Work

Isagoge

Introduction

Porphyry·Greek

About this text

A short introduction to Aristotle's logic that became the first textbook of every medieval student. In a single deferred question — whether genera and species exist in reality or only in the mind — it set the terms of the thousand-year debate over universals.

I shall decline to say, concerning genera and species, whether they subsist in themselves or reside in mere conceptions only; and if they subsist, whether they are corporeal or incorporeal, and whether they are separated from sensible things or placed in them. For such a treatise is most profound, and requires a greater investigation.

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