i. Discipline and art (De disciplina et arte) 1. A discipline (disciplina) takes its name from ‘learning’ (discere), whence it can also be called ‘knowledge’ (scientia). Now ‘know’ (scire) is named from ‘learn’ (discere), because none of us knows unless we have learned. A discipline is so named in another way, because ‘the full thing is learned’ (discitur plena). 2. And an art (ars, gen. artis) is so called because it consists of strict (artus) precepts and rules. Others say this word is derived by the Greeks from the word ἀρετή, that is, ‘virtue,’ as they termed knowledge. 3. Plato and Aristotle would speak of this distinction between an art and a discipline: an art consists of matters that can turn out in different ways, while a discipline is concerned with things that have only one possible outcome. Thus, when something is expounded with true arguments, it will be a discipline; when something merely resembling the truth and based on opinion is treated, it will have the name of an art.

ii. The seven liberal disciplines (De septem liberalibus disciplinis) 1. There are seven disciplines of the liberal arts. The first is grammar, that is, skill in speaking. The second is rhetoric, which, on account of the brilliance and fluency of its eloquence, is considered most necessary in public proceedings. The third is dialectic, otherwise known as logic, which separates the true from the false by very subtle argumentation. 2. The fourth is arithmetic, which contains the principles and classifications of numbers.