Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
477-524 · Latin Fathers · Prominent
Boethius was a late Roman statesman, consul and chief minister to Theodoric, until a treason charge put him in a cell. He wrote The Consolation of Philosophy there, awaiting execution. In it Lady Philosophy shows him that fortune's wheel was never his to hold, and that happiness rests in the unchanging Good, which is God. His translations of Aristotle kept logic alive in the Latin West.
Signature
The position Boethius is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Order
- strongly leans Vertical
- Agency
- Divine Providence
Positions on the 10 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (83 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- The Divine
- leans Describable (21 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- leans Realism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- strongly leans Unchanging (8 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- strongly leans Inherent (92 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- strongly leans Vertical (8 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- strongly leans Unity (8 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Conviction
- leans Certain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
10 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Boethius refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Monarchy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Union with God
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Pure Reason / Receptive Intellect
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Natural Law / Divine Command
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Divine Providence
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo / Indistinct from Present
What is the origin of reality? - Authority
- Natural Law / Wisdom
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Representation
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Role of Emotion
- Obstacle to Reason
What is the proper role of emotion? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?