In Ciceronis Topica and De topicis differentiis are Boethius's two treatises on Topics (loci). Together these two works present Boethius's theory of the art of discovering arguments, a theory that was highly influential in the history of medieval logic.

Students of Boethius and of medieval logic will... profit from Stump's work on this difficult treatise. Her translation,... the first into English... and the interpretative essays, e.g., on dialectic and Aristotle's Topics, Peter of Spain, and the Porphyrian Tree, are useful and informative.

Eleonore Stump is the Robert J. Henle, S.J., Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University. She is the author of several books, including Dialectic and its Place in the Development of Medieval Logic and Aquinas. She is the coeditor of Aquinas's Moral Theory, also from Cornell.