Duns Scotus

The Franciscan John Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308) is the philosopher's theologian par excellence: more than any of his contemporaries, he is interested in arguments for their own sake. Making use of the tools of modern philosophy, Richard Cross presents a thorough account of Duns Scotus's arguments on God and the Trinity. Providing extensive commentary on central passages from Scotus, many of which are presented in translation in this book, Cross offers clear expositions of Scotus's sometimes elliptical writing. Cross's account shows that, in addition to being a philosopher of note, Scotus is a creative and original theologian who offers new insights into many old problems.

This study takes the form of commentary on a series of texts and translations from the works of Scotus. After a short (and perhaps unduly compressed) chapter laying out some of what we know about Scotus's life and writings, Wolter and Frank offer a brief introduction to the discipline of metaphysics as Scotus understood it. Scotus held that metaphysics is the science of the transcendentals, which are 'a family of concepts ... [that] capture the intelligibility of reality prior to its division into the categories' (p. 37). This science reaches its culmination in the philosophical knowledge of God.

The medieval philosopher and theologian John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) was one of the great thinkers of Western intellectual culture, exerting a considerable influence over many centuries. He had a genius for original and subtle philosophical analysis, with the motive behind his philosophical method being his faith. His texts are famous not only for their complexity, but also for their brilliance, their systematic precision, and the profound faith revealed. The texts presented in this new commentary show that Scotus' thought is not moved by a love for the abstract or technical, but that a high level of abstraction and technicality was needed for his precise conceptual analysis of Christian faith. Presenting a selection of nine fundamental theological texts of Duns Scotus, some translated into English for the first time, this book provides detailed commentary on each text to reveal Scotus' conception of divine goodness and the nature of the human response to that goodness. Following an introduction which includes an overview of Scotus' life and works, the editors highlight Scotus' theological insights, many of which are explored here for the first time, and shed new light on topics which were, and still are, hotly discussed. Scotus is seen to be the first theologian in the history of Christian thought who succeeds in developing a consistent conceptual framework for the conviction that both God and human beings are essentially free. Offering unique insights into Scotus' theological writings and faith, and a particular contribution to contemporary debate on Scotus' ethics, this book contributes to a clearer understanding of the whole of Scotus' thought.

Provides a reliable point of entrance to the thought of Duns Scotus.

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 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.

John Duns Scotus (d.1308), known as the ‘subtle doctor' among medieval schoolmen, produced a formidable philosophical theology using and adapting an Aristotelian metaphysical framework. Critical of Thomas Aquinas' grand Summas, Scotus died before producing a final synthesis of his own. Indeed, his work, left in disarray for centuries, has only recently become available in an edited format. Contemporary metaphysics, taking up the problem of universals, treads on ground already well-worked by Scotus. Duns Scotus and the Problem of Universals shows how Scotus' treatment of the problem of universals is both coherent and, even by contemporary standards, cogent. Todd Bates recovers and sets out Scotus' understanding of the structure of material substance, reconstructs Scotus' arguments for universals and haecceities, and shows how Scotus' theory applies to the metaphysics of the Incarnation. This book makes an important contribution to a neglected but crucial area of Scotus scholarship.

Richard Cross provides the first full study of Duns Scotus's theory of cognition, examining his account of the processes involved in cognition, from sensation, through intuition and abstraction, to conceptual thought. Cross places Scotus's thought clearly within the context of 13th-century study on the mind, and of his intellectual forebears.

Duns Scotus's Doctrine of Categories and Meaning is a key text for the origins of Martin Heidegger's concept of "facticity." Originally submitted as a postdoctoral thesis in 1915, it focuses on the 13th-century philosopher-theologian John Duns Scotus. Heidegger first analyzes Scotus's doctrine of categories, then offers a meticulous explanation of the Grammatica Speculativa, a work of medieval grammar now known to be authored by the Modist grammarian Thomas of Erfurt. Taken together, these investigations represent an early foray into Heidegger's lifelong philosophical concerns, "the question of being in the guise of the problem of categories and the question of language in the guise of the doctrine of meaning." This new and unique translation of one of Heidegger's earliest works offers an important look at his early thinking before the question of being became his central concern and will appeal to readers exploring Heidegger's philosophical development, medieval philosophy, phenomenological interpretations of the history of philosophy, and the philosophy of language.

Commemoration of the Seventh Centenary of His Death The hope of this Symposium is to set in relief the importance of the mystery of Mary in understanding the thought of Bl. John Duns Scotus, a mystery so much neglected by many students of Scotus, today as in yesteryear. Without that profound veneration of the Immaculate Virgin and an appreciation of her uniqueness as the Immaculate Conception, the theology and metaphysics of Scotus will remain merely the abstruse delight of an elite academy, and Mariology will be lacking its securest instrument of reflection.

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A comprehensive treatment of the life and work of John Duns Scotus offers essays on his contributions to medieval philosophy and theology.

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

Étienne Gilson's Jean Duns Scot: Introduction À Ses Positions Fondamentales is widely understood to be one of the most important works on John Duns Scotus' texts, famous for their complexity. James Colbert's translation is the first time that Gilson's work on Scotus has been put into English, with an introduction by Trent Pomplun and an afterword by John Millbank. Scotus contributed to the development of a metaphysical system that was compatible with Christian doctrine, an epistemology that altered the 13th century understanding of human knowledge, and a theology that stressed both divine and human will. Gilson, in turn, offers a thoroughly comprehensive introduction to the fundamental positions that Scotus stood for. Explaining Scotus's views on metaphysics, the existence of infinite being and divine nature, the matter of the physical spiritual and angelic, intellectual knowledge and will and Scotus' relationship with other scholars, Gilson and Colbert show how deeply Scotus left a mark on discussions of such disparate topics as the semantics of religious language, the problem of universals, divine illumination, and the nature of human freedom. This work has been translated from the original work in French Jean Duns Scot. Introduction à ses positions fondamentales (© 1952 by Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin).

Richard Cross provides the first complete and detailed account of Duns Scotus's theory of cognition, tracing the processes involved in cognition from sensation, through intuition and abstraction, to conceptual thought. He provides an analysis of the ontological status of the various mental items (acts and dispositions) involved in cognition, and a new account of Scotus on nature of conceptual content. Cross goes on to offer a novel, reductionist, interpretation of Scotus's view of the ontological status of representational content, as well as new accounts of Scotus's opinions on intuitive cognition, intelligible species, and the varieties of consciousness. Scotus was a perceptive but highly critical reader of his intellectual forebears, and this volume places his thought clearly within the context of thirteenth-century reflections on cognitive psychology, influenced as they were by Aristotle, Augustine, and Avicenna. As far as possible, Duns Scotus's Theory of Cognition traces developments in Scotus's thought during the ten or so highly productive years that formed the bulk of his intellectual life.

During the seventies, there was a revival of systematic philosophy in general and of ontology in particular. At the same time, especially in Anglo-Saxon thinking, systematic philosophy interacted very creatively with the history of medieval philosophy. It seems to us that the work of John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) could substantially benefit these develop ments. Not only this, but his works cries out to be developed across the whole spectrum of theology -that science which, in the Middle Ages, ruled all others ('regina scientiarum'). This book is the outcome of several years of scholarship and friend ship during which, guided by Dr. A. Vos, we have studied the work of Scotus. Our research group is connected to the Theological Faculty of Utrecht and to the Dutch Franciscan Study Centre (Stichting Francis caans Studiecentrum). This study presents a translation and commentary of Lectura I 39, which, in our view, is noteable as one of the key texts in the history of systematic theology and philosophy. In this book we have used specialist language and argumentation, but at the same time have taken pains to make it useful to a circle of in terested readers wider than simply that of those well-versed in medieval scholasticism. In this way, we hope to present the difficult but instruc tive work of the 'subtle master' ('doctor subtilis') in such a way as to make it attractive to other scholars and students in theology and philoso phy.

The philosophy of Gilles Deleuze is increasingly gaining the prestige that its astonishing inventiveness calls for in the Anglo-American theoretical context. His wide-ranging works on the history of philosophy, cinema, painting, literature and politics are being taken up and put to work across disciplinary divides and in interesting and surprising ways. However, the backbone of Deleuze's philosophy - the many and varied sources from which he draws the material for his conceptual innovation - has until now remained relatively obscure and unexplored. This book takes as its goal the examination of this rich theoretical background. Presenting essays by a range of the world's foremost Deleuze scholars, and a number of up and coming theorists of his work, the book is composed of in-depth analyses of the key figures in Deleuze's lineage whose significance - as a result of either their obscurity or the complexity of their place in the Deleuzean text - has not previously been well understood. This work will prove indispensable to students and scholars seeking to understand the context from which Deleuze's ideas emerge.Included are essays on Deleuze's relationship to figures as varied as Marx, Simondon, Wronski, Hegel, Hume, Maimon, Ruyer, Kant, Heidegger, Husserl, Reimann, Leibniz, Bergson and Freud.

'Of realty the rarest-veined unraveler', John Duns Scotus was one of the profoundest metaphysicians who ever lived. In this volume, the world's foremost Scotus scholars collaborate to present the latest research on his work. In ethics, the focus is on practical wisdom, on beauty as an ethical concept, and on the independence of the virtues; in metaphysics, on modality, individuation, and being. Textbook accounts notwithstanding, Scotus' theory of logical possibilities implies no existence or actuality for possible beings though being and thinking presuppose the domain of possibility; potency only supervenes on the actual. There are important thirteenth-century precursors of Scotus' theory of modality and individuation. Posterior to quidditative entity, Scotus clearly distinguishes the ultimate reality of individual beings both from individuals and from individuality.

The period from Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus is one of the richest in the history of Christian theology. The Metaphysics of the Incarnation aims to provide a thorough examination of the doctrine in this era, making explicit its philosophical and theological foundations. Medieval theologians believed that there were good reasons for supposing that Christ's human nature was an individual. In the light of this, Part 1 discusses how the various thinkers held that an individual nature could be united to a divine person. Part 2 shows how one divine person could be incarnate without any other. Part 3 deals with questions of Christological predication, and Part 4 shows how an individual nature is to be distinguished from a person. The work begins with a full account of the metaphysics presupposed in the medieval accounts, and concludes with observations relating medieval accounts to modern Christology.

In John Duns Scotus on Parts, Wholes, and Hylomorphism, Thomas M. Ward analyzes and interprets Scotus's arguments for his distinctive version of hylomorphism as it relates to various issues in the metaphysics of parts and wholes.

In On Being and Cognition, the first complete translation into English of a pivotal text in the history of philosophy and theology, Scotus addresses fundamental issues concerning the limits of human knowledge and the nature of cognition by developing his doctrine of the univocity of being, refuting skepticism and analyzing the way the intellect and the object cooperate in generating actual knowledge in the case of abstractive cognition. Throughout the work Scotus is in discussion with important theologians of his time, such as Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, and Godfrey of Fontaines. Anyone interested in the pertinent philosophical problems will find in this book the highly sophisticated and subtle answers of a giant in the history of thought.