Introduction

From 1592 to 1606, the Jesuits of the University of Coimbra in Portugal published a course of studies on Aristotelian philosophy, known as the Conimbricensis Collegii Societatis Jesu commentarii. The idea was conceived by Pedro de Fonseca, who assigned the project to Emmanuel de Goes, provincial of the Jesuit Order in Portugal. Intended to serve as textbooks in Jesuit universities, the commentaries, which were the work of several authors, combined humanist philological scholarship with traditional scholastic philosophical exegesis. In the quaestiones (questions), where most of the philosophical analysis is located, there is often a focus on issues of particular relevance to Christian doctrine, in line with the Counter-Reformation conception of philosophy as an enterprise in the service of Catholic theology. Most of the commentaries were on Aristotle's natural philosophy treatises: the Physics (1592), De caelo (1592), the Meteorology (1592), Parva naturalia (1592), De generatione et corruptione (1597) and De anima (1598); there was also a commentary on Aristotelian logic (1606). All the volumes were frequently reprinted and widely used as university textbooks in the first half of the seventeenth century, gaining considerable popularity even in Protestant northern Europe, despite their strong Catholic associations.

The Coimbra commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics (1593) is not a full-scale treatment (it lacks the Aristotelian text and the literal explanations found in the other volumes) but rather a brief compendium, consisting of nine disputations. Each disputation is divided into questions, which are subdivided into articles.