Remarks On the De grammatico of Anselm of Canterbury

Abstract

“De Grammatico” –Anselm of Canterbury’s booklet– is a work that allows us to understand the introduction of Aristotle’s Categories in the Occidental thinking. However, its merits are not solely of cultural and historical character. In this article, we analyze this booklet by a re-examination of its structure. The study of its structure –its textual level along with the different levels of articulation (material-thematic-argumental)– leads to two assertions. First, that “De Grammatico” presents an impeccable Logic and Linguistic treatment of the relations between Natural language and Philosophical language by performing a reinterpretation of the famous first chapter of Aristotelian Categories. Second, that Anselm advances beyond the logic linguistic ground by demanding a contextualization of it. And this cognitive movement, we consider, anticipates the re-evaluation of experience that would start, almost two centuries later, with the introduction of the Aristotelian naturalism.