Ward examines Scotus's arguments for his distinctive version of hylomorphism, the view that at least some material objects are composites of matter and form. It considers Scotus's reasons for adopting hylomorphism, and his accounts of how matter and form compose a substance, how extended parts, such as the organs of an organism, compose a substance, and how other sorts of things, such as the four chemical elements and all the things in the world, fail to compose a substance. (...) It highlights the extent to which Scotus draws on his metaphysics of essential order to explain why some things can compose substance and why others cannot. Throughout the book, contemporary versions of hylomorphism are discussed in ways that both illumine Scotus's own views and suggest ways to advance contemporary debates. (shrink)

The nature and content of the thought of Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308) remains largely unknown except by the expert. This book provides an accessible account of Scotus' theology, focusing both on what is distinctive in his thought, and on issues where his insights might prove to be of perennial value.

Richard Cross provides the first full study of Duns Scotus's theory of cognition, examining his account of the processes involved in cognition, from sensation, through intuition and abstraction, to conceptual thought. Cross places Scotus's thought clearly within the context of 13th-century study on the mind, and of his intellectual forebears.

Abstract Does Duns Scotus identify the natural will with the affectio commodi ? This identification has become the standard view. In this paper, I will challenge this view through an analysis of some key texts. The main thesis of the paper is that Scotus allows for two scenarios related to the will's dual affections. The first is the real situation of the created will: the will is a free potency and possesses two affections. The second is a (...) hypothetical case; Scotus suggests the fictive case of a will that only possesses the affectio commodi . Accordingly, it can be concluded that: ( i ) when considering the will in its real condition, both affections belong to the will's free appetite; ( ii ) in the hypothetical case the natural will, the intellectual appetite and the affectio commodi are all identified; ( iii ) in the real condition of the will, the natural will is a passive inclination to receive perfection. (shrink)

According to Duns Scotus, the First Table of the Decalogue contains only those moral propositions whose truth value is known from their terms alone, or conclusions that necessarily follow from them. As such, God cannot make a dispensation from them. In contrast, God can make dispensations from the Second Table precepts, since these precepts are not logical deductions following necessarily from the First Table. Nevertheless, they are “highly consonant” with it. However, Scotus does not explain what he (...) means by saying the Second Table precepts are “highly consonant” with the First Table. Recently, Richard Cross and Oleg Bychkov have argued that consonance should be understood in terms of aesthetic considerations. This interpretation, however, falters in establishing that consonans ought to be construed aesthetically, and it contradicts explicit statements Scotus makes about divine freedom and what God can do: namely, it places constraints upon God’s will beyond mere logical possibility. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Category of Action Self ‐ Motion and the Metaphysics of Freedom The Relationship between Intellect and Will The Two Affections of the Will References Further reading.

ABSTRACTThis paper examines Thomas Aquinas’ and John Duns Scotus’ respective views on the action-passion identity thesis. This thesis, which goes back to Aristotle, states that when an agent causes a change in a patient, then the agent’s causing of the change is identical to the patient’s undergoing of said change. Action and passion are, on this view, one and the same change in the patient, albeit under two distinct descriptions. The first part of the paper considers Aquinas’ defence (...) of this thesis. The second part discusses Scotus’ attack on this thesis. As this paper shows, Scotus argues, against Aquinas and other scholastics, that action and passion are discrete entities inhering in two distinct bearers: action in the agent and passion in the patient. (shrink)

Over the past thirty years, analytical philosophers of religion have confronted the problem of evil in the guise of the atheistic argument from evil against the existence of God. Many have met it from the posture of defense, constructing logically possible morally sufficient reasons for divine permission of evils from the materials of religion-neutral value-theory. At best, such defenses vindicate divine goodness along the dimension “producer of global goods,” while neglecting the religiously more relevant dimension of His goodness to individual (...) suffering creatures. My methodological recommendation is that we Christian philosophers shift away from defense and concentrate on formulating what we really believe about the goodness of God and how He is solving the problem of evil. If successful, our accounts would not only exhibit how divine permission of evils is logically consistent with His goodness to creatures, but also advertise Him as a character worthy of worship. Failures would pinpoint more precisely where and how evil is a problem for us. I illustrate this method by examining Duns Scotus’ many-faceted conception of divine goodness and measure its power to explain the compossibility of God and evil. (shrink)

John Duns Scotus (1265/66-1308) was one of the most important and influential philosophertheologians of the High Middle Ages. His brilliantly complex and nuanced thought, which earned him the nickname "the Subtle Doctor," left a mark on discussions of such disparate topics as the semantics of religious language, the problem of universals, divine illumination, and the nature of human freedom. This essay first lays out what is known about Scotus's life and the dating of his works. It then (...) offers an overview of some of his key positions in four main areas of philosophy: natural theology, metaphysics, the theory of knowledge, and ethics and moral psychology. (shrink)

The medieval notion of instrumental cause is not limited to what we call today “instruments” or “tools.” It extends way beyond the realm of technology and includes natural entities, for instance, the accidents by which a substance acts on another substance, sensible species in the air acting on a visual faculty, sacraments, bodily organs, and sometimes creatures with respect to God’s action. In all these cases, instrumental causes, like secondary causes in general, are subordinated to a principal cause and contribute (...) to its action and effects. However, the manner in which they do so makes them different from regular secondary causes, and the specifics are not easy to pinpoint. At the occasion of discussions about creation ex nihilo and sacraments, John Duns Scotus challenges Thomas Aquinas’s theory of instrumental causality. Whereas Aquinas does not strongly distinguish between artifacts and natural agents, and postulates a complex superposition of layers of causation, Scotus offers a novel view that clearly separates artificial instrumentality and natural instrumentality, and in both cases explains causation with great economy. Scotus’s in-depth discussion has far-reaching implications. It completely transforms the understanding of instrumental causality in general. (shrink)

While it is almost always difficult to identify firm relationships between imaginative works of literature and contemporary philosophy, it seems sure that at any particular time literature and philosophy do not float free of each other. There was a particularly solid basis for the connection in the fourteenth century, when philosophical studies were basic in advanced education and major philosopher-theologians like Walter Burley and John Wycliffe were prominent public figures. Yet significant scholarship that relates Chaucer's poetry to the philosophy of (...) the age is quite limited. A major deterrent to scholars has been a misunderstanding of the philosophical temper of England at the time, especially the influence of nominalism. While it is true that William of Ockham , who is generally thought of as the most typical and influential nominalist, taught at Oxford in the early fourteenth century, it is equally a fact that the great Scholastic realist, John Duns Scotus , also lectured at Oxford shortly after 1300, and that it was mainly realism, not nominalism, that held sway in the English schools in the late fourteenth century. The important philosophers whom we associate with the court of Edward III and with Chaucer's sphere of activity were Scholastic realists: Burley, Thomas Bradwardine, Wycliffe, Ralph Strode. Especially in light of the central position of British philosophers in European Scholastic philosophy during the century, and of Chaucer's learning and wide experience, we may assume that he was exposed to current philosophical thought through his training, personal relationships, and the general cultural climate. In all probability the realist position was dominant in what he heard and learned. (shrink)

Duns Scotus, along with Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham, was one of the three most talented and influential of the medieval schoolmen, and a highly original thinker. This book examines the central concepts in his physics, including matter, space, time, and unity.

John Duns Scotus provides a theory of elemental mixing that is striking in the way it denies some rather plausible interpretations of empirical facts, while fiercely attacking rival theories that claim to explain these facts. In brief, Scotus denies that the forms or qualities of the elements are present in a mixed body . This theory is surprising because, as Richard Cross has noted, it seems that Scotus’s theory of body-organ unity could serve as the basis (...) for a more plausible Scotistic account of mixing. Here, I will explore the possibility that Scotus’s discussion of the unity of a body and its organs may provide Scotus with the principles for a better theory of mixing. I will argue that Scotus cannot use body-organ unity as a model for his theory of mixing unless he accepts a position developed by Richard of Mediavilla, namely, that forms of one species can enjoy different grades. As Scotus rejects this position, I conclude that he must retain his somewhat unattractive theory of mixing. (shrink)

John Duns Scotus provides a theory of elemental mixing that is striking in the way it denies some rather plausible interpretations of empirical facts, while fiercely attacking rival theories that claim to explain these facts. In brief, Scotus denies that the forms or qualities of the elements are present in a mixed body. This theory is surprising because, as Richard Cross has noted, it seems that Scotus’s theory of body-organ unity could serve as the basis for (...) a more plausible Scotistic account of mixing. Here, I will explore the possibility that Scotus’s discussion of the unity of a body and its organs may provide Scotus with the principles for a better theory of mixing. I will argue that Scotus cannot use body-organ unity as a model for his theory of mixing unless he accepts a position developed by Richard of Mediavilla, namely, that forms of one species can enjoy different grades. As Scotus rejects this position, I conclude that he must retain his somewhat unattractive theory of mixing. (shrink)

Duns Scotus’ authorship of the commentary on Aristotle’s Topics transmitted in ms. Vatican, Ottoboni lat. 318 is demonstrated by no less than twelve references to his commentaries on the Isagoge and the Categories. In addition, new information is provided about the relative chronology of Scotus’ philosophical commentaries and the existence of a lost commentary on the Prior Analytics.

Thomas Williams presents the most extensive collection of John Duns Scotus's work on ethics and moral psychology available in English. This accessible and philosophically informed translation includes extended discussions on divine and human freedom, the moral attributes of God, and the relationship between will and intellect.

When presenting one of a sequence of theories on individuation, Duns Scotus argues for a formal distinction in creatures between an individual essence and its existence. His reason is that, otherwise, an individual creature would be a necessary existent. Since Scotus maintains that essence is potential to existence, this paper shows how this discussion relates to his exhaustive analysis of actuality and metaphysical potency in the questions on the Metaphysics, book IX, qq. 1–2, concluding that Scotus’s (...) views on essence and existence do not commit him to a realm of real but unactualized possibilia. The paper tentatively suggests that existence, in creatures, consists in a relation to an efficient cause or causes. Scotus holds that God’s existence, identical with his essence, is nevertheless formally distinct from God, since essence/existence and the divine attributes are formally distinct from each other and all included in God. (shrink)

I argue that, contra the claims of Knuuttila and Dumont, Scotus can not be credited with the invention of possible worlds semantics.