 Vives’ criticism of scholastic logic hinges on a profound analysis of the arts of discourse. For him, the supremacy of the sermo communis (ordinary discourse) over the abstract language of metaphysics is indisputable. Philosophy ought not to invent the language and subject of its own specific investigation (VI, 140). In De causis corruptarum artium, he writes: “enraged against nature, about which they know nothing, the dialecticians have constructed another one for themselves—that is to say, the nature of formalities, individual natures (ecceitates), realities, relations, Platonic ideas and other monstrosities which cannot be understood even by those who have invented them” (VI, 190–1). Instead of the formal language of the dialecticians, which he found completely unsuited to interpret reality, he proposes the less rigorous but more concrete universe of everyday communication, which answers all our practical needs and aims to provide a knowledge that is useful.