John Duns Scotus
Being means the same whether said of God or creatures, every individual has its own unique thisness, and will ranks above intellect.
Placement
“Doctor subtilis”: the univocity of being and the thisness (haecceitas) of the individual.
Key ideas
- Univocity of being
- Haecceitas
- Primacy of the will
Influence
Influenced by 3
Aristotle
influenced by
Scotus took up Aristotle’s science of being as being and, siding with Avicenna, held that being is its subject and is said univocally of God and creatures. Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum I q. 1; Ordinatio I d. 3 p. 1 qq. 1–3; SEP “John Duns Scotus”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Aristotle › 384–322 BCE
Ibn Sina (Avicenna)
influenced by
Scotus took over Avicenna’s common nature, ‘horseness is just horseness’, indifferent to universality and singularity, and his view of being as the intellect’s first object. Avicenna, Metaphysics (al-Ilāhiyyāt) V.1; Duns Scotus, Ordinatio II d. 3 p. 1 q. 1; I d. 3; SEP “John Duns Scotus”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Ibn Sina (Avicenna) › 980–1037
Anselm of Canterbury
influenced by
Scotus took over Anselm’s two affections of the will, for advantage and for justice, and ‘coloured’ his argument for God’s existence (Ordinatio I d. 2). Anselm, De casu diaboli; Duns Scotus, Ordinatio I d. 2 p. 1 qq. 1–2; II d. 6 q. 2; SEP “John Duns Scotus”
Evidence: AI draft
Anselm of Canterbury › 1033–1109
Influenced 4
Francisco Suárez
influenced
Suárez discussed Scotus at length in the Metaphysical Disputations (1597), drawing on Scotist intrinsic modes for his modal distinction while rejecting haecceity as principle of individuation. F. Suárez, Disputationes metaphysicae (1597), disp. V–VII; SEP “Francisco Suárez”
Evidence: AI draft
Francisco Suárez › 1548–1617
Charles Sanders Peirce
influenced
Peirce called himself a Scotistic realist, defending against nominalism the reality of generals, and adapted Scotus’s haecceity, ‘thisness’, for his category of Secondness. J. F. Boler, Charles Peirce and Scholastic Realism (1963); C. S. Peirce, review of Fraser’s Berkeley (1871); SEP “Charles Sanders Peirce”
Evidence: AI draft
Charles Sanders Peirce › 1839–1914
Martin Heidegger
influenced ✓
Heidegger’s habilitation thesis (1915; publ. 1916) treated Duns Scotus’s doctrine of categories and meaning; its main source, the Grammatica speculativa, was later shown to be Thomas of Erfurt’s. M. Heidegger, Die Kategorien- und Bedeutungslehre des Duns Scotus (1916); T. Kisiel, The Genesis of Heidegger’s Being and Time (1993); SEP “Martin Heidegger”; SEP “John Duns Scotus”
Martin Heidegger › 1889–1976
Gilles Deleuze
influenced ✓
Deleuze took Duns Scotus’s univocity of being as the first moment of a philosophy of difference, followed by Spinoza and Nietzsche (Difference and Repetition, 1968). G. Deleuze, Différence et répétition (1968); Spinoza et le problème de l’expression (1968); SEP “Gilles Deleuze”; SEP “John Duns Scotus”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Gilles Deleuze › 1925–1995
Criticism
Criticized by 1
William of Ockham influenced
influenced ✓
Ockham took over Scotus’ distinction between intuitive and abstractive cognition and his univocal concept of being, while rejecting common natures and the formal distinction. William of Ockham, Ordinatio, prologue q. 1; I d. 2; SEP “William of Ockham”
criticised by
Ockham rejected Scotus’ common natures and his formal distinction outside God: only individuals exist, and universals are concepts (Ordinatio I d. 2 q. 6). William of Ockham, Ordinatio I d. 2 qq. 1, 6; SEP “William of Ockham”
Evidence: AI draft
William of Ockham › c. 1287–1347
Criticizes 1
Thomas Aquinas
criticised
Duns Scotus rejected the Thomist view that matter individuates, positing a ‘thisness’ (haecceitas), and held ‘being’ univocal rather than analogical (Ordinatio II d. 3; I d. 3). John Duns Scotus, Ordinatio II d. 3 p. 1; I d. 3 p. 1 qq. 1–3; SEP “John Duns Scotus”
Evidence: AI draft
Thomas Aquinas › c. 1225–1274
Works
- c. 1300Ordinatio
Commentary on the Sentences: the univocity of being and the primacy of the will.
Position
Scotus held that “being” is said of God and creatures in one and the same sense – the univocity of being. Without this, he argued, we could form no real concept of God at all and natural theology would collapse. He also insisted on the full reality of the individual: what makes this thing this thing is a positive principle of its own, its “thisness” (haecceitas). Against an intellect-centred picture he stressed the freedom of the will, both in God and in humans. His subtle distinctions shaped the Franciscan school, provoked Ockham’s simplifications, and found later admirers from Peirce to Heidegger and Deleuze.
Life & context
Born around 1266 in Duns in southern Scotland, John Duns Scotus became a Franciscan and studied and taught at Oxford and Paris. In 1303 he briefly had to leave Paris for siding with the pope against King Philip IV. He was sent to Cologne in 1307 and died there the following year, leaving behind dense and often unfinished writings that earned him the name “Doctor subtilis”.
Further main works
- Lectura (c. 1298)
- Reportatio Parisiensis (c. 1304)
- Treatise on the First Principle (c. 1305)
- Quodlibetal Questions (c. 1306)
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