by Nicholas of Paris (d. 1263), an important magister artium at the University of Paris in the second quarter of the 13th century, author of one of the first sufficientiae in this scholastic context, indispensable source for the understanding of the origin and evolution of this kind of answer to the problem of the completeness of the list of categories.