I argue that Scotus's formal distinction is a mereological fusion relation rather than an identity relation. I construct mereological models which adequately represent Scotus's theory.

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

Does Duns Scotus identify the natural will with the affectio commodi ? This identifica- tion 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 condi- tion, 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)

A presentation of Franciscan theologian John Duns Scotus (d. 1308) as a significant contributor to the medieval theology of grace, worthy of careful contemporary consideration.

In his 1916 _Habilitationsschrift Heidegger enriched Husserl's notion of categorial intuition with Scotus's theory of intellection. The individual is entirely intelligible, even if its intelligibility is never fully defined. The historically singularized thing (essence modified by _haecceitas) speaks a primal word to us, and this original verbum makes possible the inner word of understanding, the _verbum interius. Heidegger argues that if the thing is actually intelligible in its singularity, history cannot be disregarded as ineffable: it becomes a domain of (...) fore-theoretical experience, which exhibits its own proper understandability, one that eludes the objectifications of judgment. (shrink)

This book examines the central ideas that defined the debate about divine production in the Trinity in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, namely those of Henry of Ghent, John Duns Scotus, and William Ockham. Their discussions are significant for the history of trinitarian theology and the history of philosophy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by: The Singular Voice of Being: John Duns Scotus and Ultimate Difference by Andrew Lazella Christopher Cullen S.J. Andrew Lazella, The Singular Voice of Being: John Duns Scotus and Ultimate Difference. Medieval Philosophy: Texts and Studies. New York: Fordham University Press, 2019. Pp. x + 260. $72.00. ISBN: 9780823284573. John Duns Scotus (c. 1265–1308) is aptly called the Subtle Doctor. His (...) thought is filled with subtleties and distinctions that embody medieval Scholasticism's attempt to master the science of metaphysics, especially as it had been recast by the rediscovery of Aristotle's Metaphysics—a text that Scotus wrote about at length. Andrew Lazella's book, The Singular Voice of Being: John Duns Scotus and Ultimate Difference aims precisely at presenting the subtleties of Scotus' answer to Parmenides with the Eleatic's denial of the reality of the multiplicity of beings and of change. Lazella first illumines in detail Scotus's central metaphysical doctrine, namely, that the mind attains a univocal concept of being. But the problem then becomes, as Lazella rightly perceives, that this "univocity of being" might seem to be in danger of collapsing being into a Parmenidean monism. Hence, the urgency for Scotus "to divide being at its joints" (as Lazella refers to the task; 2). Scotus has to find the ultimate differences that demarcate the multiplicity and divisions of being, if his univocity of being is not to collapse being into a false unity. Lazella shows how Scotus attempts to escape the monism of Parmenides while also avoiding a Heraclitean flux and multitude that destroys the possibility of knowledge and science. For Scotus, only the univocal concept of being is adequate to this task. An analogy of being is inadequate, primarily because it is on the side of equivocation. The univocal concept is "the singular voice of being" that illumines the unity of the finite world, with its vast multitude of things, and that also grounds the concepts of a natural theology of the infinite God. Lazella insightfully begins the book by presenting Scotus's work as an answer to Parmenides and thus to the most basic of all metaphysical questions, as discussed above. Part 1 of the book includes three chapters: the first two discuss in detail the univocal concept that unites beings, and [End Page 237] chapter 3 outlines the concept of the ultimate difference that divides being. Lazella highlights a threefold taxonomy of ultimate differences that are found in the modes, species, and individuals of being. Part 2 of the book includes three chapters, one on each of the "regions" of ultimate difference: chapter 4 treats the intrinsic modes of being; chapter 5 the ultimate specific differences that account for the diversity of species; and chapter 6 presents the ultimate individual difference, i.e., "thisness" or haeceitas, which accounts for the reality of the individual substances. A helpful conclusion summarizes the argument of the book as a whole."In his early Quaestiones super Praedicamenta Aristotelis, Scotus says that things are univocally named when they share not only the same term (vox) or name (nomen) but also the same account (ratio)" (17). The opposite extreme from univocty is equivocity. Equivocity obtains when things only share a name but have different accounts. In between these two extremes is analogy: "Analogical names require that the name signify multiple rationes, which are unified according to some order or relation" (17). This account of these three terms is uncontroversial. Lazella thinks that Scotus's turn to univocity, as the ground of metaphysics, is driven largely by his epistemology. For Scotus, "cognition is rooted in sensible accidents and is unable to gain access to the real essences of substances themselves" (6). Hence the isomorphism between mind and reality cannot be secured without a univocal concept of being, contra the views of the majority of his fellow thirteenth-century Scholastics, such as Bonaventure and Aquinas. A key point is that, for Scotus, the intelligible species, or likeness, abstracted from the phantasm by the agent intellect, is not understood as a mirror that re-presents the form found in the concrete substances of the world. For Scotus, the intelligible species is no longer understood as a formal sign that... (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.

Wölfel's study is a very technical enterprise, profusely endowed with footnotes and making little attempt if any at reaching the nonspecialist. Yet the subject matter of the work must be of concern to anyone interested in philosophical theology and the history of Christian speculation. Two seemingly very distant topics, those of the Trinity and of natural theology are brought together by the author and the point of departure for this rapprochement is the univocal concept of being, one cornerstone of Scotism. (...) This is why a book almost entirely devoted to an investigation dwelling on the inner structure of the being of God can have relevance to general ontology.--M. J. V. (shrink)

O presente texto aborda a recepçãocrítica do pensamento aristotélico no Ocidentelatino medieval através da polêmica acerca dasuposta diferença entre intelecto ativo e intelectopassivo defendida por J. Duns Scotus e negadapor G. de Ockham. Inicialmente, evocamos aproblemática do intelecto no tivro HI do DeAnima de Aristóteles e sua recepção na IdadeMédia para, em seguida, explicitar os efeitos detal problemática na discussão entre dois grandespensadores.

John Duns Scotus distinguished the ‘convertible’ transcendentals, from ‘disjunctive’ transcendental pairs The latter are mutually exclusive pairs that together cover all of being. This paper investigates the distinctive modal metaphysical account based on the necessary-contingent pair of disjunctive transcendentals, developed by Scotus in approaching the problem of divine foreknowledge and future contingents. Although Scotus commented several times on this problem, only in his Reportatio did he explicitly add a succinct exposition distinguishing between two kinds of contingency (...) and two kinds of necessity. This double understanding of the necessary-contingent pair is first of all systematically and schematically presented in the paper. Subsequently, instead of continuing with the problem of divine foreknowledge as such, the implications of this Scotist framework for an adequate metaphysical understanding of the human will and its freedom will be drawn out. Finally, these schemes are compared to recent literature on the central role of contingency in Scotus’s thought, especially to the research of A. Vos on synchronic contingency and J. Söder on operative contingency. (shrink)

The paper deals with the reception and modifications of aristotelism in the epistemology, metaphysics and theology of John Duns Scotus. As a consequence of these modifications Scotus became the founder of a new philosophical-theological vocabulary. In the first part of the contribution the history of aristotelism in the Hellenic period is outlined; the second part examines two lines of aristotelism: that developed in the Latin European West on one hand and that of the Greek-Arabic East on the (...) other hand. The reception and modification of aristotelism in the considerations of J. D. Scotus is examined in more detail on the historical-philosophical background in the third part: rational intuition, ontological conception of metaphysics as scientia transcendens, theology as a practical science. In conclusion the author shows how Scotus’s modification of aristotelism influenced the rise of modern science. (shrink)

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)

In this paper, I examine how Scotus and Ockham try to solve the following problem. If different kinds of constituents contribute some difference in kind to the things they constitute, then the divine Father and Son should be different in kind because they are constituted by at least some constituents that are different in kind (namely, fatherhood and sonship). However, if the Father and Son are different in kind, the Son's production will be equivocal, and equivocal products are typically (...) less perfect than their producers. Therefore, the Son must be subordinate to the Father. In response, Scotus argues that different kinds of constituents do not necessarily result in different kinds of things, but Ockham rejects this, arguing instead that although the Father and Son are different in kind, they are still equal in perfection because of their identity with the divine essence. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)