Abstract

In the first section, our anonymous author discusses sophistria as an art. Like other authors who wrote sophistria, the author first shows that sophistria is a demonstrative science, not indeed in the sense that one is taught how to make sophistical arguments, but a science in the sense that knowledge about sophistical arguments is taught through demonstrations. In the subsequent questions on this topic, he makes a number of distinctions, for example, between a new and an old division of sophistrie, between sophistria utens and docens, and between scientia realis and scientia rationis, ultimately identifying the science in question as a scientia rationis. He ends this section by identifying the ways in which the four causes pertain to this science. Unfortunately, a number of lines are missing in these questions, making it impossible to identify some of the author’s arguments which lead him to some of his positions. For example, in question 5, which asks whether the division of sophistrie into an older part and a newer part is suitable, only two arguments to the opposite are given; in question 6, which asks about the distinction between utens and docens, nothing but the question has survived, while in question 7, which asks whether the new logic of sophistria is distinct from the other parts, only one opposing argument is given.