Nous voulons reprendre ici, pour elle-même, la difficile question qu'évoque notre titre et qui fit le fond d'un débat jadis cèlébre, à propos de l'ordre cartésien, entre Alquié et Gueroult. Non que nous désirions ajouter quelque prolongement, même occasionnel, à ce débat plein de relief, comme le firent par exemple H. Gouhier, J. M. Beyssade et plus récemment J. L. Marion. Nous laisserons ce soin aux historiens de profession, si la comparaison et l'analyse inédites de vieux textes leur en fournit (...) quelque matière. Mais tout en nous appuyant au besoin sur ce que nous savons et comprenons de Descartes, ainsi que sur quelques autres philosophes de cette capacité, tels qu'Aristote ou Hume, Kant ou Hegel, nous essayerons d'esquisser ici, sans contrainte érudite, tant notre perspective que notre solution. (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.

Aquinas’ theory of being has received a growing amount of attention from contemporary scholars, both from a historic and a philosophical point of view. An important source of this attention is Geach’s seminal Form and Existence. In it, Geach argues that Aquinas subscribes to a tensed notion of existence and a theory of time according to which past and future entities do not exist in act. Subsequent commentators, such as Kenny in his Aquinas on Being, have agreed with Geach on (...) both points. In this paper, I argue that in several passages of his corpus, most notably those in which he is concerned with God’s knowledge of future contingents, Aquinas implicitly subscribes to a theory of being and time according to which: past and future entities are attributed existence in act, there is theoretical need for introducing a tenseless notion of existence. (shrink)