El comentario como género escolástico transversal

Abstract

Commentary as a philosophical genre has a long tradition and numerous varieties. Many of them can be found within the period traditionally considered “medieval”. There rises the issue about the criteria to identify – if possible – some characteristics that distinguish the scholastic commentary as such. The following forms are found (although not exclusively during this period): a) explanatory commentary; b) augmentative commentary (development); c) integrative commentary (to be used as a premise in an argumentation); d) reinforcing commentary (it shows that the doctrine is in accordance with given authorities). Moreover, and according to the tradition mentioned above, the commentary is applied to every text that can be somehow considered an “authority”. The sense and scope of this concept allows us to better understand the selections, even within the scholastic period. We propose to unite them according to their use in discourse, which is thought to be transversal in the following senses: a) it is present, of course, in text considered as such by their authors; b) it is present in the others, in one of the forms mentioned above.