Arborescent Structures in Medieval Sciences: Gradation and Argumentative Opposition

Abstract

The medieval tendency to depict textual and conceptual contents in a schematic way through visual matrices generates different forms of conceptualization and appreciation of the philosophical tradition. This task involves the perceptual activity and the knowledge visualization. In this paper three examples of schematization models will be showed: sciences division, classifications of virtues and vices, and some practical uses of geometry. Those schemes point out the relations of gradation, opposition and division regarding to a specific set of principles, logical or geometrical, that justifies the representative disposition in which visual frameworks introduce a certain conception of knowledge order and its development.

Keywords: arbor porphyriana; logic; tree of vices and virtues; liberal arts; division of sciences.

Ancient and medieval authors: Aristotle; Boethius; Thomas Aquinas; Adalbold of Utrecht; Pseudo-Augustinus; Theodulf of Orelans; Alcuin of York; Michel Scotus; Conrad of Hirsau; Ramon Llull; Robert Grosseteste.

http://dx.doi.org/10.21747/21836884/med37a6