La predicazione KAΘΟΛΟΥ in Giovanni Buridano

In Posterior Analytics, Aristotle deals with three predicative characters peculiar to the scientific argumentation: they are named κατὰ παντός, καθ’αὑτό and καθόλου. The third seems much less important than the first and the second in the medieval tradition. Buridan’s treatment of universale (καϑ όλου) requirement in his Questions on Posterior Analytics, however, is significant for many reasons. First, Buridan synthesizes the main themes about this topic in a personal and theoretically engaged way; so, his exegesis overcomes in width and depth the not so abundant suggestions we find in XIII-century exegesis. Second, also in this case Buridan shows his personal attitude to expand the boundaries of Aristotelian theory of science, in the direction to include more into Aristotelian paradigm the philosophy of nature (as recent studies tend to suggest in a general way). Third, in this case study the Questions on Posterior Analytics give a clearer and more thorough exposition than the Summulae de demonstrationibus, the most studied Buridan’s work on the theory of science; this is interesting as a contribution to better evaluate the respective value of these two works in order to fully appreciate Buridan’s reflections on the Aristotelian theory of science.