6533b858fe1ef96bd12b6140

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Duties, Rules and Interpretations in Obligational Disputations

subject

description

An obligational disputation, as it was known in the Middle Ages, consisted basically of a sequence of propositions put forward by one person, called the opponent, and evaluated by another person, called the respondent. In the most typical variations of the technique, the sequence would begin with a special proposition, called the positum It was taken as the starting point, which the rest of the sequence would develop. The respondent had to accept the positum, if it was free from contradictions. Then he had to take into account in his later evaluations of the other propositions that he must at any time during the disputation grant the positum and anything following from it. The disputations were called obligational precisely because the respondent would admit to such a special duty or obligation to follow this procedure in his answers.1