The ontological status of esse cognitum was at the center of complex debates throughout the Scotist tradition (Alnwick vs. Aesculo, Mastri vs. Punch). This article investigates the Scotist Angelo Volpe’s discussion of esse cognitum enjoyed by possible creatures in the divine intellect. Volpe responds to two religious warnings, one against assuming any eternal real being for merely possible creatures, and a second against depriving God’s eternal knowledge of a corresponding object, since that would endanger this knowledge itself. Volpe opts for (...) a solution that allows possible creatures the status of beings of reason (entia rationis) due to their own ontological merit, and the status of real beings (entia realia) due to God’s knowing that they as possibles are not in opposition to real existence. He rejects the view that esse cognitum is a kind of being that holds a middle position between real being and being of reason. Volpe’s historical significance is emphasized. (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.