This article presents the theories of some of the main professors at the University of Salamanca of the second half of the XVIth century about the way in which all the perfections of the creatures are present in God. It will be shown that there is a subjacent difficulty along the development of the ideas of these authors that consists in the harmonization of two thesis apparently opposed to each other, namely, the infinity of God’s perfection and the existence of (...) other perfections than that. To do so, in the first place, the study presents the historical context; secondly, it shows the sense of the difficulty or “aporia”; thirdly, it explains their ideas concerning the usual concepts of pure and mixed perfections and of formal and eminent modes of possessing a perfection; finally, it shows the way in which they deal with a question that obliges to face the problem in a radical way, criticizing the solution by Durand de Saint Pourçain. (shrink)

This article presents an interpretation of Deleuze’s concept of difference-in-itself. I argue that this is best understood as an adption of Duns Scotus’s concept of ultimate difference. After suggesting that the influence of Scotus on Deleuze extends beyond their shared commitment to the univocity of being, I turn to briefly review Deleuze’s notion of absolute difference. I proceed from there to explain Scotus’s accounts of univocity and ultimate difference, throughout noting the many stark parallels with Deleuze. On the basis of (...) this Scotistic reading of Deleuzian difference, I then show how Deleuze’s synthesis of univocal being and difference-in-itself can be uniquely situated within the fourteenth-century Scotistic disputations on the predicability of univocal being to ultimate difference. I conclude with some suggestions on possible further connections between Deleuze and medieval metaphysics which are opened up through this association of Deleuze with Scotus and the Scotistic tradition. (shrink)