Ockham, is one of the four great philosophers of High Scholasticism.
His work is encyclopedic in scope, yet so detailed and nuanced that he
earned the epithet "Subtle Doctor," and no less a thinker than Ockham
would praise his judgment as excelling all others in its subtlety. In
opposition to the prevailing thought in metaphysics that the term
"being" is analogical, Scotus argues that it must be a univocal term,
a view others had feared would bring an end to metaphysics and natural
theology. Scotus's novel account of universals and individuation
gained a wide following and inspired brilliant counterarguments by
Ockham and Thomist opponents. Despite its flaws, his argument for
God's existence, perhaps the most complicated of any ever written, is
a philosophical tour de force. Scotus's distinction between intuitive
and abstractive cognition structured much of the discussion of
cognition for the rest of the scholastic period. In opposition to such
thinkers as Aquinas and Godfrey of Fontaines, Scotus defends a
moderate voluntarism in his account of free will, a view that would be
influential into the modern period.
1. Life and Works
a. Life
No one knows precisely when John Duns was born, but we are fairly
certain he came from the eponymous town of Duns near the Scottish
border with England. He, like many other of his compatriots, was
called "Scotus," or "the Scot," from the country of his birth. He was
ordained a priest on 17 March 1291. Because his bishop had just
ordained another group at the end of 1290, we can place Scotus's birth
in the first quarter of 1266, if he was ordained as early as canon law
permitted. When he was a boy he joined the Franciscans, who sent him
to study at Oxford, probably in 1288. He was still at Oxford in 1300,
for he took part in a disputation there at some point in 1300 or 1301,
once he had finished lecturing on the Sentences. Moreover, when the
English provincial presented 22 names to Bishop Dalderby on 26 July
1300 for licenses to hear confessions at Oxford, Scotus's was among
them. He probably completed his Oxford studies in 1301. He was not,
however, incepted as a master at Oxford, for his provincial sent him
to the more prestigious University of Paris, where he would lecture on
the Sentences a second time.
The longstanding rift between Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip the
Fair of France would soon shake the University of Paris and interrupt
Scotus's studies. In June of 1301, Philip's emissaries examined each
Franciscan at the Parisian convent, separating the royalists from the
papists. Supporters of the Pope, a slight majority that included
Scotus, were given three days to leave France. Scotus returned to
Paris by the fall of 1304, after Boniface had died and the new Pope,
Benedict XI, had made his peace with Philip. We are not sure where
Scotus spent his exile, but it seems probable that he returned to work
at Oxford. Scotus also lectured at Cambridge some time after he
completed his studies at Oxford, but scholars are uncertain about
exactly when.
Scotus completed his Parisian studies and was incepted as a master,
probably in early 1305. As regent master, he held a set of quodlibetal
questions (his only set) within two years of his inception. His order
transferred him to the Franciscan house of studies at Cologne, where
we know he served as lector in 1307. He died the next year; the date
traditionally given is 8 November. Pope John Paul II proclaimed his
beatification in 1993.
b. Works
Scholars have made considerable progress in determining which of the
works attributed to Scotus are genuine. Moreover, many key texts now
exist in critical editions: the philosophical works in the St.
Bonaventure edition, and the theological works in the Vatican edition.
However, others have not yet been edited critically. The Wadding Opera
omnia is not a critical edition, and the reliability of the texts
varies considerably. Despite its title, Wadding's Opera omnia does not
contain quite all of Scotus's works. Most importantly, what Wadding
includes as the Paris Reportatio on Book 1 of the Sentences is
actually Book 1 of the Additiones magnae, William of Alnwick's
compilation of Scotus's thought based largely but not exclusively on
his Parisian teaching. The Parisian Reportatio exists in several
versions, but most of it only in manuscript. Scholars are still
uncertain about the exact chronology of the works.
Early in his career, Scotus wrote a number of logical works: questions
on Porphyry's Isagoge and on Aristotle's Categories, On
Interpretation, and Sophistical Refutations. His Oxford lectures on
the Sentences are recorded in his Lectura, and his disputations at
Oxford are recorded in the first set of his Collations. Scotus
probably began his Questions on the Metaphysics in the early stages of
his career as well, but recent scholarship suggests that Scotus
composed parts of this work, in particular on Books VII-IX, after he
left England for Paris, and perhaps late in his career. Scotus also
wrote an Expositio on Aristotle's Metaphysics and a set of questions
on Aristotle's On the Soul, but more study is needed to determine
their relationship with the rest of Scotus's corpus.
While still at Oxford, Scotus began reworking the Lectura into his
Ordinatio, a fuller, more sophisticated commentary on the Sentences.
At some point, probably after writing Book 1 d.5, Scotus departed for
Paris, where he continued his work on the Ordinatio, incorporating
into later sections material from his Parisian lectures on the
Sentences. These Parisian lectures exist only in various versions of
student reports, and so are called the Reportatio Parisiensis.
Scotus's early disputations at Paris are recorded in the second set of
his Collations. After his inception as master, he held one set of
Quodlibetal Questions. Scotus's Logica, which Wadding's edition
mistakenly includes as Question 1 of Quaestiones miscellaneae de
formalitatibus (although Scotus wrote no such work), is a brief but
important investigation of what follows from the claim that a and b
are not formally identical, and supplements discussions of the formal
distinction in the Reportatio and the Ordinatio. Scotus composed his
famous treatise De primo principio late in his career. While it
cannibalizes large chunks of the Ordinatio, it is nevertheless
Scotus's most mature treatment of the central claims of natural
theology. Scholars are still uncertain whether one further work, the
Theoremata, is genuine.
Scotus died just a few years after his inception, leaving behind a
mass of works he had intended to complete or polish for publication.
Nevertheless, he soon exercised as great an influence as any other
thinker from the High Scholastic Period, including Bonaventure and
Aquinas. Despite fierce opposition from many quarters, and in
particular from Scotus's admiring confrere William Ockham, the Scotist
school flourished well into the seventeenth century, where his
influence can be seen in such writers as Descartes and Bramhall.
Interest in Scotus's philosophy dwindled in the eighteenth century,
and when nineteenth century philosophers and theologians again grew
interested in scholastic thought, they generally turned to Aquinas and
his followers, not to Scotus. However, the Franciscans continuously
attested to Scotus's importance, and in the twentieth century their
efforts sparked a revival of interest in Scotus, which has engendered
many studies of high quality as well as a critical edition of Scotus's
writing, eleven volumes of which are now in print. It remains to be
seen whether Scotus's thought will have as great an impact on
contemporary philosophy as Aquinas's or Anselm's.
2. The Subject of Metaphysics
The medieval debate over the subject matter of metaphysics stems from
various proposals in Aristotle's Metaphysics. These include being qua
being (Met. 4.1), God (Met. 6.1), and substance (Met. 7.1). The
Islamic philosophers Avicenna and Averroes, powerful influences on
Christian scholastic philosophy, are divided on the issue. Avicenna
rejects the contention that God is the subject of metaphysics on the
grounds that no science can establish the existence of its own
subject, while metaphysics can demonstrate God's existence. He argues
instead that the subject of metaphysics is being qua being. We have a
common notion of being applicable to God, substances, and accidents,
and this notion makes possible a science of being qua being that
includes God and separated substances as well as material substances
and accidents. In his rejoinder to Avicenna, Averroes holds that the
view that metaphysics studies being qua being amounts to the view that
metaphysics studies substance and, in particular, separated substances
and God. Because it is physics, and not the nobler discipline of
metaphysics that establishes God's existence, there is no bar to
holding that God is the subject of metaphysics. Scotus maintains with
Avicenna that metaphysics studies being qua being. Of course, among
beings, God is preeminent: He is the only perfect being, the being on
which all others depend. These facts explain why God occupies the most
important place in metaphysics. However, what makes God a proper
subject for metaphysics is not that he is God, but that he is a being.
Metaphysics also includes the study of the transcendentals, which
"transcend" the Aristotelian scheme of the categories. The
transcendentals include being, the proper attributes of being ("one,"
"true," and "good" are transcendental terms, because they are
coextensive with "being," each signifying one of being's proper
attributes), and what is signified by disjunctions that are
coextensive with "being," such as "finite or infinite" and "necessary
or contingent." However, anything capable of real existence also falls
under the heading of "being qua being" and so may be studied in
metaphysics.
3. Distinctions
On Scotus's view, in order to have an accurate grasp of the structure
of created reality and the nature of God, and in order to answer such
questions as what individuates substances or how a God with multiple
attributes can still be simple, we must first have a clear
understanding of the various sorts of identity and distinction that
hold among items. What follows is a brief taxonomy of four key sorts
of identity and distinction, with particular emphasis on formal
identity and distinction, earmarks of Scotistic philosophy. For
simplicity's sake, I will speak below only of distinction and not
identity.
1. A real distinction holds between two individuals, x and y, if and
only if it is logically possible either for x to exist without y or
for y to exist without x. For example, Ricky the cat and Beulah the
cow are really distinct, as are your hand and your foot, and a
substance and its accident such as Socrates and his paleness. In these
examples, either x or y in each pair can exist without the other. Even
the paleness can exist without Socrates, although only by divine
power. However, God and any creature are really distinct, and while
God can exist without any creature, no creature can exist without God.
Hence for real distinction it is not necessary that both items in the
pair be able to exist without the other.
2. A conceptual distinction results from intellectual activity and
does not mark any distinction in the thing itself. Rather, our
intellects create distinct conceptions of what is really the same. For
instance, to adapt Frege's famous example, our concept of the Morning
Star is distinct from our concept of the Evening Star, and yet the
Morning Star and Evening Star are really one and the same thing: the
planet Venus.
3. Scotus recognizes the need for a distinction that lies between the
real and the conceptual distinction, a distinction that has a
foundation in reality and so is mind-independent and yet does not
imply real separability. For example, the will and the intellect are
really the same, for each is really identical with and inseparable
from the soul. However, the will is a free power and the intellect is
not, and this is not simply a matter of the way we conceive them. Some
sort of less than real but more than conceptual distinction is needed
to capture this fact. Scotus calls this sort of distinction the formal
distinction. What are distinguished in this case are not things (res)
but what Scotus calls "formalities" or "realities" or "entities" in
one and the same thing. According to Scotus, x and y are formally
distinct if and only if (a) x and y are really the same and (b) x has
a different ratio (account or character) than y, and (c) neither ratio
overlaps the other. So, although the will and the intellect are really
identical, their accounts differ and are mutually non-inclusive, and
so they are formally distinct. Likewise, there is a formal distinction
between the common nature and the individuator, between a genus and
specific difference, between the divine attributes, and between each
Person of the Trinity and the Divine Essence.
Scholars are widely agreed that in his early work, at least in the
Lectura, when Scotus speaks of distinct formalities in a single thing,
he means to identify items that are ontologically robust enough to
serve as property bearers. Hence, Scotus can explain a single thing's
having even contradictory properties F and not-F without running afoul
of the Principle of Non-Contradiction by contending that the bearer of
F is a distinct formality from the bearer of not-F, although the two
formalities are really identical. For instance, human nature is common
both in itself and in reality, while the individuator that contracts
that common nature into Socrates is individual of itself, even though
in Socrates the common nature and the individuator are really the
same.
In some of his Parisian works, such as the Reportatio (notably 1 d.33)
and Logica, Scotus appears to grow more ontologically parsimonious,
holding that formal non-identity or distinction within a single thing
does not imply absolutely distinct formalities in that thing. Gelber
[1974] and Adams [1976] suggest that Scotus changes his mind in
response to criticisms his teaching on the formal distinction may have
sustained at Paris. Scotus's mediaeval critics, writing after his
death, warned that his account would ruin the doctrine of divine
simplicity if indeed it posited a plurality of formalities in God.
However, it is hard to tell whether Scotus did in fact change his
mind. Both the Reportatio and the Logica maintain that if x and y are
formally distinct, that implies that they are not absolutely but only
qualifiedly distinct, for they have only a diminished sort of
distinction. It is hard to tell from what Scotus writes, however,
whether this diminished distinction is sufficient for allowing
qualifiedly distinct formalities to bear properties. There is also
some evidence that Scotus raises the same ontological cautions about
formalities in his Oxford writings (see the admittedly ambiguous
Ordinatio 1 d.2 p.2 q.1-4 nn.404-8), independently of any Parisian
criticism targeted at his work.
4. Scotus recognizes yet another sort of extramental distinction, one
that applies to such items as the color red, which can be deeper or
paler, courage, which can be stronger or weaker, and being, which can
be finite or infinite. These items vary in the degree, quantity, or
intensity of their perfection, that is, in their intrinsic mode.
Scotus calls the distinction between such an item and its intrinsic
mode a modal distinction, explaining its difference from the formal
distinction by contrasting intrinsic modes with differentiae. Each
differentia contracting the genus virtue (for instance) into its
various species has a different formal character from its genus.
However, variations in the depth of one's courage do not create new
species any more than do variations in the intensity of red, in the
strength of one's desire, or in degree of being. Pale red and deep red
share the same formal character, as do slight and powerful desires for
the same object; they differ only in the degree or intensity with
which they exhibit this character. The modal distinction, then, is an
even lesser one than the formal distinction.
4. Universals
Medieval philosophers rely heavily on ontological classificatory
systems—in particular, systems inspired by Aristotle's Categories—to
show key relations among created beings and to afford us scientific
knowledge of them. The individuals Socrates and Plato belong to the
species human being, which in turn belongs to the genus animal.
Donkeys likewise belong to the genus animal, but the difference
rational divides humans from other animals. The genus animal, along
with other genera such as plant, belongs to the category of substance.
That much is uncontroversial. What mediaeval philosophers debate,
however, is the ontological status of these genera and species. Do
they exist in extramental reality, or are they merely concepts? If
they do have extramental existence, what sort of existence is it? Are
genera and species constituents of individuals, or are they separated
from individuals? It is with these questions in mind that Scotus
articulates his account of common natures. In short, he will argue
that common natures such as humanity and animality really exist
(although they have a "lesser" existence than individuals), that they
are common both in themselves and in reality, and that they combine
with individuators, which "contract" them.
The chief obstacle to accepting Scotus's account of common natures is
that his view requires us to accept that there are realites—genera and
species—that have a less than numerical unity. Accordingly, Scotus
offers a battery of arguments for the conclusion that not all real
unity is numerical unity. In one of the stronger arguments, Scotus
contends that if all real unity were numerical unity, then all real
diversity would likewise be numerical diversity. However, any two
numerically diverse things are, as such, equally diverse. In that
case, Socrates would be just as diverse from Plato as he is from a
line. Our intellects could not, then, abstract anything common from
Socrates and Plato. In that case, when we apply the universal concept
human being to the two of them, we would apply a mere fiction of our
intellects. These absurd consequences show that numerical diversity is
not the only sort, and since numerical diversity is the greatest
diversity, there must be a real but less than numerical diversity and
a real but less than numerical unity corresponding to it. Another
argument holds that even if there were no intellects to cognize it,
fire would still generate fire. The generating fire and the generated
fire would have real unity of form, the sort of unity that would make
this a case of univocal causation. The two instances of fire, then,
have a mind-independent common nature with a less than numerical
unity.
Although common natures are not in themselves individuals, since their
proper unity is less than numerical, they are not in themselves
universals, either. Following Aristotle, Scotus holds that what is
universal is what is one in many and said of many. As Scotus
understands this account, a universal F must have the indifference to
be predicable in a first mode predication statement of individual Fs
in such a way that the universal and each particular are identical. As
Cross points out [2002], the sort of identity at work here is
representational: The universal F represents each individual F equally
well. Scotus contends that no common nature can be universal in this
way. True, a common nature has a certain sort of indifference: It is
not incompatible with any common nature that it be contracted by some
individuator other than the one that does in fact contract it.
However, with the exception of the Divine Essence, which is predicable
of each Divine Person, only a concept has the indifference to be
predicable in the way a universal is predicable.
Although Scotus originates this distinction between universals and
common natures, he finds his inspiration for it in Avicenna's famous
assertion that "horseness is just horseness." As Scotus understands
this claim, common natures are indifferent to individuality or
universality. Although they cannot actually exist except as
individuated or as universal, they are not individuated or universal
of themselves. For this reason Scotus characterizes universality and
individuality as accidental to the common nature and, therefore, as
needing a cause. It is the intellect that causes the common nature to
be universal by conceptualizing it under the mode of universality,
that is, in such a way that numerically one concept is predicable of a
plurality of individuals.
This account of really existing common natures that bear a certain
priority over individuals might suggest that Scotus is reworking a
Platonic theory of Forms. However, Scotus distances his own account
from Plato's. For one thing, Plato holds that the Forms are the
highest realities, while the particular things that participate them
are lesser realities. Although Scotus admits that common natures
really exist—they have their own being (esse)—because they have a less
than numerical unity, they have a correspondingly diminished being.
Individuals, in contrast, have numerical unity, and so their being is
not diminished: The individual Socrates has more being than the common
nature humanity instantiated in him. Furthermore, Plato maintains that
the Forms exist independently of the individuals that participate them
and of the minds that think them. On Scotus's view, common natures
exist only as constituents of individuals in extramental reality or as
concepts in the mind. It is true that among the constituents of an
individual, the common nature has a certain natural priority over the
individuator: The nature is common not only of itself, but even in
reality. Even when it forms a composition with an individuator, there
is nothing incompatible about its forming a composition with a
different individuator. However, this natural priority does not imply
that the common nature can exist independently of its individuator,
and so Scotus is correct to distinguish his account from Plato's.
Although Scotus's important disciple Francis of Meyronnes took pains
to liken Scotus's views to Plato's, he did so largely by interpreting
Plato as a Scotist, not by interpreting Scotus as a Platonist.
5. Individuation
Humanity is a common nature instantiated in both Socrates and Plato.
Socrates and Plato, in contrast, are not instantiated in anything
further. Scotus calls them "individuals" and "singulars" because they
cannot be divided or instantiated the way humanity is. To put the
matter another way, Socrates and Plato cannot be divided into
subjective parts. What explains their individuality, however, is a
matter of vibrant controversy among scholastic philosophers, and
Scotus comes to his own influential answer to the question by
investigating the merits and flaws of his predecessors' answers.
Many of these predecessors, such as Aquinas, explain the individuation
of material and immaterial substances differently. Accordingly, Scotus
begins with a critical refutation of their views on the individuation
of material substances and follows this with an account of
individuation, applicable to both material and immaterial creatures,
that avoids the criticisms plaguing these other views. His first move
is to argue that material substance is not individual on the basis of
its nature. As we've seen (see Section 4), such natures as humanity
and assinity are common and have a less than numerical unity, so there
must be something besides the nature that explains the individuality
of Socrates or Brownie the donkey.
That explanation, according to Henry of Ghent, Scotus's favorite foil,
is a double negation. The first negation is vertical, so to speak. If
the item has no subjective parts, that is, if there is nothing further
into which it can be divided in the ways that animal and human being
are divisible in this Porphyrian tree
scotus-01
then the condition of vertical negation is satisfied. The second
negation is horizontal: The item is non-identical with anything
"beside" it in the same species. Because Plato and Socrates satisfy
both of these conditions, they are individuals.
Scotus objects that Henry's account is, at best, incomplete. It is
true that negations can be explanatory in some cases. Pierre's absence
from the café explains why I do not see him when I arrive there, for
instance. However, in the case at issue, resolving the problem
requires accounting for a thing's formal incompatibility with
instantiation (having subjective parts), and only a positive feature
can explain a formal incompatibility. Moreover, appealing to a double
negation only moves the question at issue one stage back. If a
material individual cannot be further instantiated because of the
double negation, we will still not have a full answer until we
discover what explains why it has this double negation, and an answer
to that question must appeal to something positive.
The most common scholastic views, espoused by such influential
thinkers as Thomas Aquinas, Giles of Rome, and Godfrey of Fontaines,
do explain the individuation of substances by appeal to something
positive, such as actual existence, quantity, or matter. Scotus heaps
arguments against each of these views, but here I will recount one
argument aimed equally against all three of these candidates.
Because substance is naturally prior to accident, what explains a
thing's being in any hierarchical substantial ordering must itself be
in the category of substance. For instance, Plato is an individual in
the species human, in the genus animal. No accident can explain any of
these features. The addition of accidents to the species human, for
instance, would not produce any individual human, but just an
accidental union of the substance human being and those accidents.
Scotus lodges largely the same criticism against the view that actual
existence individuates, since actual existence too is extrinsic to any
creature's nature and, therefore, accidental to it. Finally, although
matter counts as substance and not accident, Scotus' predecessors
argued that it is not matter per se, but matter marked by quantity
that individuates, and so Scotus understands the theory that matter
individuates as likewise holding that an accident, at least partly,
explains the individuation of substance.
The critical discussion of his predecessors leads Scotus to conclude
that what explains a substance's individuation must be something
positive and intrinsic to what it individuates. Moreover, it cannot be
something common, since what is common can exist in something other
than what it in fact exists in, while what explains individuation
cannot. Finally, it must fall into the category of substance, since
when the individuator is added, the substance is complete. It is the
final element in a substance's metaphysical make-up. Scotus often
draws a useful analogy between the individuator and the specific
difference. The specific difference rational cannot be divided, and so
when it combines with the genus animal to constitute the species human
being, the species is indivisible into further species. Likewise,
Socrates's individuator combines with the common nature human to
constitute the individual Socrates, who cannot be instantiated. The
individuator adds nothing further to his essence, which his common
nature fully contains: While it makes him Socrates, it does not make
him human. Although Scotus's account of this individuator appears to
remain constant in his many writings, what he calls it varies across
works and even within single works. He frequently speaks of it as "the
individual entity," but also as "the individual form" and as "the
haecceity." Perhaps because of its use by C.S. Pierce, this last term
has become dominant in contemporary discussions of Scotus on
individuation.
6. The Argument for God's Existence
Although God is not the object of metaphysics, he is nevertheless its
goal: Proving the existence and nature of God is what metaphysics aims
at. Scotus offers several versions of his proof of God's existence,
all sufficiently similar in language, structure, and strategy to be
discussed together. The summary below will not do justice to this
argument, perhaps the most complex in all scholastic philosophy. In
what follows, the argument's structure is broadly sketched and some
details are furnished of its most important and distinctive
subordinate arguments.
Scotus's argument unfolds in four stages:
A. There is (1) a first efficient cause, (2) a preeminent being,
(3) a first final cause.
B. Only one nature is first in these three ways.
C. A nature that is first in any of these ways is infinite.
D. There is only one infinite being.
Scotus's argument begins in a distinctive way. At stage A, he
incorporates various strategies his predecessors used for proving
God's existence into a stage of his single proof: (1) There is a first
efficient cause that produced all else but is itself unproduced; (2)
there is a preeminent being, one whose nature surpasses all others;
and (3) there is a first final cause or ultimate end. At stage B,
Scotus argues that a being that has any one of these three primacies
will have the other two as well. At stage C, he proves that a being
with any of these primacies is intensively infinite. Finally, at D he
concludes that there cannot be more than one being with this triple
primacy. Since Christianity identifies God as the creator of all but
himself, as the being whose causal powers sustain the universe, as the
preeminent nature who is infinitely good, wise, and powerful, and as
the ultimate end of all things, Scotus identifies the unique being
whose existence he takes himself to have proved as the Christian God.
Much of the argument's interest lies in the subordinate arguments for
A1, partly because they serve as the foundation for the rest of the
proof, and partly because of their intrinsic philosophical interest.
Relying on the common scholastic assumptions that (a) no being can
produce itself, (b) there cannot be a circle of productive causes, and
(c) every production has some cause, Scotus argues as follows:
Argument I: The Non-Modal Argument for a First Efficient Cause
1. Some being x is produced.
Therefore,
2. x is produced by some other being y.
3. Either y is an unproduced, first producer or is a posterior producer.
4. A series of produced producers cannot proceed interminably.
5. Therefore,
the series stops at an unproduced producer, a first efficient
cause that produces independently.
Thus far, Scotus's argument is typical of those found in scholastic
philosophy. However, as he recognizes, philosophers such as Aristotle
think that infinite causal series are possible, and so premise (4)
appears to beg the question. Scotus's defense of this vulnerable
premise brings a clarity and articulateness to the discussion of
infinite causal regression that his predecessors never could muster.
Scotus concedes that there can indeed be an infinite accidentally
ordered series of produced producers, but there cannot be an infinite
essentially ordered series of produced producers, and this latter is
all he needs to establish to reach his conclusion. In an accidentally
ordered series of causes, in which A causes B and B causes C, B
depends on A to bring it into existence, but it does not depend on A
in order to be the cause of C. For instance, even if Ricky the cat
depended on Furry to sire him, Ricky may now sire kittens himself
without any causal contribution from Furry. When philosophers admitted
the possibility of infinite causal regresses, it is only accidentally
ordered series they had in mind. On the other hand, in an essentially
ordered series of causes, B depends on A in order to be the cause of
C. For instance, on the mediaeval science that Scotus accepts, a human
being depends on the sun's causal activity to generate another human.
From this key difference between accidentally and essentially ordered
causal series, two further differences follow. In an accidentally
ordered series, A need not act (or even exist) simultaneously with B
in order for B to cause C. Furry may be long dead, and yet his son
Ricky can sire kittens. In an essentially ordered series, however, A
must exist and act at the very time B produces C. Secondly, in an
accidentally ordered series, the causes may be of the same nature
(ratio) and order (ordo), while in an essentially ordered series the
causes belong to a different nature and order. After all, cause A does
not simply bring B into existence, as Furry does Ricky; nor does it
make a partial causal contribution, the way Brownie the donkey does
when he is hitched to a wagon together with Eeyore. Cause A's current
causal contribution is what explains the fact that B is capable of
causing C. However, being of a different nature and order does not
imply that A is a higher sort of being than B. Because he is alive,
Ricky the cat is a higher nature than the inanimate sun, even if the
sun, as a more universal cause, belongs to a different order.
Scotus offers several arguments for the conclusion that there must be
a first efficient cause of an essentially ordered series, all of them
problematic. In one, he argues as follows:
Argument II
1. If there were an infinite series of essentially ordered causes,
the totality of things effected would depend on some prior cause.
2. Nothing can be an essentially ordered cause of itself.
3. If this prior cause were part of the totality of things
effected, it would be an essentially ordered cause of itself.
Therefore,
4. Even if there were an infinite series of essentially ordered
causes, the totality of things effected would be effected by a cause
outside the totality.
This argument does not purport to establish that an infinite series of
essentially ordered causes is impossible, but rather that even if
there were such a series, there must be a first efficient cause of
that series that lies outside the series. However, without further
assumptions, the argument does not quite reach its goal: It concludes
not that there is a first efficient cause, but only that there is an
efficient cause prior to this totality.
Scotus's most original argument is the following:
Argument III
1. Being possessed of efficient causal power does not necessarily
imply imperfection.
Therefore,
2. It is possible that something possesses efficient causal power
without imperfection.
However,
3. If nothing possesses efficient causal power without dependence
on something prior, then nothing has efficient causal power without
imperfection.
Therefore,
4. It is possible that some nature possesses independent efficient
causal power.
5. A nature that possesses independent efficient causal power is
absolutely first.
Therefore,
6. It is possible that there be an absolutely first efficient causal power.
Like goodness and wisdom, efficient causal power is a pure perfection,
and so it is possible for something to have efficient causal power
without imperfection. Because dependence is an imperfection, it is
possible for something to have independent causal power. This being
would not be a link in an essentially ordered series of causes, but
would stand at the head of the series as absolutely first. At this
stage, however, Scotus has established only the possibility of an
absolutely first efficient causal power. That is because he will use
this conclusion as the key premise in another version of his argument
for God's existence, in which he will try to demonstrate that an
absolutely first efficient causal power actually exists.
Argument IV: The Modal Version
In another objection to what he has written so far, Scotus notes that
his argument for a first efficient cause, even if sound, does not
count as a genuine demonstration because its premises are merely
contingent, even if they are evident. If an argument is to lead us to
scientia, the highest form of knowledge, it must be demonstrative: It
must contain necessary premises leading to a necessary conclusion. In
reply, Scotus offers a reformulated modal argument constructed with
necessarily true premises. Scotus reworks his entire non-modal
argument for a first efficient cause, but he also notes that we may
begin with the conclusion of Argument III:
6. It is possible that there be an absolutely first efficient causal power.
7. If a being A cannot exist from another, then if it is possible
that A exist, A exists independently.
8. An absolutely first efficient cause cannot exist from another.
Therefore,
9. An absolutely first efficient cause exists independently.
If an absolutely first efficient cause did not in fact exist, there
would be no real possibility of its existing. After all, since it is
absolutely first, it is impossible for it to depend on any other
cause. Because there is a real possibility of its existing, it follows
that it exists of itself.
7. Univocity, Metaphysics, and Natural Theology
a. Background
Once he opts for the view that being qua being is the subject of
metaphysics, Scotus argues further that the concept of being must
apply univocally to anything studied by metaphysics. If the concept of
being applied only equivocally to a group of objects, it would not
have the unity necessary to serve as the subject of a single science.
It does not help to follow the lead of Aquinas or Henry of Ghent and
argue that the concept of being applies to the objects of metaphysics
analogously, because in Scotus's view, analogy is just a form of
equivocity. If the concept of being applies to metaphysics' diverse
objects by analogy, in that case too metaphysics cannot be a unified
science.
Scotus offers two conditions for a concept's being univocal: (1)
affirming and denying it of one and the same subject is sufficient for
a contradiction, and (2) it can serve as the middle term of a
syllogism. For example, we can say without contradiction that Karen's
sitting on the jury was voluntary (because she willed to go to court
rather than to be fined) and that her sitting on the jury was not
voluntary (because she felt pressured into service). In this case, we
do not reach a contradiction because the concept voluntary is
equivocal. Likewise, the syllogism
No inanimate objects are unfriendly.
Some photocopiers are unfriendly.
Therefore, Some photocopiers are animate.
reaches an absurd conclusion because the term "unfriendly" is used
equivocally: While it is used literally in the first premise, it is
used in a figure of speech in the second.
b. Problems Arising from Analogy and Equivocity
Scotus finds that unless the concept of being is univocal, both
philosophy and natural theology come to ruin, a startling claim in
light of the fact that the prevailing mediaeval view up to that time
was that philosophy and theology would come to ruin if the concept of
being was univocal. Mediaeval philosophers before Scotus commonly
thought that the concept of being must be not univocal or equivocal,
but analogical: While it is not a pure accident that it applies to
such diverse items as donkeys (substances) and dispositions
(stubbornness), as well as to both creatures and God, it nevertheless
does not apply to these diverse items in the same way. If it did, then
being would be a genus, and the various Aristotelian categories would
not be fundamentally diverse, but just different species of a single
genus. Aristotelian ontology, the foundation of mediaeval philosophy
since Alcuin, would have to be scrapped and a new ontology developed
to replace it.
The consequences for natural theology would be even direr. Without a
univocal concept of being, it would be impossible to construct an a
posteriori argument for God's existence, one that took as its premises
facts about the existence of finite creatures. Moreover, unless other
concepts besides that of being are univocally applicable to God and
creatures, then the sort of philosophical theology exemplified by
Anselm and the scholastic thinkers who followed him, meant not just to
establish God's existence but to elucidate his nature, would be
impossible. Their universal practice is to discover God's nature—what
God is like in himself—by determining which perfections are pure
perfections, perfections that imply no limitation whatsoever. An
absolutely perfect God must have all pure perfections and only pure
perfections, and so any attribute implying limitation does not
characterize God as he is in himself. To determine which are the pure
perfections, philosophical theologians use some version of this
principle, which has its roots in Anselm (Monologion 15): F is a pure
perfection if and only if it is in every respect better to be F than
what is incompatible with F. Accordingly, because goodness, wisdom,
and power satisfy this criterion for pure perfection, while
corporeality and mobility do not, God is good, wise, and powerful, but
not corporeal and mobile. However, no one can use the Anselmian
criterion to determine what God is like without using concepts that
apply univocally to God and creatures.
Scotus explains why this is so in the course of the Ordinatio's fourth
argument for univocity. Either the account of a pure perfection is (a)
proper to creatures and inapplicable to God, (b) proper to God and
inapplicable to creatures, or (c) univocally applicable to God and
creatures. On the first option, whatever pure perfections one
discovers by the Anselmian criterion are applicable only to creatures
and not to God, a view Scotus finds absurd, presumably because God
would not then be the most perfect of all beings possible. The second
option, however, entirely rules out using the Anselmian criterion to
discover the divine nature. If pure perfections are proper to God,
then we must determine which attributes are pure perfections by seeing
whether or not God has them. In contrast, to use the Anselmian
criterion, one first determines whether or not an attribute is a pure
perfection and only then concludes whether it is applicable to God.
Options (a) and (b) bring natural theology to a halt because they
preclude the use of the Anselmian criterion to discover God's nature,
but no such problems arise if our concepts of pure perfections apply
univocally to God and creatures.
In the generation before Scotus, Henry of Ghent, moved by many of the
same considerations, had articulated his own unique solution to these
problems, a solution that would form the starting point for Scotus's
discussion. On Henry's view, the intellect can abstract from a
cognition of this being, formulating two distinct, simple concepts of
being: a concept of being as undetermined but naturally determinable
to some sort, which applies to all creatures, and a concept of being
that is undetermined and indeterminable—it is by nature
unlimited—which applies uniquely to God. There cannot, however, be a
single, simple concept of being applicable to all things. That is
because every concept has its foundation in some reality, but because
he is transcendent, God has no reality in common with creatures.
Nevertheless, because these two distinct concepts are both concepts of
undetermined being, our intellect cannot easily distinguish them and
so conflates them into one confused concept. While this is, strictly
speaking, an error, it is a fruitful error, allowing us to reason from
knowledge of creatures to quidditative knowledge of God, even though
God is transcendent.
We can see in Henry's account an attempt to secure the advantages of
maintaining that the concept of being is univocal without giving up
the traditional view that the concept is analogical. Scotus is
sympathetic to Henry's goal. After all, if Henry were successful, then
Scotus's worries about the unity of metaphysics and the possibility of
natural theology would disappear. Nevertheless, Scotus finds Henry's
view problematic because, if we accept it, we can reasonably call into
question the univocal unity of any concept. If the intellect naturally
conflates very close concepts, then how can we be sure that there is a
unique concept human being that applies to both Socrates and Plato?
There could well be two distinct concepts that we naturally conflate
because of their great resemblance.
c. Arguments for Univocity
In reply, Scotus offers a barrage of arguments for univocity and
disarms the objection that his view would require the dismantling of
Aristotelian ontology. The first of his arguments in the Ordinatio is
perhaps his most influential for establishing the univocity of being.
Suppose a person P is certain of one concept, but doubtful about
others. Because a single concept cannot be both certain and dubious,
the concept P is certain of must be different from the ones P is
doubtful of. However, P can be certain that God is a being, but in
doubt about whether God is a finite or infinite being, a created or
uncreated being. Therefore, this concept of being that P is certain of
is different from all the other concepts (finite, infinite, created,
and uncreated being), but included in them and therefore univocal
(Ord. 1 d.3 p.1 q.1-2 n.27). Our concepts of radically diverse beings,
such as God and creatures, substances and accidents, still must
contain as a component a univocal concept of being. However, this does
not imply that these beings are simply species of a single common
genus. Instead, finite and infinite are intrinsic modes of being (see
Section 3 above), not differences dividing it, and so it does not
follow that there is any nature common to God and creature. Nor is
finite being in turn a genus and the categories its species. Each
category is fundamentally diverse, with substance prior to all
non-substance categories (Ord 1 d.3 p.1 q.3 n.164). Despite this
diversity, our concept of each category includes a univocal concept of
being as a component.
Scotus can use this same argument to show the univocity of other
concepts besides being, such as goodness, wisdom, and power, which are
likewise attributed to God. The universal practice of natural
theology, that is, metaphysical inquiry about God, confirms the
argument's conclusion by showing that natural theologians are
committed to univocity. First, they apply the Anselmian criterion to
discover which notions are applicable to God, a criterion whose use,
as we have seen, already presupposes univocity. Once they have formed
a list (for example, goodness, wisdom, power, happiness), they remove
the imperfection connected with these notions in the case of
creatures. Finally, they ascribe to these notions the highest degree
of perfection and attribute them to God. What is important, however,
is that throughout this process the formal notions remain the same
whether applied to creatures or to God.
Scotus's arguments for univocity do not rule out the possibility of
analogical predication. In addition to a univocal concept of wisdom
applicable to both God and intellectual creatures, there is a concept
of wisdom proper to intellectual creatures, which specifies wisdom as
finite and qualitative, and a concept of wisdom proper to God, which
specifies wisdom as formally infinite. The two concepts are
constructed of a plurality of components, some of which diverge, but
each contains this identical component: the simple, univocal concept
of wisdom. The same will be true of all analogical concepts: They will
diverge in some of their components, but at their root will lie a
simple, univocal component that they share. We can see how the
concepts diverge only after we have noted what they have in common.
Hence, although analogy is possible, it is possible only because of
univocity.
We might worry that Scotus's teaching on univocity threatens the
traditional religious doctrine of divine transcendence, a doctrine
Scotus himself endorses. According to that doctrine, God is wholly
different from creatures, having no reality in common with them.
However, Scotus's teaching on univocity seems to imply that God and
creatures have absolute perfections in common, since such predicates
as "good," "wise," and "being" are attributable to God and creatures
in the same way and the same sense. Scotus replies to the objection
about divine transcendence by reminding us that his remarks on
univocity constitute not a metaphysical doctrine, but a logical one.
The metaphysical divide between God and creatures is a radical one,
for God and creatures have no reality in common. God's absolute
perfections, such as his being, wisdom, and goodness, which are
infinite, are utterly diverse from ours, which are finite. However, by
removing from our concepts of absolute perfections those features that
make them proper to God or proper to creatures, such as the modes
finite or infinite, we can form "incomplete" concepts of absolute
perfections univocally applicable to both God and creatures. The
formation of such concepts, therefore, does not impugn divine
transcendence.
8. Cognition
a. Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition
Scotus distinguishes two sorts of cognition. Cognition of a thing
insofar as it actually exists and is present is intuitive cognition,
while cognition of a thing that abstracts from actual existence is
abstractive cognition. Some sensory cognitions are abstractive, as
when one daydreams about pears ripe for the picking. This cognition
conveys no information about the way any actual pears are. Other
sensory cognitions are intuitive, as when one sees, smells, or touches
a pear ripe on the tree. This cognition does convey information about
these actually existing pears. More interesting, however, is Scotus's
application of this distinction to intellectual acts. We clearly have
intellectual abstractive cognition. When the sensory powers furnish it
with phantasms, the intellect can understand the natures of things,
and that sort of understanding in turn makes scientific knowledge
possible. However, one can have abstractive cognitions, even
scientific knowledge of, saber-toothed cats and dodo birds without the
slightest idea that they do not actually exist.
Do human beings also have intellectual intuitive cognitions? Sometimes
Scotus seems hesitant to admit that we do; after all, in this life, at
any rate, human beings cognize things intellectually through
phantasms. However, in many passages he argues that we regularly
cognize things intuitively. After all, if we did not have an intuitive
cognition of things as actually existing, how could we reason about
the particular objects around us? Moreover, since my intellectual acts
are not directly accessible to my senses, the only way I could know
them without reasoning inductively from their effects is by intuitive
cognition. Finally, appealing to the principle that whatever a lower
power can do, a higher power can also do, Scotus concludes that,
because sensory powers are capable of both intuitive and abstractive
cognition, so is the intellect. Scholars disagree about whether
Scotus's apparently conflicting claims about intuitive cognition can
be reconciled, with Day [1947] arguing for consistency, Wolter [1990a]
contending that Scotus changes his views over time, and Pasnau [2003]
opting for inconsistency. Despite the problems about what Scotus in
fact thinks, the distinction between intuitive and abstractive
cognition itself exercised an enormous influence, most notably on
Ockham, but on nearly all subsequent scholastic discussions of
cognition, especially those devoted to certainty and skepticism.
b. Divine Illumination and Skepticism
At the end of the thirteenth century, the theory of divine
illumination still had its defenders, although fewer and fewer. The
theory had been widely accepted, thanks to Augustine's many and
powerful arguments in its favor. Even early in his career, Augustine
had argued that purely natural processes cannot result in knowledge. A
teacher's discourse can lead us to true beliefs, but knowledge
requires something further: One must "see" that what the teacher says
is true, a sort of justification available only through God's special
illumination of the mind. Augustine's arguments exerted their
influence for more than eight centuries, despite opposition from such
formidable opponents as Aquinas, who contends at the very least that
no special divine illumination is necessary for knowledge. The
illumination theory's last able defender is Henry of Ghent, whose
influential writings kept the theory alive until Scotus wielded his
pen against it.
Henry argues that our cognition of things would fall short of
certainty without God's special illumination, for two reasons. First,
when we cognize things intellectually by purely natural processes, our
cognition stems from an exemplar that is itself changeable. With a
changeable basis, our cognition must likewise be changeable and so not
certain. Second, the other basis of our cognition, the human soul, is
likewise changeable and therefore fallible. We can attain certain
knowledge, therefore, only if we have access to the unchangeable,
uncreated exemplar, which only God can grant by a special
illumination.
Scotus offers some brief but influential objections to Henry's version
of the theory. Henry maintains that what is in the soul as a subject
is mutable, even its own act of intellection; but if that is the case,
then an illuminated intellection is itself mutable. In that case, even
divine illumination fails to preserve the soul from error. Moreover,
Henry contends that created as well as uncreated exemplars play a role
in producing certain knowledge. However, because the created exemplar
is incompatible with certainty, adding an uncreated exemplar does not
achieve certainty any more than adding necessary premises to
contingent ones in an argument results in a necessary conclusion.
These negative arguments take aim at Henry's version of the theory of
illumination in particular, not against any and every version of the
theory. However, Scotus did considerable damage to any future attempts
to formulate a divine illumination theory by undercutting its
motivation. On his view, we do not need a theory of illumination to
show that certain knowledge is possible. The human intellect, by
purely natural processes, can attain it, and in four sorts of cases:
1. We can have certain knowledge of principles because they are
self-evident through their terms. As long as one grasps the meaning of
the terms, one immediately sees that the principle is true. For
instance, anyone who understands the term "whole" and "part" has a
certain and immediate grasp of the principle that the whole is greater
than the part.
2. Experience can also result in certain knowledge, such as our
knowledge that magnets attract iron. This sort of knowledge is partly
grounded in the first sort, because it depends on our certain
knowledge of the principle "Whatever results for the most part from an
unfree cause is that cause's natural effect," which is self-evident
through its terms. On the basis of this principle and experience, we
can gain certain knowledge through induction.
3. We can have certain knowledge of our acts and mental states, such
as whether we are understanding or willing. We can even be certain
that we are seeing, Scotus contends. If I see a flash of light, but
there is no light in the room, the species causing my visual act must
still exist in my eye, and so I am genuinely seeing something,
although not something outside my own body. The level of certainty we
gain from knowledge in this case is no less than that we gain from
grasping principles evident through their terms.
4. We can also have certain sensory knowledge, thanks to the same
self-evident principle that grounds the certainty of induction. If the
same object, always or for the most part, causes multiple senses to
judge that it has property F, then we can be certain that the object
really has property F. Even if the senses conflict, as when vision
tells us that the distant Goliath is smaller than the nearby David,
but hearing tells us that Goliath's stentorian voice comes from a
giant, we can still attain certain knowledge by appealing to
self-evident principles to correct the erroneous judgment.
9. Natural Law
Scholastic philosophical theologians are taxed not just with solving
philosophical problems and creating philosophical systems, but with
doing so in ways consistent with Biblical religion. Now, Genesis
reports that the holy patriarch Abraham set out to kill his own son
and that the holy patriarch Jacob took two wives, while Exodus tells
of midwives who lied to Pharaoh and yet were rewarded by God. For a
scholastic thinker, these texts would naturally raise questions about
the status of the natural law, especially that portion of it recorded
in the Ten Commandments, or Decalogue. If, as the scriptures suggest,
these agents did not do wrong in acting as they did, did they not,
despite appearances, violate the natural law? Or did God grant a
dispensation from the law?
It is with these issues in mind that Scotus offers his most revealing
discussion of the natural law. According to Scotus, God has in fact
offered dispensations from the law. Dispensation may take two forms:
God can revoke the law, or God can clarify the law. However, even God
is limited in the extent to which he can dispense. That is because the
natural law in the strict sense consists of laws known through
themselves on the basis of their terms. Because they are logically
necessary truths, they cannot be revoked, at the very least. Scotus
takes the first two commandments of the Decalogue to belong to the law
of nature in the strict sense. The commandment to love God, for
example, exemplifies the principle that what is best is to be loved
most, which is known through itself. Even God could not make it licit
to hate him.
The natural law in the broad sense consists of laws that are
"exceptionally harmonious" with the natural law in the strict sense.
These laws are not known through themselves on the basis of their
terms; their truth value is contingent. Therefore, God can grant
dispensations from these laws, which include all the commandments in
the second table of the Decalogue. Unfortunately, Scotus does not
explain what he means when he says that the law of nature in the broad
sense consists of laws that are "exceptionally harmonious" with the
law of nature in the strict sense, and his vagueness has inspired
astoundingly different interpretations of his account of natural law.
In some texts, Scotus presents a view of moral goodness that appears
to be largely naturalistic. For example, in his 18th Quodlibet, Scotus
writes that an agent's act is morally good if it has an appropriate
object, is performed in appropriate circumstances, is of a sort
appropriate for the agent to perform, and furthermore if the agent
rightly judges this to be the case and then acts on that judgment. To
make these judgments about appropriateness, one needs to know only the
nature of the agent, of the act, and of the power through which the
agent performs the act. The moral law in its broad sense is therefore
based on the natures of things and is accordingly rationally
accessible to humans. On this interpretation, since human nature and
human powers remain constant, the law of nature in the broad sense
could change only if circumstances change, rendering appropriate what
used to be inappropriate (or vice versa); in that case, however, God's
act of dispensation would seem little more than a formality.
In other texts, such as Ordinatio 1 d.44 n.6, Scotus appears to hold
that what constitutes the natural law in the broad sense is simply
God's will: God wills certain propositions to be law, and they are
thereby law. There is nothing self-contradictory about a system of law
very different from the one we live under, for instance, a system that
at least sometimes permits the killing or torture of the innocent, the
telling of falsehoods, and stealing others' property, and so no
logical necessity of the sort we find in the first commandment
constrains God from promulgating an alternative system of laws such as
this. As Williams [1998] notes in reply to the objection that such a
system is inconsistent with God's own justice, Scotus contends that
God can do whatever is not logically impossible, and whatever God
wills is by that very fact right (Rep. 4 d46 q4). God's justice,
therefore, does not constrain his will to any single consistent system
of laws; he may will any consistent system. It is simply God's will
that certain propositions comprise the moral law rather than others.
If the laws we in fact live under benefit us, that is due to God's
graciousness, not his justice. On this interpretation, however, it is
hard to see how human beings have rational access to the natural law.
Williams [1997] suggests that the Biblical assertion that God writes
his commandments on our hearts be interpreted to mean that God gives
us moral intuitions that accord with his commands, but if that is the
case, when God grants dispensations, those very intuitions (and the
moral and cultural institutions built on them) would lead us far
astray.
10. Action Theory and Will
Mediaeval philosophers agree that human acts have their source in the
powers of will and intellect, and in articulating their detailed
action theories and rich moral psychologies, these thinkers spell out
the respective roles of the will and intellect. They often disagree,
however, about what those roles are and, in particular, about the
relative priority of these powers in the production of human acts,
with intellectualists giving greater priority to the intellect and
voluntarists to the will. Of course, that priority could take many
forms, and so we find mediaeval philosophers investigating the extent
to which the intellect influences, determines, causes, or necessitates
the will's act, and vice versa; whether our freedom or control over
our acts stems more from the will, the intellect, or equally from
both; and whether we resemble God more in our intellects or in our
wills. While most mediaeval thinkers offer nuanced theories, the views
of Aquinas, Giles of Rome, and Godfrey of Fontaines are predominately
intellectualist, while those of Henry of Ghent and Peter John Olivi
are predominately voluntarist. The debates between intellectualists
and voluntarists are important not just because they represent
disputes over the origination of human acts, but because they also
represent deep disagreements on the nature of free will and
rationality, on what makes humans morally responsible, and on the role
of virtue in morality.
Scotus's action theory is largely voluntarist. Although he admits that
the intellect plays an important role in human action (after all, the
will cannot will something that the intellect is not thinking of, nor
can it will something that the intellect does not perceive as somehow
good), in contrast to intellectualists such as Aquinas, Scotus denies
that the intellect's judgment about what one should pursue or avoid
ever determines which alternative the will wills or, for that matter,
whether it wills anything at all. Moreover, the will plays a large
role in determining what the intellect thinks: Once the intellect has
some object in mind, no matter how peripherally, the will can direct
the intellect's focus and regulate its thought accordingly.
Scotus means to show not just that the will is a higher power than the
intellect, however. He argues for the remarkable claim that the will
is unique among all created powers because it alone acts freely.
Scotus's account of the will's freedom is complex, to say the least:
In no other discussions does Scotus do more to earn his epithet
"subtle." Nevertheless, the following three key elements of his
account should serve to summarize his audacious but sometimes murky
discussion.
1. Some potentialities have natures that determine what operations
they will or will not perform in any given set of circumstances. A 400
degree oven always operates the same way, and so unless there is some
impediment, it will roast meat and dry clay, for that is the nature of
heat. The way such human powers as the senses, sensory appetites, and
even the intellect operate is also determined by their natures, even
if they do have a greater intrinsic value than mere heat. The only
power whose nature does not determine its operations is the will,
which alone is a self-determining power for opposites. Among created
things, the will alone transcends nature, not because it does not have
a nature, but because no nature, including its own, determines its
acts [Boler 1993]. The will, then, satisfies one necessary condition
for freedom: It determines itself regarding opposites; that is, it
determines whether it wills this object or that one, and also whether
it wills this object or refrains from willing entirely.
2. The will's capacity for self-determination is a necessary but not a
sufficient condition for freedom because, as Scotus argues, even
self-determined operations may be necessary. If the will's acts are to
be free, they must be contingent. To see what Scotus means, consider
the following "diachronic" account of contingency. At time T1, the
will has a real potentiality for willing a or b, as well as for
refraining from willing. At time T2, the will determines itself to one
of these alternatives, say, a. The proponent of this view admits that
at T2 there is no longer a real potentiality for both opposites, but
that does not matter because the real potentiality for opposites at T1
ensures the contingency of the will's operation at T2. That strategy
fails, Scotus argues, because contingency can be a feature only of
something that is actual, and at T1 the will's operation is not
actual. Therefore, nothing at T1 can explain why the will's operation
at T2 is contingent. Rather, we must look for some feature of the will
at T2 if we are to find an explanation of its contingency.
Scotus therefore argues that at T2 the will is really capable of
opposites, even when it is determined to one of them. Like all the
soul's powers, the will is a first actuality, and so naturally prior
to its operations, which are second actualities. To capture this idea
of natural priority within a single instant of time, Scotus employs
the device of instants of nature. In a single temporal instant T2 we
find instants of nature N1 and N2. At N1 the will has a real
potentiality for either a or b. At N2, the will determines itself to
a. However, because all this occurs in a single instant of time T2, it
is still true because of N1 that at T2 the will has a real
potentiality for b, even though at that very temporal instant it is
actually willing a. Therefore the will's operation at T2 is contingent
because of features true of the will at T2. Because the will's
operation is both contingent and self-determined, it is free. Finally,
it is worth noting that this view does not imply the absurdity that
the will can simultaneously will multiple opposites. For instance, a
person cannot at the same time both intend to pursue a college degree
and intend to stay out of school forever. Rather, if a person at T2
intends to pursue a college degree, there is at T2 the real
potentiality for intending to stay out of school forever, but not for
intending both.
3. Medieval eudaimonist philosophers contend that the will is
determined to seek happiness, that is, the fulfillment of one's
nature. However, because one can at least partly determine the
constituents of happiness, and because one can pursue happiness by
different means, this determination of the will does not introduce any
necessitation incompatible with free will and moral responsibility.
Nor does eudaimonism amount to psychological egoism, because justice
and its associated virtues are themselves constituents of or at the
least, means to the fulfillment of one's own nature. Eudaimonism,
therefore, is no opponent of the moral life. Scotus, however, finds
this line of thought problematic, and in spelling out his alternative
to eudaimonism he articulates the third element in his discussion of
freedom.
Drawing on Anselm's discussion in On the Fall of the Devil, Scotus
contends that in addition to the affection for the fulfillment of
one's nature, or affection for advantage, the will has a second
affection, the affection for justice. Thanks to the affection for
advantage, the will can seek things insofar as they benefit the
willer. Thanks to the affection for justice, the will can seek things
insofar as they are good in themselves. As Boler [1993] points out,
the presence of the affection for justice over and above that for
advantage explains two closely related human characteristics: the
will's capacity to transcend what is natural and the sort of freedom
necessary for moral responsibility.
The precise sort of freedom Scotus thinks the affection for justice
affords us, however, remains unclear. He might mean that our having
the affection for justice in addition to the affection for advantage
gives us moral freedom, that is, the freedom to determine whether and
to what extent we will act justly. On the other hand, he might mean
that having the affection for justice gives us metaphysical freedom,
the freedom of self-determination. There is some reason to think that
Scotus means both. In a famous example, Scotus asks us to conceive of
a creature with an intellectual appetite that has merely one
affection, the affection for advantage (because it lacks the affection
for justice, this appetite does not count as a genuine will). Such a
being, Scotus contends, would always seek its advantage and seek it to
the maximum possible, for there would be no countervailing affection
to place any restraints on its pursuit of advantage. It would
therefore lack both moral freedom and metaphysical freedom as well.
However, Scotus offers few details, and it is hard to see why such a
creature could not have metaphysical freedom, even if it lacks moral
freedom. If the will's self-determination were limited to balancing
the willer's own advantage against the concerns of justice, then it
would be easier to see Scotus's motives for associating the affection
for justice with metaphysical freedom. However, Scotus holds that it
is possible, without any intellectual error or misleading passion, to
will something unjust that is still less advantageous than an
alternative open to the willer. In this case, the affection for
justice plays no apparent role in explaining the will's
self-determination, and so it has struck some scholars that the
addition of this affection explains the will's moral freedom but not
its metaphysical freedom. On the other hand, Scotus insists that the
will's two affections are not independent wills. Rather, the
"addition" of the affection for justice transforms the intellectual
appetite so that when one wills, the will always acts with both
affections. One cannot "use" just one affection and not the other,
even if one is pursuing simply one's own advantage or simply justice.
However, these observations still do not explain how the addition of
the affection for justice affords the will metaphysical freedom (if in
fact it does), and Scotus says little to shed any more light on the
subject.
11. References and Further Reading
a. Primary Texts in Latin
* Cuestiones Cuodlibetales (1963). In ed. Felix Alluntis, Obras
del Doctor Sutil, Juan Duns Escoto. Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores
Cristianos.
* Opera Omnia (1639), ed. Luke Wadding. Lyons, 12 vols., revised
and enlarged by L. Vives (1891-1895). Paris, 26 vols.
* Opera Omnia (1950-). Ed. Scotistic Commission. Vatican City:
Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 11 vols. prepared to date.
b. Primary Texts in English Translation
* Duns Scotus, Metaphysician (1995). Ed. and trans. William A.
Frank and Allan B. Wolter. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press.
* Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality (1986). Ed. and trans.
Allan Wolter. Washington: Catholic University of America Press.
* John Duns Scotus: The Examined Report of the Paris Lecture
(Reportatio I-A), vol. 1 (2004). Ed. and trans. Allan B. Wolter and
Oleg V. Bychkov. St. Bonaventure: The Franciscan Institute.
* John Duns Scotus: God and Creatures (1981). The Quodlibetal
Questions. Trans. Allan Wolter and Felix Alluntis. Washington:
Catholic University of America Press.
* John Duns Scotus: A Treatise on God as First Principle (1983).
Ed. Allan Wolter. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press.
* Philosophical Writings (1987). Trans. and ed. Allan Wolter.
Indianapolis: Hackett.
c. Secondary Literature
* Adams, Marilyn McCord (1976). "Ockham on Identity and
Distinction," in Franciscan Studies 36: 5-74.
* Boler, John (1993). "Transcending the Natural: Duns Scotus on
the Two Affections of the Will," in American Catholic Philosophical
Quarterly 67: 109-22.
* Boulnois, Olivier (1989). "Analogie et univocité selon Duns
Scot: La double destruction," in Les etudes philosophiques 3/4:
347-83.
* Cross, Richard (1999). Duns Scotus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* Cross, Richard (2002). "Duns Scotus on Divine Substance and the
Trinity," in Medieval Philosophy and Theology 11:181-201.
* Day, Sebastian (1947). Intuitive Cognition: A Key to the
Significance of the Later Scholastics. St. Bonaventure: The Franciscan
Institute.
* Dumont, Stephen (1987). "The Univocal Concept of Being in the
Fourteenth Century: I. John Duns Scotus and William of Alnwick," in
Medieval Studies 49: 1-75.
* Gelber, Hester Goodenough (1974). Logic and the Trinity: A Clash
of Values in Scholastic Thought, 1300-1335. Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Wisconson.
* Gracia, Jorge J.E (1984). Introduction to the Problem of
Individuation in the Early Middle Ages. Washington: The Catholic
University of America Press.
* King, Peter (2003). "Scotus on Metaphysics," Chapter 1 in
Williams [2003], 15-68.
* Pasnau, Robert (2003). "Cognition," Chapter 9 in Williams [2003], 285-311.
* Williams, Thomas (1997). "Reason, Morality, and Voluntarism in
Duns Scotus: A Pseudo-Problem Dissolved," in The Modern Schoolman 74:
73-94.
* Williams, Thomas (1998). "The Unmitigated Scotus," in Archiv für
Geschichte der Philosophie 80: 162-81.
* Williams, Thomas, ed. (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Duns
Scotus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Wolter, Allan (1990a). "Duns Scotus on Intuition, Memory, and
Our Knowledge of Individuals," Chapter 5 in Wolter [1990b], 98-122.
* Wolter, Allan (1990b). The Philosophical Theology of John Duns
Scotus, ed. Marilyn McCord Adams. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
* Wolter, Allan (2003). "The Unshredded Scotus: A Reply to Thomas
Williams," in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 77: 315-356.
No comments:
Post a Comment