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Divisibility, Communicability, and Predicability in Duns Scotus's Theories of the Common Nature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2003

RICHARD CROSS
Affiliation:
Oriel College, Oxford University
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Extract

As is well-known, Duns Scotus adopts a moderately realist stance on the being of the common natures of categorial entities—substances and accidents. He believes that such natures have extramental being, such that, though real, each nature—e.g. humanity, redness, and so on—in itself lacks numerical unity. Scotus holds, too, that the divine nature is not like this: it is numerically singular, really the same in each exemplification of it. Scotus thus accepts a version of a more extreme realism in the case of the divine nature. Here, I intend to show how Scotus distinguishes these two cases and, more generally, how he understands them. In addition, my investigation also has ramifications for Scotus's account of individuation.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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