John Duns Scotus

The difference between Suarez and Scotus's ideas of "denomination" has given rise to the development of two different theories: 1) the theory of the dependence of actual universals on man's mind; and 2) Scotus's nominalist theory.The examination of such accidental and essential views of denomination reveals that, according to Suarez, the denomination of universal natures is of the accidental type, and the result of the referential similarity which is based on the causal relation between the existing objective truth and the (...) actual universal in the mind. He also rejects the essential denomination of univresals. Accordingly, the universal concept is the product of a process of mental abstraction; moreover, there is a kind of real similarity among the individuals of the same kind which is the basis of common nature and quiddity. However, the distinctions among external natures are of the type of real and objective affairs. Nevertheless, the genetic psychology of universal concepts considers the theories of Suarez and Scotus on universals as being quite similar to each other. (shrink)

This article is intended to offer a textual and evaluative presentation of the theory of original sin as elaborated by the Franciscan master John Duns Scotus, the “Subtle Doctor.”While there are many studies and articles about Scotus’ ethics, few are devoted to what is considered the root of evil human behavior, and hardly any analyze the text of the Subtle Doctor in any sufficient depth.1 Perhaps because this topic belongs more strictly to theology, it is seldom considered in depth by (...) philosophers. On the other hand, since Catholic theology after Vatican II has virtually narrowed its treatment of medieval topics and figures to all but Thomas Aquinas, it is rare to find any theologians interested in other... (shrink)

Theoria, Volume 87, Issue 5, Page 1270-1306, October 2021.

Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham disagree over how and whether virtues are specified by their objects. For Thomas, habits and acts are specified by their formal objects. For instance, the object of theft is something that belongs to someone else, and more particularly theft is distinct from robbery because theft is the open taking of another’s good, whereas robbery is open and violent. A habit such as a virtue or a vice shares or takes the act’s (...) object. For Scotus, although the same virtue or act cannot have objects which differ formally, different virtues and acts can have an object which is identical according to its formal ratio, in the way that the different theological virtues might even formally have God as their object. Ockham accepts Scotus’s view that charity and hope are two kinds of love, we will see how, unlike Scotus, he argues that these theological virtues differ on account of their immediate complex objects. The disagreement between these three figures raises important difficulties concerning what it even means to be a formal object. (shrink)

Becoming is a process in which a thing moves from one state to another. In Section 1, the study will elaborate on the discussion of the Aristotelian causes taken broadly, primarily focusing on the relation between efficient and final causes. In Section 2, the study discusses the implications of Scotus’s conception of freedom, as it is reflected in the relation of the future to the past, for the efficient and final causalities. Similarly in Section 3 an examination of Scotus’s conception (...) of matter is conducted. Based on the ideas established in these sections, the study attempts to present an initial Scotistic view of becoming. -/- . (shrink)

The problem of divine impassibility, i.e., of whether the divine nature in Christ could suffer, stands at the center of a debate regarding the nature of God and his relation to us. Whereas philosophical reasoning regarding the divine nature maintains that the divine is immutable and perfect in every respect, theological needs generated an ever-growing demand for a passionate God truly able to participate in the suffering of his creatures. Correlating with the different approaches of Thomas Aquinas and John Duns (...) Scotus, the paper develops an incarnation model that aims, on the one hand, to solve the dualistic problem between the divine and human natures, and on the other hand to make room for both impassible and passible elements in God, and so to make room within the patristic impassible model for genuine suffering in God. The discussion, though centered around Christ's im/passibility and passions, can easily be modified to approach the body-mind problem since the essence of the problems is the same. (shrink)

Following an Open conception of Divine Foreknowledge, that holds that man is endowed with genuine freedom and so the future is not definitely determined, it will be claimed that human freedom does not limit the divine power, but rather enhances it and presents us with a barrier against arbitrary use of that power. This reading will be implemented to reconcile a well-known quarrel between two important interpreters of Duns Scotus, Allan B. Wolter and Thomas Williams, each of whom supports a (...) different interpretation of the way God acts according to right reason. (shrink)

An overview of debates in ethical theory within Christian Scholasticism in the decades after Thomas Aquinas.

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)

In his ethical writings, Duns Scotus emphasized both divine freedom and natural goodness, and these seem to conflict with each other in various ways. I offer an interpretation of Scotus which takes seriously these twin emphases and shows how they cohere. I argue that, for Scotus, all natural laws obtain just by the natures of actual things. Divine commands, such as the Ten Commandments, contingently track natural laws but do not make natural laws to be natural laws. I present textual (...) evidence for this claim. I also show how this view of Scotus on the natural law is consistent with a number of troubling passages. Scotus’s ethical theory implies that there are genuinely moral reasons for acting which are not absolutely binding (because subject to a divine command or permission otherwise) and also some moral reasons for acting which are absolutely binding (because not thus subject). (shrink)

In this paper I present an interpretation of Deleuze's concept of the virtual. I argue that this concept is best understood in relation to the problematic of individuation or differentiation, which Deleuze inherits from Duns Scotus. After analysing Scotus' critique of Aristotelian or hylomorphic approaches to the problem of individuation, I turn to Deleuze's account of differentiation and his interpretation of the calculus in chapter 4 of Difference and Repetition. The paper seeks thereby to explicate Deleuze's dialectics or theory of (...) Ideas, his approach to the principle of sufficient reason, and the concept of the virtual itself. (shrink)

Although Descartes’s ideas regarding consciousness and memory have been studied extensively, few attempts have been made to address their systemic relations. In order to redress this deficiency, I argue in favor of three interrelated theses. The first is that intellectual memory has a crucial role to play in Descartes’s concept of consciousness, especially when it comes to explaining higher forms of consciousness. Second, the connection between memory and consciousness has been obscured by the fact that intellectual memory, taken as a (...) subject in its own right, was relatively neglected in Descartes’s philosophy: By and large, his views on the matter remained within the limits of late scholastic Scotism. Third, what makes the question of intellectual memory so fascinating in Descartes is not some ground-breaking insight into its nature; rather, it is his gradual recognition of the role that intellectual memory plays in the constitution of higher forms of consciousness. With these arguments, and relying on Descartes’s 1648 correspondence with Antoine Arnauld, where he progressed beyond the substance-based approach to the self, I try to show that he deserves to be credited with a more prominent status in the history of the self and personhood than has previously been the case. (shrink)

Even amongst those with only a cursory knowledge of the moral philosophy of John Duns Scotus, the association of Scotus's thought with voluntarism is well known. Next to his much-discussed, highly controversial theory of the univocity of being, Scotus's ethical thought, particularly his interpretation of the role of God's will in dictating moral norms, remains one of the most disputed – and arguably most misunderstood – areas of his philosophical synthesis. As Efrem Bettoni noted many years ago, Scotus's understanding of (...) the relationship between the divine will and the created moral order is one of the 'most badly treated' areas of his thought. Not surprisingly, therefore, no general consensus has emerged... (shrink)

In a seminal article, Simo Knuuttila and Anja Inkeri Lehtinen drew attention to a “curious doctrine” holding that contradictories can be true at the same temporal instant, and identified the major defenders of the doctrine as John Baconthorpe, Landolfo Caracciolo, and Hugh of Novocastro. Normann Kretzmann later asserted as fact the suggestion by Knuuttila and Inkeri Lehtinen that the doctrine comes from a misreading of a passage from Aristotle’s Physics. In fact, a study of the relevant texts reveals that Hugh (...) of Novocastro first elaborated the doctrine by building on the Scotist doctrines of synchronic contingency and simultaneous causation. As these doctrines require at the same instant of time an order of priority and posteriority between possibility and actuality, cause and effect, so, Hugh says, there must be prior and posterior different states of affairs. Landolfo Caracciolo made this doctrine notorious outside the Franciscan convent by using it in his principia debates, directly engaging the circle of Cardinal Iacopo Stefaneschi. John Baconthorpe, the first to cite the Physics passage, did not have any noticeable effect on the development of the doctrine. (shrink)

This study will examine the ontological dependency between the thinking act of the intellect and the intelligibility of the objects of thought. Whereas the intellectual tradition prior to Duns Scotus grounds the formation of the objects of thought and our ability to understand them with certainty in different forms of participation in the divine intellect, Scotus shows that the intelligibility of the objects of thought is internal to them alone and is not dependent on participation.

This volume contains the Latin-Italian translation of the Ordinatio Prologue of John Duns Scotus. It is the second volume in the series 'Traditiones: Testi del pensiero tardo-antico, medieval e umanistico', directed by Armando Bisogno. While it is not the first Italian translation of the Ordinatio Prologue, it does offer a rich and detailed introduction that situates Scotus's text in the more general context of his historical milieu, including the effects of the Condemnation of 1277. After a general overview of the (...) life and works of Scotus, including his major positions, the author aids the reader in understanding the significance of Scotus's predecessors... (shrink)

As the final volumes of John Duns Scotus's Opera Omnia are published by the International Scotistic Commission, this volume of the Subtle Doctor's Oxford Collationes are a welcome addition to all the texts we now have at our disposal. Indeed, we can enumerate the corpus of critical works now available: the Opera Philosophica along with the 'safe' texts of the Reportatio IA and, at this writing, the first seventeen distinctions of Reportatio IV. The Oxford and Parisian Collationes offer the remaining (...) pieces to the scholarly puzzle around Scotus, and a clearer portrait of his development as philosopher and theologian is slowly coming into view.The scholarly... (shrink)

This book examines William Langland’s late medieval poem, The Vision of Piers Plowman, in light of contemporary intellectual thought. David Strong argues that where the philosophers John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham revolutionize the view of human potential through their theories of epistemology, ethics, and freedom of the will, Langland vivifies these ideas by contextualizing them in an individual’s search for truth and love. Specifically, the text ponders the intersection between reason and the will in expressing love. While scholars (...) have consistently noted the text’s indebtedness to these higher strains of thought, this is the first book-length study in over thirty years that explores the depth of this interconnection, and the only one that considers the salience of both Scotus and Ockham. It is essential reading for medieval literary specialists and students as well as any cultural historian who desires to augment their knowledge of truth. (shrink)

In this paper, I present the way Duns Scotus’ philosophy is used in the contemporary discussions on properties. I point out that both realists about universals and trope theorists invoke Scotus to defend their positions. Moreover, I show that they do it by taking the same concept, formal distinction, to apply it to the same problem: the distinction between the qualitative and the individuating features of properties. After presenting the contemporary uses of Scotus, I turn to his own theory of (...) natures and I ask to what extent he may be a realist about universals or a defender of the trope view. I do not provide a firm answer to this question, but I show that much depends on Scotus’ account of the formal distinction, and on his possible change of mind with respect to this notion. (shrink)

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.

R. Pasnau once commented that the present-day academic area of cognitive theory suits medieval thought better than epistemology. The comment seems to the point, and the focus of R. Cross’s book is thus appropriately placed. Scotus’s theory of cognition is worth a new treatment both because Scotus represents a new stage in medieval cognitive theory and because his positions are “sometimes rather fluid” and “not always as clear”. This lack of clarity extends to the most important subject in this book, (...) such as various aspects of the issue of intentionality, where Scotus’s discussion is... (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to apply the metaphysics of John Duns Scotus in constructing a new conception of matter which does not stand in opposition to the mental realm, but is rather composed of both physical and mental elements. The paper is divided into four parts. Section one addresses Scotus’ claim that matter is intelligible and actual in itself. Section two aims to show that matter can be seen as a deprived thinking being. Section three analyzes Scotus’ conception (...) of place. The final section brings together the conclusions of the three preceding parts to confront the Cartesian psycho-physical problem anew and to suggest a viable solution. (shrink)

This bibliography contains primary and secondary literature on Duns Scotus and Scotism.

In 2008, the late Allan B. Wolter, OFM worked with Oleg V. Bychkov, Ph.D. to publish a ‘safe’ version of the Reportatio IA of Franciscan Master John Duns Scotus. The publication of this first book of Scotus’s Commentary on the Sentences from his Paris teaching offered scholars an opportunity to follow the Subtle Doctor’s reasoning throughout his entire teaching career: from the earliest Lectura texts, through the Ordinatio teaching, to what many consider his final say on certain matters when he (...) taught in Paris, between 1302 and 1304.While the Ordinatio claims to have been re-worked by Scotus himself, and Reportatio IA to have been ‘examined’ by Scotus, similar claims to definitive status do not appear... (shrink)

This article traces the fortunes of John Duns Scotus in histories of philosophy from Melanchthon’s student Caspar Peucer to the eminent medievalist Étienne Gilson. It identifies themes and historiographical methods common to sources from the late sixteenth century and follows their development to the present, with special emphasis given to the socalled historia philosophiae philosophica first advanced by Lutheran historians during the early Enlightenment.

This article announces the discovery of a third version of John Duns Scotus’ Reportatio Parisiensis IV, contained in a recently identified manuscript and a fragment. A provisional synoptic edition of all the versions of Reportatio Parisiensis IV dd.26-28 aims to show how the Parisian reports of Scotus’ lectures where gradually redacted. Through an analysis of the three versions of Reportatio IV, we are now able to identify the editorial stages of the text, from the version closest to the oral lecture (...) to the final reworking of the text that appeared in the Ordinatio. (shrink)

This article investigates an aporia in the metaphysical thought of John Duns Scotus. On the one hand, there are strong textual grounds for saying that according to Scotus the subject matter of metaphysics excludes logical being. On this reading, metaphysics would be a transcendental, but not a supertranscendental, science. On the other hand, there are strong textual grounds for saying that according to Scotus the subject matter of metaphysics includes logical being. On this reading, metaphysics would be a supertranscendental, and (...) not just a transcendental, science. Two possible paths for resolving this aporia are considered and subsequently problematized. The aporia seems to be genuine, and recognition of this fact brings into sharper focus the position of Scotus’s metaphysics in the development of supertranscendental thought. (shrink)

Come ho osservato altrove2, il ms. Oxford, Merton, 284 è composito: consiste di 117 fogli prevalentemente cartacei, tranne i primi quattro di guardia e i ff. 112–113, che sono pergamenacei. Esso misura mediamente 287 × 223 mm3. L’esame della filigrana attesta la produzione delle carte a Siena intorno al 13404. Sul verso della terza carta di guardia si trova una nota marginale che denuncia l’origine e il possesso del codice, ossia «Liber Iohannis Bloxham ex legat’ M. Symonis Lamborne / Iste (...) liber datur domui scolarium de Merton’ in Oxon’ ad iacendum in libraria incatenatum quamdiu durare poterit ad usum et utilitatem sociorum eiusdem domus et dabatur dicto Iohanni superius nominato per magistrum Symonum... (shrink)

Alnwick distances himself from Scotus, as he appears in Lectura Oxoniensis and the commentary on Metaphysics, though the natural propensity of the will is affirmed in q. 9 d. 49 of Book Four of Reportata Parisiensia. However, this question could be spurious, or else more susceptible to the Parisian influence of teaching of Henry of Ghent, with whom Alnwick aligns himself when he sanctions without any doubt the fact that man desires to pass from a lesser good, guaranteed by philosophical (...) speculation of an Aristotelian- Averroist matrix, to a supreme good, which coincides with the clear vision of divine essence, because man knows that essence both naturaliter and supernaturaliter. Alnwick tenaciously debates natural knowledge in the prologue to the Commentary on the Sentences, thanks to the use of discursus, which serves to set up a chain of syllogistic deductions in order to arrive at quidditative concepts of divinity in both an affirmative and negative sense. These concepts assure the wayfarer a general k... (shrink)

In order to make sense of Scotus’s claim that rationality is perfected only by the will, a Scotistic doctrine of truth is developed in a speculative way. It is claimed that synthetic a priori truths are truths of the will, which are existential truths. This insight holds profound theological implications and is used on the one hand to criticize Kant's conception of existence, and on the other hand, to offer another explanation of the sense according to which the existence of (...) things is grasped. (shrink)

O objetivo de meu texto consiste em reconstruir um aspecto da recepção da compreensão de Duns Scotus sobre a noção de ente em dois autores pertencentes à geração que imediatamente o sucedeu: no franciscano Guilherme de Alnwick e em seu confrade Francisco de Meyronnes. O problema que surge nessa primeira recepção de Scotus pode ser assim resumido: uma vez que tenhamos aceitado que a noção de ente é simultaneamente unívoca, primeira, a mais geral e a mais simples das noções, como (...) podemos evitar a ameaça de se ter de conceder que a ciência de tal noção – que a metafísica, noutras palavras – não seja capaz de se distinguir claramente de uma investigação que não lida necessariamente com realidades extramentais? Ou, pondo a questão em outros termos: não nos vemos depois de Scotus condenados a ter de escolher entre uma noção de ente como uma noção real ou como uma noção perfeitamente geral? Veremos que, tratando da mesma questão, Alnwick e Meyronnes seguem diferentes caminhos, cada um deles com seus custos e méritos. The aim of my text is to reconstruct the reception of Duns Scotus's comprehension of the notion of being between two authors belonging to the generation which immediately follows his: the Franciscan William of Alnwick and his confrere Francis of Meyronnes. The issue that arises in this early reception of Scotus's can be summarized as follows: once we have accepted that the notion of being is simultaneously univocal, primary, the most general and the simplest possible notion, how can we avoid the threat of having to concede that the science of such a notion – that metaphysics, in other words – is not capable of distinguishing itself clearly from an investigation that does not necessarily have to do with extramental realities? Or, rephrasing the question: after Scotus, are we not condemned to having to choose between the notion of being as a real notion or the notion of being as a perfectly general notion? We shall see that, addressing the same issue, Alnwick and Meyrones follow different paths, each one with its own costs and its own merits. (shrink)