Ana Lomadze

Ilia State University; Savle Tsereteli Institute of Philosophy
Assistant Researcher
Theology, Philosophy
PhD Candidate
Tbilisi, Georgia
ana.lomadze.2@iliauni.edu.ge

In the eighteenth century, Pilippe Kaitmazashvili and Dositheos Nekreseli translated from Armenian into Georgian a commentary on Aristotle’s De interpretatione, attributing its authorship to David the Invincible. By comparing the Georgian translation with Armenian manuscripts, Maia Rapava established that the work was in fact based on a course of lectures delivered by Hovhannes Vorotnetsi, one of the major figures of fourteenth-century Armenian philosophy.

Sources indicate that Vorotnetsi also visited Tbilisi in order to engage in theological debates with Latin missionaries then active in Armenia and Georgia. It was there that he met his future disciple, Grigor Tatevatsi, an ethnic Armenian who, according to some sources, was born in Tmogvi. Vorotnetsi took the young man with him to Armenia to be educated. The explanations that Vorotnetsi provided in his lectures on De interpretatione were subsequently edited by Tatevatsi, who later became one of the central figures of Armenian philosophy.

In the eighteenth century, as the political and economic situation in Georgia became relatively more stable, interest in philosophical literature increased. For Georgian philosophical discourse, which had previously been shaped predominantly by Platonic and Neoplatonic influences, the centuries-long tradition of Aristotelian reception in Armenian thought proved particularly significant. It was in this context that the commentary on De interpretatione—the product of the intellectual collaboration of two prominent Armenian philosophers who had first encountered one another in Georgia—was translated into Georgian. Vorotnetsi had taken Tatevatsi from Georgia to Armenia for his education; four centuries later, the text associated with their intellectual collaboration was rendered into Georgian, most likely also for use as teaching material in the newly established seminaries of Tbilisi and Telavi.

De interpretatione is one of the works belonging to Aristotle’s logical corpus. In addition to this text, other works of the Aristotelian logical tradition, together with commentaries on them, were translated into Georgian during the same century. This raises an important question: why was particular emphasis placed on logic rather than, for example, metaphysics or physics? The likely purpose of these translations—most of which were either translated, commissioned, or otherwise promoted by Anton I—was to introduce a Western, classical-scholastic model of philosophical education. According to this model, the study of philosophy was to begin with logic.

Vorotnetsi and Tatevatsi themselves followed precisely this educational model, and it was most likely also taken into consideration in the context of eighteenth-century Georgian Enlightenment reforms. According to the Aristotelian tradition, logic constitutes the “instrument of thought,” serving as a prerequisite for entering any field of scientific inquiry. De interpretatione, the second work of Aristotle’s logical corpus, addresses such issues as the proposition, its constituent elements, the relationship between language, thought, and reality, and logical determinism.

Following an overview of the historical context, the paper examines how the Armenian philosophers interpreted these questions and, consequently, what form of Aristotelian reception was transmitted to and established in eighteenth-century Georgia.