Abstract

In the course of preparing a critical edition of Boethius’s Latin commentary (ca. 510) on Aristotle’s Categories I have struggled to make sense of the verb sêmainein in Cat. 4-5 (1b25-2a4 and 3b10-23) and Topics A 7-9 (103a6-39 and 103b20-39). In the seminar I will discuss the four passages and argue for taking sêmainein in the sense of ’refer to’ rather than ’signify’ which is the prevalent translation.