LOGIC DOCENS AND UTENS

Abstract

The aim of this article is to determine the important question of the usefulness and purity (of teaching) of the science of logic in the classical tradition, when this science is divided into its two fundamental parts, namely, logica docens and logica utens. These terms can be translated as pure logic and applied logic. This article will deal with the subtle distinctions made by Thomas Aquinas when he points out that the science of logic has three characteristics that distinguish its formal parts: the use of logic, the science of logic and the doctrine of logic. In this sense of the term “logic”, we want to point to certain properties of its parts, namely: the demonstrative, the dialectical, also known as the tentative, and the sophistic. St. Thomas points out that, in its own sense, demonstrative logic, in the very teaching of logic, is just a doctrine; whereas dialectic and sophistry are, in addition to being a doctrine, a science and they are used. As will be seen in this article, the reason for this distinction is based on the fact that it is the formal reason for logic in general to deal only with ideal things, and not real ones, like the rest of the speculative sciences. Thus, taking the term science in the broadest sense, rather in the sense of pedagogical activity than for the formal reason of science itself, dialectics and sophistry are recognized as sciences, even if the latter is neglected in favour of the former.