Tornike Goginashvili

Savle Tsereteli Institute of Philosophy
Assistant Researcher
Theology, Philosophy
MA in Medieval Studies; PhD Candidate in Philosophy
Tbilisi, Georgia
tornike.goginashvili.1@iliauni.edu.ge

Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias was one of the most important texts of both Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The Western world became acquainted with the work in the fifth and sixth centuries through Boethius’s translation. In Late Antiquity, the principal texts of what later came to be known as the Old Logic (logica vetus) were Aristotle’s Categories (Categoriae), On Interpretation (De interpretatione), and Porphyry’s Isagoge. These works formed the core of instruction in schools prior to the High Middle Ages.

During the medieval period, Aristotle’s broader corpus gradually became accessible again to the Western world. Throughout the thirteenth century, various Aristotelian works were translated from Arabic into Latin, contributing to the emergence of the so-called New Logic (logica nova). Despite the appearance of translations of other works by Aristotle, De interpretatione continued to occupy an important place in the curricula of medieval universities.

Interest in De interpretatione did not diminish in the post-medieval period. A notable example is the eighteenth-century Georgian reception of Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias. Zurab Shanshovani translated the work from Armenian into Georgian, and two further translations, accompanied by commentaries, appeared in the same century. One of these was produced by Nikoloz Kizikeli, who translated from Armenian into Georgian a commentary whose authorship remains unidentified. The other translation, containing the commentary of Hovhannes Vorotnetsi, was produced by Pilippe Kaitmazashvili and Dositheos Nekreseli. The manuscripts of both translations are preserved at the National Centre of Manuscripts of Georgia, and the Savle Tsereteli Institute of Philosophy is currently preparing their critical editions.

The use of De interpretatione as a fundamental text in the medieval curriculum resulted in the production of numerous commentaries by different authors. Among the medieval thinkers who commented on Peri Hermeneias, Thomas Aquinas is of particular significance for the present study. His commentary, generally dated to 1269–1271, is important not only for its intrinsic philosophical value but also for the investigation of the anonymous commentary translated into Georgian by Nikoloz Kizikeli.

Although the commentary itself attributes authorship to David the Invincible, the attribution of the text translated by Kizikeli has been questioned in scholarly literature and requires further investigation. Accordingly, the present study aims to compare the commentary translated by Nikoloz Kizikeli with that of Thomas Aquinas in order to determine whether, and to what extent, Aquinas’s theological-philosophical or logical theories can be identified in the Georgian translation of this commentary by an otherwise unidentified author.