The paper follows Albert through three of his discussions of the hierarchy of sciences.The first discussion presents what seems a straightforward account of Aristotle's trichotomy of speculative sciences.It remains unsatisfying so far as it exacerbates tensions latent in Aristotle.In the second discussion, Albert attempts to resolve these tensions by supplying a narrative of the mind's ascent along the hierarchy.But the narrative fails to describe convincingly the power by which the mind is rendered capable of ascending.The description is provided finally by the third discussion.In it, Albert identifies the topmost science as rhetorical theology that wants to persuade its students to advance towards God in faith.By completing the narrative in this way, Albert suggests that any adequate discussion of the hierarchy of sciences will not be a contextless description, but a rhetorically situated exhortation.The topic of the "hierarchy of the sciences" is a knot of teachings and questions handed down to medieval Latin philosophy by various ancient and patristic texts.I For modern readers, the knot is tied most obviously by Plato in Republic 6 and 7.There the Platonic Socrates considers together the soul's powers, their objects, languages for describing them, their conversion by philosophy, and their perfection in the education of future rulers.The Republic was not available to medieval Latin readers, of course.They had to learn of the topic from Plato's successors.Early medieval readers could discover one succession in Boethius on Aristotle, but others were available in Augustine's retelling of Stoic and neo-Platonic philosophy, in Seneca and Cicero, in the encyclopedias of Martianus Capella and Isidore, and in the mystagogical treatises of Ps-Dionysius.By the thirteenth century, there were added to these texts not only Aristotle's several accounts of the hierarchy, but variations on them and on Plato by Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes.The Platonic knot of teachings and questions is handed to an author like Albert the Great, then, loosened in some parts and tightened in others.It had been loosened so far as the Aristotelian tradition succeeded in extracting issues for discussion and in providing a technical vocabulary for them.Albert did not need to approach the topic unaided.But the knot had been tightened so far as Christian and then Islamic authors extended the hierarchy of sciences to include theologies derived from revelation.The questions and teachings
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