Teaching Aristotle's Logic at Leuven University (1425-1797). Continuity and Innovation in the Student Notebooks and its European context.

A main and unique, yet entirely neglected source for an in-depth and comparative approach for studying the history of the teaching of Aristotle's logic at Leuven University during the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period is the large collection of manuscripts containing notes taken by students during their lecture courses. These student notebooks, dating from 1425 up to 1789 and all written in Latin, represent an unparalleled source of information about what was taught in Leuven, which Aristotle, and why so. A proper study of these 'dictata' and a parallel study of the textbooks and translations used, equally allows us to trace in detail the transmission to Leuven students of new ideas and the "ever changing Aristotle" connected with the Renaissance, the Reformation, the beginning of modern philosophy, and the Scientific Revolution. In this respect, the notebooks offer us a look at Leuven as part of a European knowledge culture. Finally, a comparative study of the Leuven teaching of Aristotle's logic with the teaching methods and praxis in Cologne, Paris, Oxford, Cambridge etc. will give new views and will, perhaps, nuance the obsolete general view that Leuven University was a 'conservative stronghold'.