ELŻBIETA JUNG, MAREK GENSLER, Introduction to, and Translation of, an Anonymous Work Entitled “Book of the Six Principles”

SUMMARY

Presented above is the first Polish translation of the Book of the Six Principles, one of the most important treatises of the philosophical tradition of the Middle Ages. This text, written by an unknown author of the twelfth century, probably around 1175, was employed in teaching the liberal arts as part of “old logic” (ars vetus). From the thirteenth century on, it became a textbook of practical logic. For this reason, this work was universally known and commented upon in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The treatise is a metaphysical explanation of Aristotle’s categories, divided into two groups. The first of these includes internal forms, such as substance, quality, quantity, and relation; the second contains additional descriptions of substance: being in a position, time, disposition, acting and being acted upon.