Abstract. This paper examines two views of free will. It looks first at the fourteenth-century religious insights of John Duns Scotus, one of history's seminal thinkers about free will. It then examines what current neuroscience tells us about free will. Finally, it summarizes the past and present views and concludes by answering two questions: Does free will refer to an absence of external constraint, or does it refer to a human ability to decide in an acausal manner?

This article is intended to offer a textual and evaluative presentation of the theory of original sin as elaborated by the Franciscan master John Duns Scotus, the “Subtle Doctor.”While there are many studies and articles about Scotus’ ethics, few are devoted to what is considered the root of evil human behavior, and hardly any analyze the text of the Subtle Doctor in any sufficient depth.1 Perhaps because this topic belongs more strictly to theology, it is seldom (...) considered in depth by philosophers. On the other hand, since Catholic theology after Vatican II has virtually narrowed its treatment of medieval topics and figures to all but Thomas Aquinas, it is rare to find any theologians interested in other... (shrink)

Ward examines Scotus's arguments for his distinctive version of hylomorphism, the view that at least some material objects are composites of matter and form. It considers Scotus's reasons for adopting hylomorphism, and his accounts of how matter and form compose a substance, how extended parts, such as the organs of an organism, compose a substance, and how other sorts of things, such as the four chemical elements and all the things in the world, fail to compose a substance. (...) It highlights the extent to which Scotus draws on his metaphysics of essential order to explain why some things can compose substance and why others cannot. Throughout the book, contemporary versions of hylomorphism are discussed in ways that both illumine Scotus's own views and suggest ways to advance contemporary debates. (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.

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.

ABSTRACTThis paper examines Thomas Aquinas’ and John Duns Scotus’ respective views on the action-passion identity thesis. This thesis, which goes back to Aristotle, states that when an agent causes a change in a patient, then the agent’s causing of the change is identical to the patient’s undergoing of said change. Action and passion are, on this view, one and the same change in the patient, albeit under two distinct descriptions. The first part of the paper considers Aquinas’ (...) defence of this thesis. The second part discusses Scotus’ attack on this thesis. As this paper shows, Scotus argues, against Aquinas and other scholastics, that action and passion are discrete entities inhering in two distinct bearers: action in the agent and passion in the patient. (shrink)

The philosophical writings of Duns Scotus, one of the most influential philosophers of the Later Middle Ages, are here presented in a volume that presents the original Latin with facing page English translation._ CONTENTS: _ Foreword to the Second Edition. Preface. Introduction. Select Bibliography. I. Concerning Metaphysics II. Man’s Natural Knowledge of God III. The Existence of God IV. The Unicity of God V. Concerning Human Knowledge VI. The Spirituality and Immortality of the Human Soul Notes. Index of (...) Proper Names. Index of Subjects. (shrink)

Johannes Duns Scotus (1266-1308) was one of the greatest medieval theologians. He joined the Franciscan order and soon stood out because of his acumen. The ideas he developed about the non-necessity of reality became very influential, also in Reformed theology. The life of Duns Scotus is difficult to reconstruct. This biography provides an overview of the state of research and therefore of the life of Duns in his native Scotland, England, where he was educated, France, (...) where he taught, and Germany, where he died. (shrink)

Born in Bolton on 13 July 1938, the son of a mill-worker, Martin William Doyle was educated at St Joseph's R.C. primary school and then, having obtained an academic scholarship, at Thornleigh Salesian College. He entered the Order of Friars Minor at the age of 16, made his solemn profession the day after his twenty-first birthday and was ordained to the priesthood on 16 July 1961, which required a dispensation in view of his young age. This was followed by studies (...) in Rome at the Athenaeum Antonianum, 1962-64, where Doyle trained as an ecclesiastical historian and where he received his doctorate summa cum laude, obtaining maximum possible marks.Inspired by Vatican Council II Doyle was at the forefront of the renewal... (shrink)

This volume contains 14 studies on various aspects of Duns Scotus' philosophy. Duns Scotus is one of the most important philosophers of the Middle Ages. His radical conception of contingency means a break in the history of thought. Despite his importance, he has not yet been studied very much. The contributors to the volume discuss a.o. Duns' view on will and intellect, on the law of nature, on man, and on aspects of his logic and (...) metaphysics. (shrink)

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

While it is almost always difficult to identify firm relationships between imaginative works of literature and contemporary philosophy, it seems sure that at any particular time literature and philosophy do not float free of each other. There was a particularly solid basis for the connection in the fourteenth century, when philosophical studies were basic in advanced education and major philosopher-theologians like Walter Burley and John Wycliffe were prominent public figures. Yet significant scholarship that relates Chaucer's poetry to the philosophy (...) of the age is quite limited. A major deterrent to scholars has been a misunderstanding of the philosophical temper of England at the time, especially the influence of nominalism. While it is true that William of Ockham , who is generally thought of as the most typical and influential nominalist, taught at Oxford in the early fourteenth century, it is equally a fact that the great Scholastic realist, John Duns Scotus , also lectured at Oxford shortly after 1300, and that it was mainly realism, not nominalism, that held sway in the English schools in the late fourteenth century. The important philosophers whom we associate with the court of Edward III and with Chaucer's sphere of activity were Scholastic realists: Burley, Thomas Bradwardine, Wycliffe, Ralph Strode. Especially in light of the central position of British philosophers in European Scholastic philosophy during the century, and of Chaucer's learning and wide experience, we may assume that he was exposed to current philosophical thought through his training, personal relationships, and the general cultural climate. In all probability the realist position was dominant in what he heard and learned. (shrink)

This paper discusses Scotus’s view of how God knows sins by analyzing texts from his discussions of God’s permission of sin and predestination. I show that Scotus departed from his standard theory of how God knows contingents when explaining how God knows sins. God cannot know sins by knowing a first-order act of his will, as he knows other contingents according to Scotus, since God does not directly will sins. I suggest that Scotus’s recognition that his (...) standard theory of God’s knowledge of contingents could not account for how God knows sins may have contributed to his ultimate rejection of this theory. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Metaphysics Epistemology Ethical theory.

The subject of causality appears in many of the solutions proposed by Duns Scotus on various philosophical problems, such as voluntary act, and theological problems, as the divine dispensation of grace in the sacraments. This paper shows the kinds of causes and causality which are involved in the actual act of intellection. It focuses on the concept of essential order as the source of the different kinds of causal concurrence, and applies this concept to the act of actual (...) intellection, interpreting it according to the idea of unitas ordinis. (shrink)

Even amongst those with only a cursory knowledge of the moral philosophy of John Duns Scotus, the association of Scotus's thought with voluntarism is well known. Next to his much-discussed, highly controversial theory of the univocity of being, Scotus's ethical thought, particularly his interpretation of the role of God's will in dictating moral norms, remains one of the most disputed – and arguably most misunderstood – areas of his philosophical synthesis. As Efrem Bettoni noted many (...) years ago, Scotus's understanding of the relationship between the divine will and the created moral order is one of the 'most badly treated' areas of his thought. Not surprisingly, therefore, no general consensus has emerged... (shrink)

This paper presents Duns Scotus’s theory of mixture in the context of medieval discussions over Aristotle’s theory of mixed bodies. It revisits the accounts of mixture given by Avicenna, Averroes, and Thomas Aquinas, before presenting Scotus’s account as a reaction to Averroes. It argues that Duns Scotus rejected the Aristotelian theory of mixture altogether and that his account went contrary to the entire Latin tradition. Scotus denies that mixts arise out of the four classical (...) elements and he maintains that both the elemental forms and the elemental qualities are lost in the mixture. Consequently, he denies the distinction between the process of mixture and that of substantial change through generation and corruption. The reassessment of Scotus’s account modifies the current historical representation of this discussion, inherited from Anneliese Maier. (shrink)

In this volume, the world's foremost Scotus scholars collaborate to present the latest research on his work.

Among the proofs he gives for the existence of God Scotus makes no mention of the proof from motion. In this he differs from St Thomas, for whom the proof from motion is, apparently, the proof for the existence of God. Why does Scotus omit the proof from motion? Is it, as has been held, because he regarded this proof as simply a special form of the proof from efficient causality? Or is it because he held the proof (...) from motion to be essentially defective? (shrink)

John Duns Scotus is arguably one of the most significant philosopher theologians of the middle ages who has often been overlooked. This book serves to recover his rightful place in the history of Western philosophy revealing that he is in fact one of the great masters of our philosophical heritage. Among the fields to which Scotus has made an immense contribution are logic, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and action, and ethical theory.The Philosophy of John (...) class='Hi'>Duns Scotus provides a formidable yet comprehensive overview of the life and works of this Scottish-born philosopher. Vos has successfully combined his lifetime of dedicated study with the significant body of biographical literature, resulting in a unique look at the life and works of this philosopher theologian. (shrink)

In this much-anticipated work, distinguished authors Mary Beth Ingham and Mechthild Dreyer present an accessible introduction to the philosophy of the thirteenth century Franciscan John Duns Scotus.

In 1277, Stephen Tempier, bishop of Paris, drafted the famous Condemnation of 219 articles in theology and natural philosophy. This Condemnation was a reaction against a group of theologians, led by Siger of Brabant, who were accused of holding that truths of reason could contradict those of revelation. Writing before the Condemnation, which impugned reason's autonomy, Thomas Aquinas critiqued Siger and his followers, and argued that reason could never generate truths that contradict revelation. As a consequence, Aquinas sometimes dwells on (...) reason's limits, terming our knowledge of God 'equivocal' or 'analogical'. Sitting on the other side of the Condemnation, around the turn of the fourteenth century, John Duns Scotus was concerned to secure for reason a portion of its lost dignity. Accordingly, he explores what we can know of God, and lays claim to 'univocal' knowledge of him. Some scholars hold that Scotus's claim to univocal knowledge of God puts him at odds with Aquinas. In this dissertation, I argue that this is not the case, that this apparent discord is largely the result of their different enterprises rather than their basic beliefs about our natural knowledge of God, that Scotus's discussion of univocity is targeted not at Aquinas, but rather at Henry of Ghent---the leading light of the University of Paris at the time that Scotus studied there---and that Scotus does not believe that our knowledge of God is univocal in a strong sense, such that he would claim that it is wholly accurate. Rather, Scotus believes that, in this life, our knowledge of God must comprise abstract concepts that can never do justice to their source. This being the case, he has more in common with Aquinas than some would allow. (shrink)

The distinction between Thomas and Scotus on threefold referral is superficially similar in that both use the same terminology of actual, virtual, and habitual referral. For Scotus, an act is virtually referred to the ultimate end through an agent’s somehow explicitly thinking about the end and some sort of causal connection between the virtually intended act and the actually intended act. For Thomas, someone with charity virtually refers his acts to God as the ultimate end not because the (...) act has been caused by an actually intended act, but because the act is the kind of act that can be referred to God as the ultimate end, and the agent himself is ordered to that end. Similarly, For Scotus a good act might be only habitually referred to God because the agent does not think about him. For Thomas, the fact that someone with charity would only habitually order an act to God can only be explained by a defect in the act. The act lacks a virtual order to God because it is the kind of act which cannot be so ordered. The difference between Scotus and Thomas on this issue expresses a fundamental difference over the relationship between individual acts and the ultimate end. For Thomas, every good act is orderable and this order is made virtual merely by an agent’s possession of charity. The virtual order requires an actually ordered act only to the extent that the possession of charity does. For Scotus, the order requires some sort of additional act by the agent. (shrink)

In this ambitious study, Alexander W. Hall examines the two preeminent figures of the golden age of natural theology: Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus. Hall is not so much concerned with retracing particular proofs of the existence of God and derivations of the divine attributes—well-worn paths in discussions of medieval natural theology—as with investigating the larger philosophical issues that are raised by the project of natural theology, such as the nature of scientia and demonstrative arguments, and (...) accounts of signification and the meaningfulness of theological discourse.Hall's opening chapter offers an overview of natural theology in the High Middle Ages, summarizing the conclusions he will defend at greater length over the course of the book. In chapter 2 Hall relies primarily on Aquinas's commentary on the Posterior Analytics to get clear on his account of scientia, or scientific knowledge. "For Aquinas," Hall writes,"paradigmatic scientia is the result of syllogistic reasoning . . . Syllogisms productive of scientia use either real or nominal definitions as their middle, and thus the conclusion tells us what belongs to the subject through itself or per se". (shrink)

The book is divided into eight chapters, covering various branches of philosophy, beginning with epistemology and proceeding through metaphysics to psychology and ethics. The book’s first chapter prepares the reader for this philosophical overview by sketching the historical and intellectual context in which Duns Scotus lived and worked. In this chapter the authors walk their reader through the maze of the Scotistic corpus acting as skilled guides. Scotus, they explain, has three different commentaries on the Sentences of (...) Peter Lombard: his earliest commentary, referred to as the Lectura; a later, revised commentary, the Ordinatio; and a third, final commentary done in Paris, the Reportatio Parisiensis. Chapter 2 explains Scotus’s foundational doctrine about the univocity of being. Chapter 3 then shows how this univocal concept works in the science of being, that is, metaphysics. The authors next take up the problem of contingency as Scotus conceives of it in the light of necessitarian views of reality. Scotus argues for a radically contingent universe that is dependent on the divine will, yet has a deep basis for the necessity found in its natures in nothing less than divine knowledge. Ingham and Dreyer carefully discuss how Scotus attempts to remain firmly within the realm of metaphysical realism by his teaching that each common nature possesses a real unity that serves as the basis for the mind’s universal concept, even if this unity is less than the numerical unity of the individual. In itself “horseness” is just “horseness” and thus indifferent to being either universalized in the mind or individuated in the concrete horse. In chapters 5 through 7, Ingham and Dreyer provide a balanced reading of the Scotistic ethics by explicating in some detail his notion of the will as the rational potency within the human soul. The final chapter of the book provides a general appreciation of the significance and enduring value of Scotus’s thought. (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)

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)

As even a cursory glance at the available secondary literature on John Duns Scotus reveals, when compared to the thought of other scholastics such as Aquinas and Bonaventure, there exists a notable dearth of introductory and advanced literature on the thought of the Subtle Doctor. Apart from the early studies of C. R. S. Harris and Efrem Bettoni published during the 1920's and 50's, up until the last few decades the English-speaking student has had little material to (...) choose from when seeking to gain a foothold within the Scotist tradition. Coupled with the notable lack of any substantial English translations of Scotus's own works – most notably his Ordinatio, Lectura, and Reportatio Parisiensis –, this dearth of an... (shrink)

This article considers the attempt by a prominent fifteenth-century follower of Thomas Aquinas, Dominic of Flanders, to address John Duns Scotus’ most famous argument for the univocity of being. According to Scotus, the intellect must have a concept of being that is univocal to substantial and accidental being, and to finite and infinite being, on the grounds that an intellect cannot be both certain and doubtful through the same concept, but an intellect can be certain that (...) something is a being while doubting whether it is a substance or accident, finite or infinite. The article shows how Flandrensis’ reply in defence of analogy of being hinges on a more fundamental disagreement with Scotus over the division of the logically one. It also shows how Flandrensis’ answer to this question commits him to a position on the unity of the concept of being that lies between the positions of Scotus and of Flandrensis’ earlier Thomistic sources. (shrink)

Heidegger accuses ontotheologies of reducing God to a mere object of intelligibility, and thereby falsifying them, and in doing so distracting attention from or forgetting the ground of Being as unconcealment in the Lichtung. Conventional theistic responses to Heidegger’s ontotheological challenges proceed by offering analogy, speech-act theorising or negative theology as solutions. Yet these conventional solutions, however suitable as responses to Heidegger’s Die ontotheologische Verfassung der Metaphysik version of the ontotheological problem, still fall foul of Heidegger’s more profound characterisation of (...) ontotheology in his treatise Seinsgeschichtliche Bestimmung des Nihilismus. Therein Heidegger characterises ontotheology as a metaphysics that posits a first-causal ground of Being combining together an essentia and an existentia. This article presents an alternative family of metaphysical schemes that instead develop their metaphysical ‘theology’ in a non-naive epistemological context, and indeed maintain that God cannot be cognised by us because we cannot reconcile the whatness and the that-ness of God in one coherent thought. God is thus unintelligible, and though able to be signified, cannot be reduced thereby to an object of cognition, and is not posited at the expense of considering the ground of Being as the encounter in Lichtung with Being. The two examples of such disrupted cognition accounts of a non-ontheological metaphysics are from the medieval Franciscan John Duns Scotus and the British Idealist Francis Herbert Bradley. The paper ends with a discussion of the characteristic ‘disrupted cognition’ as a movement between two concepts that are unreconcilable within thought, without being contradictories or contraries, and explores the differences between theological and philosophical employments of ‘disrupted cognition’. (shrink)

In this article, I consider Duns Scotus’s treatment of accidents existing without substances (= homeless accidents) in the Eucharist to shed light on how he thinks Aristotle’s metaphysics should be modified to make room for miracles. In my reconstruction, Duns Scotus makes two changes to Aristotle’s metaphysics. First, he distinguishes a given thing’s natural inclinations (its “aptitudes”) from the manifestations of those inclinations. Second, he argues that it is up to God’s free decisions (organized in systematic (...) policies) whether a thing’s aptitudes manifest or do not manifest themselves in any given situation. In this way, Duns Scotus tries to find a point of equilibrium between the necessary causal order he attributes to Aristotle and his followers on the one hand, and God’s freedom to break the natural order at any moment on the other hand. (shrink)

There are two general routes that Augustine suggests in De Trinitate, XV, 14-16, 23-25, for a psychological account of the Father's intellectual generation of the Word. Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent, in their own ways, follow the first route; John Duns Scotus follows the second. Aquinas, Henry, and Scotus's psychological accounts entail different theological opinions. For example, Aquinas (but neither Henry nor Scotus) thinks that the Father needs the Word to know the divine essence. (...) If we compare the theological views entailed by their psychologies we find a trajectory from Aquinas, through Henry, and ending with Scotus. This theological trajectory falsifies a judgment that every Augustinian psychology of the divine persons amounts to a pre-Nicene functional Trinitarianism. This study makes clear how one's awareness of the theological views entailed by these psychologies enables one to assess more thoroughly psychological accounts of the identity and distinction of the divine persons. (shrink)

Drawing on modern responses to Scotus made by Heidegger, Peirce, Arendt, Leibniz, Hume, Reid, Derrida and Deleuze, John Llewelyn explores Scotus' influence on 19th-century poet and philosopher Gerard Manley Hopkins.