Abstract

Aristotle's Categories was one of the most influential books in the Middle Ages: it provided the conceptual tools for grammar, logic, physics, mathematics, and even theology. There is also a long and noteworthy history of commentaries written on it, commentaries by such important figures as Porphyry, Boethius, Averroes, and Albert the Great. One of the last people in the Middle Ages to write a commentary on the Categories , though, is John Duns Scotus. His commentary is important for at least three reasons: first, the specific question format that he employs allows Duns Scotus to address a number of important issues relating to grammar, logic and metaphysics; second, in the commentary, he calls into question a central tenet held by his contemporaries, namely that there is a parallel between signifying, understanding, and being; finally, in the commentary he articulates how the categories constitute the subject of a propter quid science. ;This study is divided into three main parts. The first section consists of four chapters. In the first chapter, I situate Scotus' Questions on the Categories within the larger framework of both the other commentaries on the Categories and the intellectual renaissance sparked by the recovery of the rest of Aristotle's writings. In the second chapter, I show how Scotus' commentary should not be dismissed as one of his 'youthful works' since it foreshadows several key issues that are present in his mature thinking. In the third chapter, I provide an explanation of a number of key philosophical and technical terms that are employed by Scotus, and indicate a number of ways in which being, signifying, and understanding are not parallel. I then examine in detail Scotus' claim that the categories are the subject of a propter quid science in the fourth chapter. ;In the second section, I provide a detailed commentary on the first eight questions of Scotus' Questions on the Categories. There are two reasons for this commentary. One, the arguments contained in the first section of this study are principally founded on these eight questions. Second, the reader will readily encounter in Scotus' text an especially dense style of argumentation. Consequently, my commentary elucidates the arguments and clarifies many of the technical terms that one will find in Scotus' commentary. ;The final section consists of a literal translation of the entire Questions on the Categories