This presentation aims to show that medieval Aristotelian logic can be generally characterized as scientific method. To be sure, this method includes formal logic as one of its parts, but formal logic is by no means the crucial part. In fact, if, as I intend to show, the main aim of medieval Aristotelian logic is to provide methods for knowledge production and distribution, so its crucial parts are the methods for scientific proof provided in commentaries on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics and Topics.

In the first part of the presentation, I argue for the possibility of talking of medieval ‘science’, ‘scientific knowledge’, and ‘scientific method’ from a modern perspective, and discuss how the modern perspective relates to the Latin ‘scientia’ in its different senses. In the second part, I show the progression from Nicholas of Paris (1240s) and Albert the Great (1250s), who see Aristotelian logic as a systematic scientific method where syllogistic argument is fundamental, but who struggle to coherently organize it around syllogistic argument, to Radulphus Brito (1290s) who, still seeing Aristotelian logic as scientific method, uses the notion of ‘second intention’ in order to coherently structure it around syllogistic argument.