He also composed logical text-books on division, categorical syllogisms, and on two branches of logic which will require further explanation (see below, Section 3): hypothetical syllogisms and topical reasoning (along with a commentary on Cicero's Topics).
Proba and Sergius of Resaina were among those who contributed, through translations of the basic logical texts and commentaries on them, to the establishment of Aristotelian studies in these centres.
The logical text-books were equally important.
The two most interesting of Boethius's logical text-books are the treatises on topical differentiae (c.522 3) and on hypothetical syllogisms (516 22), since each gives an insight into an area of late ancient logic for which there are otherwise few, if any, sources.
Various 12th century logical texts recognize the distinctive semantical nature of transcategorical terms, which they refer to, among others, as 'transcendent names' (nomina transcendentia).
According to Maimonides, there was no need to study logical texts, apart from those by al-Farabi, since "all that he wrote… is full of wisdom, and… he was a very valid author" (Marx 1934 1935, 379).
We started by surveying the ancient background for the emergence of Latin medieval theories of consequence, in particular Aristotle's Topics and Prior Analytics, the commentaries by the ancient commentators, and Boethius' influential logical texts.
Later Neoplatonists accepted the importance of Aristotelian logic, and the harmony between Platonic and Aristotelian teaching, but they tended to try and discover Neoplatonic doctrines even in the Aristotelian logical texts.
