Abstract

The work provides a safe edition of Duns Scotus' Quaestiones quodlibetales qq. 16, 17, and 18, together with a commentary that develops Scotus' mature teaching on the will. The intent here is to present a textually accurate and philosophically significant sketch of the Subtle Doctor's quodlibetal teaching on the will. ;To insure a reliable text, an edition of the three questions is generated from three manuscripts judged by the Scotus Commission to be sufficient for the purpose: Munich Staatsbibliothek Clm 8717 , Clm 26309 , and Worcester Cathedral F. 60 . ;The commentary consists of five chapters. The chief task of the first three chapters is to so understand the will that its freedom is compatible with the necessary volition of God's self-love and trinitarian spiration, and the source of the radical contingency in God's love of others and the love of finite agents for any object. In developing the ontology of the will, reference is made to Scotus' Questions on the Metaphysics Book. IX, Q. 15 and Ordinatio I, DD. 38 - 39. ;The teaching on the will's self-mastery, established in the prior chapters, is further emphasized in the fourth. The heart of 0.17 concerns the role of grace and its bearing on the will's freedom and self-determination. Scotus is found to affirm freedom unequivocally denying legitimate play to grace and charity. ;Chapter V casts the issue of free will into the context of moral goodness and right reason. The specific task is to discover the foundation in the will for the imputability of its acts. The interpretation concludes that intrinsic to the will's freedom is the will's innate inclination to justice. ;The net results of the study are a fresh appreciation of the unity of theme in Quodlibet QQ. 16 - 18, provision of a safe edition of the text, and a presentation of Scotus' ontology of the will, taken in its systematic breadth and placed in the lively context of the 14th century quodlibet