Duns Scotus, John (c.1266–1308)
Duns Scotus was one of the most important thinkers of the entire scholastic period. Of Scottish origin, he was a member of the Franciscan order and undertook theological studies first at Oxford and later at Paris. He left behind a considerable body of work, much of which unfortunately was still undergoing revision at the time of his death. Notable among his works are questions on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, at least three different commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard (the required text for a degree in theology) and a lengthy set of university disputations, the quodlibetal questions. A notoriously difficult and highly original thinker, Scotus was referred to as ‘the subtle doctor’ because of his extremely nuanced and technical reasoning. On many important issues, Scotus developed his positions in critical reaction to the Parisian theologian Henry of Ghent, the most important thinker of the immediately preceding generation and a severe Augustinian critic of Aquinas.
Scotus made important and influential contributions in metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. In metaphysics, he was the first scholastic to hold that the concepts of being and the other transcendentals were univocal, not only in application to substance and accidents but even to God and creatures. In this, Scotus broke with the unanimous view based on Aristotle that being could not be predicated of both substance and accident, much less of, except by analogy, God and creature. Scotus argued in general that univocity was required to underwrite any natural knowledge of God from creatures or of substance from accidents. Given univocity, he concluded that the primary object of the created intellect was being, rejecting Aquinas’ Aristotelian view that it was limited to the quiddity of the sense particular and Henry of Ghent’s Augustinian view that it was God. That is, Scotus argues that even the finite intellect of the creature is by its very nature open to knowing all being.
Scotus’ proof of the existence of God is the most ambitious of the entire scholastic period. Prior efforts at demonstrating the existence of God showed little concern with connecting the eclectic body of inherited arguments. Scotus’ proof stands apart as an attempt to integrate logically into a single demonstration the various lines of traditional argument, culminating in the existence of God as an actually infinite being. As a result, his demonstration is exceedingly complex, establishing within a sustained and protracted argument God as first efficient cause, as ultimate final cause and as most eminent being – the so-called triple primacy – the identity within a unique nature of these primacies, and finally the actual infinity of this primary nature. Only with this final result of infinity is Scotus prepared to claim he has fully demonstrated the existence of God. Notable features of the proof include Scotus’ rejection of Aristotle’s argument from Physics VIII (the favoured demonstration of Aquinas), the reduction of exemplar cause to a species of efficient cause, important clarifications about the causal relations at issue in arguments against infinite regress, an a priori proof constructed from the possibility of God similar to that proposed by Leibniz, and the rejection of the traditional argument that the infinity of God can be inferred from creation ex nihilo.
Scotus is a realist on the issue of universals and one of the main adversaries of Ockham’s programme of nominalism. He endorsed Avicenna’s theory of the common nature, according to which essences have an independence and priority to their existence as either universal in the mind or singular outside it. Intepreting Avicenna, Scotus argued that natures as common must have their own proper unity which is both real and less than the numerical unity of a singular; that is, natures are common prior to any act of the intellect and possess their own real, lesser unity. They are accordingly not of themselves singular, but require a principle of individuation. Rejecting the standard views that essences are individuated by either actual existence, quantity or matter, Scotus maintained that the principle of individuation is a further substantial difference added to the species. This ‘individual difference’ is the so-called haecceitas or ‘thisness’, a term used seldom by Scotus himself. The common nature and individual difference were said by Scotus to be really identical in the individual, but ‘formally distinct’. The ‘formal distinction,’ developed by Scotus chiefly in connection with the Trinity and the divine attributes, is an integral part of his realism and was as such attacked by Ockham. It admits within one and the same thing a distinction between realities, formalities or entities antecedent to any act of the intellect to provide an objective foundation for our concepts. These formalities are nonetheless really identical and inseparably united within the individual.
In epistemology, Scotus is important for his demolition of Augustinian illumination, at least in the elaborate defence of it given by Henry of Ghent, and the distinction between intuitive and abstractive cognition. Scotus rejected Henry’s defence as leading to nothing but scepticism, and set about giving a complete account of certitude apart from illumination. He grounded certitude in the knowledge of self-evident propositions, induction and awareness of our own states. After Scotus, illumination never made a serious recovery. Scotus’ other epistemological contribution was the allocation to the intellect of a direct, existential awareness of the intelligible object. This was called intuitive cognition, in contrast to abstractive knowledge, which seized the object independently of whether it was present to the intellect in actual existence or not. This distinction, credited to Scotus by his contemporaries, was invoked in nearly every subsequent scholastic discussion of certitude.
While known primarily for his metaphysics, the importance and originality of Scotus’ ethical theory has been increasingly appreciated. Scotus is a voluntarist, holding for example that not all of the natural law (the decalogue) is absolutely binding, that prudence and the moral virtues are not necessarily connected and that the will can act against a completely correct judgment of the intellect. It is Scotus’ theory of will itself, however, that has attracted the most attention. He argues that the will is a power for opposites, not just in the sense that it can have opposite acts over time but in the deeper sense that, even when actually willing one thing, it retains a real, active power to will the opposite. In other words, he detaches the notion of freedom from those of time and variability, arguing that if a created will existed only for an instant its choice would still be free. In this, he has been heralded as breaking with ancient notions of modality that treated contingency principally in terms of change over time. Scotus argued that the will, as a capacity for opposites, was the only truly rational power, where the rational was opposed to purely natural agents whose action was determined. In this sense, the intellect, as a purely natural agent, was not a rational power. Finally, Scotus endowed the will with an innate inclination to the good in itself apart from any advantage it might bring to the agent. This inclination or affection for the just (affectio iustitiae, as it was termed by Anselm), enabled the will to escape the deterministic inclination of natures toward their own perfection and fulfilment.
1 Career
Despite his importance and influence, little is known with certainty about the life and career of Duns Scotus. The commonly reported details of his family origins, early education and entry into the Franciscan order are now regarded as suspect owing to their origin in a partially fabricated eighteenth-century chronicle. More reliable is the date of his ordination to the priesthood in 1291, from which it is inferred that he must have been born about 1266. Scotus probably began his theological studies at Oxford about 1288, although it is debated whether he also studied at Paris prior to 1302. In any event, it is certain that he was present in Oxford in 1300 as a bachelor in theology, at which time he was participating in disputations and beginning to revise his lectures given there on the Sentences of Peter Lombard.
Scotus, however, never became master of theology at Oxford. At the recommendation of the English provincial, he was instead sent to Paris to lecture on the Sentences for a second time, which he began to do in the autumn of 1302. His Paris lectures were interrupted in June 1303 when King Philip the Fair required declarations of allegiance from religious houses at the university during his dispute with Pope Boniface VIII over taxation of church property. Scotus was among some eighty Franciscans from the Paris convent expelled from France by Philip for siding with the pope. During his exile from Paris Scotus is thought to have returned to Oxford, at which time he may have held his Oxford Collations. Scotus was back in Paris to resume his lectures on the Sentences by the autumn of 1304, when he was nominated by the Franciscan minister-general, Gonsalvus of Spain, as next in line for the Franciscan chair in theology. In his recommendation, Gonsalvus attested that Scotus’ reputation had already ‘spread everywhere’. Scotus is accordingly thought to have incepted as master by early 1305.
As regent in theology at Paris, Scotus disputed one set of quodlibetal questions and perhaps his Paris Collations. For reasons that are unclear, he was soon transferred from Paris to the Franciscan house of studies in Cologne, where a document dated February 1307 names him as a lector. Nothing is known of his activities at Cologne, where he appears to have remained until his early death, traditionally given as 8 November 1308. Remarkably, Scotus produced the bulk of his substantial writings in a period of barely ten years.
2 Works
As with the details of his career, Scotus’ works suffered greatly in transmission. It is fair to say that no scholastic thinker of his stature has been so burdened by misattribution and textual confusion. While much progress has been made in untangling Scotus’ corpus, fundamental questions remain, particularly concerning chronology.
Scotus’ works can be divided into philosophical and theological writings, with the latter generally regarded as later and more definitive. The philosophical writings consist first of all of questions on Porphyry and on the Categories, Peri hermeneias and Sophistical Refutations of Aristotle. These logical works are all presumed to be early products of his arts training, and they appear to have exercised little influence. Much more important are Scotus’ lengthy questions on the Metaphysics (only books I–IX are authentic), also traditionally regarded as an early work dating from his arts career. The questions on the Metaphysics are notorious for their difficulty, arising in part from the hundreds of revisions, additions and intrusions made to the text. Their traditionally early dating has been somewhat tempered in light of research indicating that certain sections appear to have been later. Finally, a much shorter set of questions on Aristotle’s On the Soul is attributed to Scotus, but its chronology is uncertain.
Scotus’ reputation, however, rests on his longer and more developed theological writings, and principal among these are his commentaries on the Sentences. A major advance of textual research on Scotus has been to tease apart the various versions of his Sentences that had been conflated even by his earliest disciples. At least three commentaries are now recognized: the Lectura, which are his earliest lectures on the Sentences at Oxford; the Ordinatio, a greatly expanded revision of the Lectura; and the Reportatio parisiensis, which are students’ reports of his Parisian lectures. Of capital importance for the interpretation of Scotus is the chronological relationship of the Ordinatio and Reportatio parisiensis, because the treatment of important issues in the Paris lectures differs markedly from that in the Oxford commentaries. A governing thesis of the critical edition of this work has been that the Ordinatio formed the latest and most definitive of Scotus’ commentaries, incorporating both his early Oxford Lectura and his Paris lectures. A revised tendency, however, has been to see the first book of the Ordinatio as earlier than the Reportatio parisiensis. In other words, it is increasingly thought that Scotus must have begun work on the Ordinatio before he left Oxford for Paris in 1302. Resolution of this must await further study of the Paris reports, which remain unedited for the first book.
In addition to his commentaries on the Sentences, Scotus left two sets of theological disputations. The first, his Quaestiones quodlibetales (Quodlibetal Questions), certainly date from his regency at Paris and should be regarded as the mature work of a master at the height of his career. A second set of university disputations, the Collationes (Collations) are also important but have been little studied. As with the Sentences, Scotus has Collations from both Oxford and Paris. Finally, Scotus wrote two treatises, the De primo principio (On the First Principle) and the Theoremata. The former is a lengthy and systematic deduction of the existence and nature of God according to axiomatic method. Nearly two-thirds of the De primo principio, however, comes directly from the Ordinatio, which suggests that Scotus may not have finished the treatise himself. The authenticity of the Theoremata has been contested owing to a section which argues, among other things, that natural reason cannot demonstrate the existence of God. The Theoremata is a work nonetheless attributed to Scotus both by manuscripts and by his contemporaries.
3 Sources and method
After nearly fifty years of publication and research, the critical edition of Scotus’ works has resulted in two general findings important for the exegesis of his thought. The first is that Scotus’ single, most important source by far was Henry of Ghent, the leading theologian at the University of Paris in the generation after Aquinas. On one major issue after another, Scotus begins with an extensive analysis and criticism of Henry’s position only to develop his own view in reaction to it. At least for his Oxford commentaries, Scotus’ real textbook was not Peter Lombard’s Sentences but, in effect, Henry of Ghent’s Summa. The relation of Scotus to Henry, however, is complex and does not simply consist in the former rejecting Henry’s conclusions. Scotus’ own position is often indebted to Henry’s vocabulary, distinctions and general philosophical framework. Even when he does not have Henry’s opinion under direct consideration, he will presume Henry’s prior discussion of the matter. Accordingly, Henry should be properly viewed as the major intellectual influence on Scotus as much as his principal adversary.
A second finding is that Scotus revised his works heavily by way of additions, annotations and insertions, termed extra, or ‘outside Scotus’ original text’. This method is especially apparent in the first book of the Ordinatio and in the questions on the Metaphysics. Scotus’ additions and insertions to his initial text can run to pages and typically record further objections and replies, often lodged by a contemporary, and note cross-references to related arguments elsewhere. Consequently, at these places Scotus’ texts cannot be read as finished products but as work in progress containing several chronological layers.
4 The place of Scotus in medieval philosophy
Scotus occupied a pivotal place in scholastic thought, closing the thirteenth century and opening the fourteenth intellectually as well as chronologically. First of all, Scotus’ focus on Henry of Ghent, quite apart from its obvious exegetical importance, was otherwise significant for the period. By in effect making a contemporary work the object of his commentary on the Sentences, Scotus fundamentally changed the programme and form of scholastic literature itself. While this change was already underway in the previous generation, Scotus nonetheless marks a clear divide between the thirteenth-century project of incorporating Greek and Arabic sources, as exemplified by Albert the Great, Bonaventure and Aquinas, and the fourteenth-century focus on contemporary opinion evident in William of Ockham.
However, Scotus’ greater contribution lies in his philosophical innovations, which not only became frequently discussed opinions – Scotus is one of the most cited authors in the fourteenth century – but defined the very issues and terms of analysis for the next century. Among the important concepts introduced by Scotus must be considered the following: in metaphysics, the univocity of the transcendental concepts, proofs for the existence of God and the principle of individuation; in epistemology, the distinction between intuitive and abstractive cognition; and in ethics, the will as a rational power for contraries and the interpretation of Anselm’s distinction between affection for justice (affectio iustitiae) and affection for what is advantageous (affectio commodi).
5 Univocity of the transcendental concepts
One of Scotus’ most striking metaphysical positions was that being and the other transcendentals could be conceived as univocally common to God and creatures, substance and accident. In this, he broke with the unanimous view of the thirteenth century that being could not be predicated univocally of substance and accident, much less of God and creatures. The common scholastic opinion, based directly on Aristotle, was that being was predicated of God and creatures neither univocally nor equivocally but according to analogy (see Being). Univocal predication was taken to violate God’s transcendence over creatures and equivocity to render natural knowledge of God impossible. Rather, being was said to be predicated according to analogy, which meant that it was asserted of God in a primary sense and of creatures in a related but derived sense. Analogy was therefore construed as a middle way between the extremes of univocity and equivocity, balancing the competing demands of God’s transcendence and knowability.
In general, Scotus’ position was that some univocal concept of being common to God and creatures was presumed by the traditional conviction that knowledge of the divine nature or attributes was naturally attainable. Scotus singled out Henry of Ghent for sustained attack on this score as part of a comprehensive and critical appraisal of his entire theory of knowledge, which was in general Augustinian (see Augustinianism). In his treatment of analogy, Henry was much more emphatic and explicit than previous discussions had been in claiming that being, when conceived in its utmost generality, did not form a single, common notion (ratio), but only two exclusive and proper concepts, one applicable only to God and the other only to creatures. He repeatedly stressed that there could be no separate notion of being distinct from those proper to either God or creature, so that being could be conceived only as either finite or infinite, created or uncreated. To admit an absolute concept of being apart from these two would simply be an admission of one common to both. Scotus argued from several angles that Henry could not consistently maintain that being resolved only into two proper notions, having no conceptual element in common, and at the same time uphold the possibility of natural knowledge of God.
Of Scotus’ several arguments for univocity – at one point he outlines ten – the one labelled ‘from certain and doubtful concepts’ was regarded by his contemporaries as the most compelling. This argument was aimed squarely at Henry’s repeated insistence that there could be no concept of being apart from the analogous and proper notions of infinite and finite being applicable exclusively to God and creature (see Henry of Ghent). An intellect certain about one concept but doubtful about others, has a concept about which it is certain that is different from the concepts about which it is doubtful. We can be certain that God is a being, while doubting whether God is infinite or finite being. Therefore, the concept of being is different from, and hence univocal to, the concepts of infinite or finite being. Scotus takes the first premise to be evident, for a given intellect cannot be both certain and doubtful of the same concept. The second premise is true de facto because past thinkers, such as the Presocratics, disagreed as to whether the first principle was finite or infinite. Yet, in attempting to establish one of these alternatives, no philosopher ever doubted that the first principle was a being. Being must therefore have a separate, distinct concept.
Put more generally, Scotus’ point is that prior to demonstration, the intellect is doubtful whether God is an infinite or finite being. Yet, such a demonstration must be based upon something certain about God, for otherwise it would proceed from premises doubtful in all respects. Thus, unless the concept of being is admitted as certain, apart from the doubtful concepts of infinite and finite which are themselves the object of demonstration, no certain reasoning about God will be possible. Henry’s refusal to admit a concept of being distinct from any proper to God therefore entails that the intellect is either certain and doubtful of the same notion or certain of none at all.
In a similar line of attack, Scotus is more explicit still that Henry’s denial of a univocal concept of being renders natural knowledge of God impossible. A creature causes a concept that is either common to it and God or proper to God alone. Since Henry denies the former, he must hold the latter to explain the natural origin of our concepts of God. Scotus, however, argues that it is impossible for a creature to cause directly any concept wholly proper to God. In general, an object can only produce a concept of what it contains either as an essential part or an essential property, as is evident from the traditional division of essential predicates. Obviously, the creature can contain nothing proper to God as either a part or property of its essence without violating divine transcendence. Thus, if a creature can directly produce any concept applicable to God at all, it must be one that is common rather than proper.
Finally, Scotus applies these same criticisms to the very foundations of all scholastic accounts for natural knowledge of God, the Anselmian doctrine of pure perfections and the Pseudo-Dionysian procedure of removal and eminence. According to Scotus, both of these presuppose univocity, so that ‘All the masters and theologians seem to use a concept common to God and creature, although they deny this verbally when they apply it’ (Lectura 1 d.3 n.29). Anselm’s doctrine holds that we attribute to God those perfections found in creatures which are pure in the sense that, conceived in themselves, they entail no imperfection, such as will, intellect or wisdom. These perfections are defined by Anselm generally as ‘what absolutely is better to be than not’ (see Anselm of Canterbury). But by this definition, something is first determined to constitute a pure perfection and then on that basis attributed to God, not the reverse. Pure perfections abstracted from creatures must therefore have some meaning that is prior to any they have as proper to God alone. Scotus makes the same point regarding the Pseudo-Dionysian methods of removal and eminence (see Pseudo-Dionysius). According to Scotus, all metaphysical inquiry about God proceeds by taking some formal notion (ratio formalis) and removing from it all imperfections with which it is found in a creature. For example, we take the formal notion of the will – the power for opposites – and remove any limitations connected with its existence in a creature, such as variability. We then attribute it to God by conceiving of it not just as lacking imperfection, but as possessing the greatest degree of perfection, such that it is omnipotent. This process presumes that the formal notion of the will stripped of creaturely limitations is the same notion of will assigned the highest degree of perfection; otherwise the first step of the procedure would simply have no relevance to the second. If nothing of the notion abstracted from creatures remains when we attribute it to God, then perfections in creatures have nothing to say about the perfection of God.
The outcome of the above arguments is Scotus’ revision of the structure of the concept of transcendental being. In place of Henry’s scheme, where being taken in its ultimate generality resolves into a pair of simple notions proper to God and proper to creatures, Scotus admits a single, simple concept which is common to both. As a result, the analogous concepts of being proper to God and proper to creatures, which for Henry were simple and irreducible, became for Scotus composite, comprising the common notion of being and the determining concepts of infinite and finite.
It is important to stress that in these arguments Scotus does not entirely set aside the received doctrine of analogy. He of course admitted that the concepts of being proper to God and proper to creature were analogous. His fundamental point is rather that unless there is some underlying concept of being common to these analogous ones, then they will in fact turn out not to be analogous at all but purely equivocal, thus rendering natural knowledge of God impossible. What Scotus did set aside was reliance on the analogous relationship itself as sufficient to account for any proper concept of God. Since knowledge of a relation is posterior, not prior, to any knowledge of the terms related, analogy does not explain but presupposes a knowledge of being as proper to God. Accordingly, some univocal, conceptual community between God and creatures is demanded by the traditional project of natural knowledge of the divine nature or attributes.
6 Primary object of the intellect
Given univocity, it seems to follow directly that being is the primary object of the intellect, for the concept of being is common to, and hence more primitive than, any notion proper to either God or creatures. Scotus in fact draws this conclusion, arguing that unless the concept of being is univocal, there can be no object encompassing all that the intellect can know. Thus, in addition to ensuring the possibility of natural knowledge of God, the other important epistemological function of univocity is to provide the intellect with a primary or defining object.
To avoid what he saw as equivocation on the issue, Scotus distinguished three different viewpoints from which an object of the intellect could be considered primary: generation or origin, perfection and adequation. The first two were relatively uncontroversial, since there was broad agreement that all knowledge originated from the senses and that God constituted the highest knowable object. Accordingly, Scotus concluded that the specific nature of the sense particular was first in terms of the generation or origin of knowledge. In a similarly conventional position, Scotus put God as the first object in the order of perfection absolutely speaking, while the most perfect object proportioned to our intellect was the sensible nature. (Scotus, like most, refined these positions with various qualifications and distinctions.) The order of adequation, however, was more disputed, for here the primary object defined the nature of the intellectual power as such.
By ‘adequate’ Scotus meant what Aristotle called the ‘commensurately universal’, which formed one of the conditions of strict demonstration outlined in the Posterior Analytics. The adequate object of a power is that which is coextensive and commensurate with all objects over which that power ranges. It is in this sense that the primary object circumscribes the scope of a power and hence marks it off as distinct from other powers. In general, Scotus recognizes two ways in which an object may be adequate: either because it forms a universal nature or aspect (ratio) found in all things which a power surveys, such as colour in the case of sight, or because it is a single, most perfect object that includes within itself all the other objects governed by a power. In the case of the intellect, Scotus says that an object is adequate in the first way by community or predication, for it is common to and hence predicable of all that is intelligible; in the second way, an object is adequate virtually, for by understanding it, the intellect is moved to understand all else that is intelligible.
Scotus reports two competing opinions on the adequate object of the intellect, representing broadly Aristotelian and Augustinian theories of knowledge. The first is the well-known position of Aquinas, taken to represent the Aristotelian orientation, that the adequate object of the human intellect is the essence or quiddity of the sense particular. Scotus argues against Aquinas’ position on both theological and philosophical grounds, maintaining in each case that the adequate object concerns the nature of the power as such. Theologically, Scotus rejects Aquinas’ position because, in limiting the scope of the created intellect in its nature to the material quiddity, it rendered the knowledge of the immaterial essence of God promised in beatitude impossible. On the same grounds, Scotus rejects Aquinas’ explanation that, since ‘grace perfects nature’, the intellect will be elevated by a supernatural quality that will enable it to attain an immaterial object. While Scotus of course holds that a supernatural grace is required for our intellect to have direct vision of God, he denies that any supervening quality can modify a power so as to change its adequate object. In that case, the power is not simply perfected but, by definition, transformed into a power of an altogether different nature. Philosophically, Scotus argues that on Aquinas’ position the science of metaphysics would be impossible, for the intellect cannot acquire a science whose object exceeds the scope of the primary object of the intellect itself. But the object of metaphysics, being qua being, is more universal than material natures.
The second opinion, which represents an Augustinian approach, is that of Henry of Ghent, who posited God as the primary object of the intellect. As indicated above, Henry held that being and the other transcendentals taken in their utmost generality resolved into two distinct notions, one proper to God and the other to creatures. Henry had to designate one of the two as primary as regards our intellect, and he argued that those proper to God were prior. This followed from his strong commitment to an Augustinian theory of illumination, according to which the essence of a creature was truly known only by reference to its eternal archetype or idea in the mind of God (see Augustinianism). Scotus replies that, as indicated, if God is the adequate object of the created intellect, the divine nature must either be common to or virtually include all that is intelligible. The divine essence is obviously not universally common to all intelligible objects, since God cannot be predicated of creatures. Although the divine essence does virtually include all that is intelligible, God is not on this account the adequate object of any created intellect. If this were the case, then the human intellect would be moved to understanding all intelligibles by a single object, namely the divine essence, rather than directly by those intelligibles themselves. The divine essence, of course, can function as an object in this way only for the divine intellect, which is to say that God is the adequate object of the divine mind alone. By way of a corollary to his refutation of Henry, Scotus also excludes on similar grounds substance as the adequate object of the intellect in the sense that it virtually contains accidents. This would mean that accidents could only be known through substance, which is false, since accidents themselves can move the intellect as intelligible objects.
Having excluded both God and substance in his refutation of Henry, Scotus concluded that no single object can be primary for the created intellect in the sense that it virtually contains all else that is intelligible. Therefore, if there is a primary, adequate object of the intellect, it must be such owing to its community. Since nothing is more common than being, it must be the primary object of the intellect. Scotus notes that this presupposes a univocal concept of being, so that if univocity is denied the intellect can have no adequate object.
In making being the primary object of the intellect, Scotus was in fact tacitly advancing yet a third opinion, that of Avicenna (see Ibn Sina). In central passages of his Metaphysics, Avicenna had made being both a primary conception of the mind and, in explicit contradistinction to either God or substance, the proper subject of a universal science of metaphysics. These texts strongly implied that Avicenna had seen being as the primary object of the intellect, prior to both God and creatures. Henry of Ghent had already explicitly raised just this interpretation of Avicenna in order to reject it forcefully on the grounds that it entailed a univocal concept of being. Henry’s analysis was not lost on Scotus, who adopted the Avicennian position as a consequence of his doctrine of univocity.
7 Proofs for the existence of God
Duns Scotus’ argument for the existence of God was perhaps the most ambitious of the scholastic period. Running to hundreds of pages and comprising dozens of interim conclusions and corollaries, it exists in at least four significantly modified versions, one in each of his three commentaries on the Sentences and separately as the treatise De primo principio. Among its distinctive features are the demonstration of the so-called ‘triple primacy’, the rejection of Aristotle’s proof from motion, the definition of essentially ordered causes, the argument from possibility and the demonstration of God as infinite being.
According to Scotus, the highest naturally attainable concept of God is that of an actually infinite being. Consequently, Scotus holds that a complete argument for the existence of God can demonstrate nothing less than that some being is actually infinite. For Scotus a proof for a first efficient cause, such as Aquinas’ second way, would not itself fully constitute a demonstration that God exists, but, as will be evident, would be merely a preliminary step in such a demonstration. Thus whereas most scholastics, like Aquinas, first establish that God exists and only later derive infinity as a divine attribute, Scotus requires the demonstration of infinity as logically necessary to establish God’s existence itself. As a result, the structure of Scotus’ proof is exceedingly complex, involving a good portion of his entire natural theology.
The overall structure of Scotus’ demonstration comprises three large, principal steps divided into two main articles. The first step establishes that there is a first efficient and final cause and a most perfect being, the second that these three coincide in a unique nature, and the third that this nature is actually infinite. The first two steps together constitute the first article, which Scotus says establishes God according to the relative properties of causality and eminence (in other words, perfection), and the third step forms the second article, which reaches God according to the absolute property of actual infinity. The establishment in the first half of the proof of something primary according to each of the relative properties of efficiency, finality and eminence is referred to as the demonstration of the ‘triple primacy.’ All of these steps are intricately argued and supported by sometimes large preliminary results, such as that God has both an intellect and will as preparatory to the proof of actual infinity.
As in other areas of his thought, Scotus’ proof reveals the influence of Henry of Ghent. Scotus took over the structure of the triple primacy directly from Henry’s attempt to schematize the eclectic body of received arguments for the existence of God according to the Pseudo-Dionysian ways of causality and eminence (see Pseudo-Dionysius). By subdividing causality into efficient, formal or exemplar, and final causes and interpreting eminence in terms of degrees of perfection, Henry sought to reconcile the disparate arguments from the Aristotelian (efficient and final cause) and Augustinian (exemplar cause and eminence) traditions. In an otherwise important metaphysical step, Scotus maintained against Henry that exemplar cause was simply a species of efficienct cause, and therefore eliminated it as a separate class of argument for the existence of God on the grounds of logical economy. He thereby streamlined Henry’s original divisions of causality and eminence to the three of the triple primacy.
8 The proof from efficient causality
Each of Scotus’ proofs for a primacy in efficient cause, final cause and eminence contains three main conclusions: that there is a first in that order, that it is uncaused and that it actually exists. Because Scotus establishes these three results principally for efficienct causation and then applies them to the other two cases, it will be sufficient to examine each of these three conclusions leading to a first efficient cause.
Before beginning the proof from efficienct causation proper, Scotus explains that he is demonstrating a first efficient cause of being and explicitly discards Aristotle’s argument for a prime mover in Physics VIII. Scotus does so not because he thinks Aristotle’s proof invalid but, again, on grounds of economy. To prove a first cause of motion is not necessarily to prove a first efficient cause of being. While the two may coincide in reality, further demonstration is required to establish this identity. Including Aristotle’s physical proof would therefore necessitate a further step. Prior to Scotus, Aristotle’s approach had been increasingly seen as inferior to Avicenna’s strictly metaphysical proof based on necessity and possibility, especially by Henry of Ghent. Scotus, however, represents the final step where Physics VIII is omitted altogether from the standard corpus of arguments for God.
The first conclusion under efficienct causation, then, is that there is some efficient cause absolutely first, so that it neither exists nor exercises its causal power by virtue of some prior cause. Scotus’ main argument for this first conclusion is brief. He formulates the initial premise broadly to include even possible effects: some being can be caused efficiently (aliquod ens est effectibile). It is therefore either caused by itself, by nothing or by another. Since it cannot be caused by nothing or by itself, it is caused by another. This other is either a first efficient cause in the way explained or it is a posterior agent, either because it can be an effect of, or can cause in virtue of, another efficient cause. Again, either this is first, or we argue as before, and some prior cause is required. Thus, there is either an infinity of efficient causes, so that each has some cause prior to it, or there is a first cause posterior to none. Since an infinity of causes is impossible, there must be a primary cause that is posterior to none.
This argument immediately encounters two objections, and Scotus’ replies to them contain the bulk of his proof. The first is that the argument begs the question because it assumes that an infinite regress of causes is impossible. Here is it observed that the philosophers (that is, Aristotle and Avicenna) admitted an infinite series of causes, for they held that the generation of individuals could proceed to infinity, and hence every generating agent would have some prior cause. The second objection is that Scotus’ argument is not strictly demonstrative because it is based on premises that are contingent, namely, that some effect exists. As such, the proposed proof lacks the necessity required of Aristotelian demonstration in the proper sense.
9 Essentially-ordered causes
In response to the first objection, Scotus defines the precise nature of causal relations at issue in arguments against infinite regress. According to Scotus, they do not concern simply essential as opposed to accidental causes, but rather essentially-ordered as opposed to accidentally-ordered causes. The former concern only the relationship that a single cause bears to its given effect, namely, that the effect arises from the nature of the cause rather than from something incidental to it. Essentially-ordered causes, however, concern the relationship of several causes to each other in jointly producing an effect. As defined by Scotus, there are three features of essentially-ordered as opposed to accidentally-ordered causes. The first is that the posterior cause depends upon the prior for the very exercise of its causality and not just for its being, which can be the case in accidentally-ordered causes. The second is that essentially-ordered causes always differ in nature so that the prior cause is more perfect in kind. This is a consequence of the first feature, for given two causes of the same nature, either is sufficient to produce the same effect. Finally, essentially-ordered causes must be simultaneously present to produce their effect, for otherwise from the second feature, some perfection in causality required for that effect would be missing.
Given this distinction, Scotus excludes the counterexample drawn from the philosophers, since it concerns an infinite series of temporally successive, generating causes. The causes in such a series are therefore not essentially but only accidentally ordered to each other in producing a given effect, for the posterior cause does not depend upon the prior for its causal action itself, but only for its existence. This is clear, for all the generating causes in the series are individual agents of the same nature or species, and thus not all are required simultaneously to produce the same effect. For instance, parents can produce a child whether or not their own parent or grandparent is alive. Rather, Scotus directs his argument against an infinite series of causes upon which the entire succession of individual agents itself would depend. Scotus claims that no philosopher admitted an infinite series of such essentially ordered or ‘ascending’ causes.
Having so defined the notion of causality operative in the proof, Scotus remains content to give five brief arguments against infinite regress, based in part upon the received reasoning of Aristotle’s Metaphysics II and Avicenna. An exception is the fifth of these arguments, for here Scotus establishes the possibility of a first efficient cause, the actual existence of which he deduces later. Scotus argues that since efficient causality does not of itself imply imperfection, it is possible for it to exist in some nature without imperfection. That is, efficient causality, like wisdom or intellect, is a ‘pure perfection’. However, if there is an infinite regress in efficient causes, then all would be dependent on some prior cause and efficiency could never be found without imperfection, contrary to assumption. Therefore, a first efficient cause in the sense defined must be possible. While seemingly weaker than the other arguments against infinite regress in that it establishes only the possibility of a first efficient cause, this result enables Scotus to construct a strict demonstration which he claims is necessary.
10 Proof from possibility
To the second objection, that the proof began from contingent premises and thus was not a true demonstration, Scotus replies that his argument for a first efficient cause can be formulated with either existential or modal premises. In the first way, the argument begins with the actual existence of some effect or change and argues directly to the existence of a cause owing to the correlative nature of effect and cause. Formulated in this fashion, the argument is based on contingent but evidently true premises. In the second way, the argument takes its premise from the possibility of some effect and concludes to the possibility of a cause. The actual existence of a first efficient cause is then deduced from its possibility. In this way, the argument can be recast so as to be a necessary demonstration, for the premises are statements not about the actual existence of some effect but about its nature or possibility. Scotus draws out the necessary argument from possibility in the last conclusion concerning efficient cause.
Having answered these two objections, Scotus proceeds to the remaining two of three conclusions necessary to establish a primacy in efficient causality. The second is that the first efficient cause is uncausable, with respect to both its own existence and its ability to cause. As Scotus indicates, this conclusion simply makes explicit the notion of ‘first’ already demonstrated in the arguments against infinite regress. The third and final conclusion is that an efficient cause first in this sense actually exists. As established in the fifth argument against infinite regress, a first efficient cause is possible. Scotus then argues that if such a cause is possible, it must actually exist. If it does not exist, then it could only be possible if some other cause was able to bring it into existence. But such a first efficient cause is absolutely uncausable, so that if it does not actually exist, it is impossible for it to exist. Therefore, if the first efficient cause can exist, it does exist. Alternatively, Scotus says, the same conclusion can be reached by the other traditional arguments recorded against infinite regress, although, as indicated in the above reply to the second objection, they begin from contingent premises.
11 Actual infinity of first efficient cause
After establishing the existence of a first efficient and final cause and most perfect being, and their identity in a unique nature, Scotus then moves to the actual infinity of that nature. As indicated, Scotus does not consider the existence of God to have been proven until actual infinity has been demonstrated. He derives the infinity of this primary nature from its properties of efficienct causality, final causality and eminence. The demonstrations based on efficient causality are notable.
Scotus considers two standard arguments for the infinity of the first efficient cause, both treated in some detail by Henry of Ghent in his question on divine infinity, and then constructs a third of his own. The first, based on Aristotle’s Physics VIII, is that since the first mover causes an infinite (that is, beginningless) motion, it must be infinite in power. Scotus, however, sees the argument as needing considerable expansion to establish infinity in the sense desired. First of all, to avoid basing the argument on the false assumption of an eternal world, he argues that the antecedent could be changed to the weaker claim that it is possible for God to cause an infinite motion. (Scotus, like Aquinas, regarded the eternity of the world as factually false but not impossible (see Eternity of the world, medieval views of).) Scotus claims that the consequent equally follows if God can, but in fact does not, produce an eternal motion. Second, he recognizes that a cause is not infinite in power simply because it produces an effect or succession of like effects – in this case the uniform rotations of the outermost heaven – for an infinite duration. Given a finite effect of infinite duration or an infinite succession of such effects, it only follows that their cause is also infinite in duration, not necessarily in power or perfection. Thus, Scotus revises Aristotle’s original reasoning by arguing that the prime mover is causally responsible for the entire infinite succession of motions and derived effects taken together and in their totality. This he does in several ways, all of which depend upon recognizing that the prime mover, since it is the first efficient cause, depends on nothing else for its causal power. As such, the prime mover must possess within itself all at once the total power required to produce all of its effects realizable over an infinite time, for it can receive no power from any external cause. Since these effects are infinite in number, it must be infinite in power.
In addition to the Aristotelian approach based upon the prime mover as the first efficient cause of motion, Henry advanced a second argument for divine infinity based on God as the first efficient cause of being, that is, on God as creator. Henry argued that since the distance traversed from nothing to being in the act of creation ex nihilo was infinite (for a finite distance presupposes two finite beings), God had to be infinite in power. Whereas Scotus found the first approach based on Aristotle’s Physics salvageable, he rejected outright this second argument based on creation. First of all, he noted that the argument requires that creation be taken in the revealed sense of a temporal beginning of the world, which is a matter of religious belief, rather than in the philosophically demonstrable sense of causal dependence. Secondly, Scotus denies that there is an infinite ‘distance’ between being and nothing. Contradictories are not distant in the sense that there is some interval between them, for they are immediate, but only in the sense that one extreme is more perfect than the other. Thus, two opposed extremes cannot be more ‘distant’ than the more perfect of the two. But the more perfect extreme in creation is merely finite. Thus, while a creature is infinitely distant from God, since the more perfect extreme is infinite, it is not so distant from nothing.
Scotus’ third and preferred argument for infinity is drawn from exemplar causation, that is, from the efficient cause considered as an intellective agent. Prior to this proof, Scotus first establishes three necessary preliminary results: that the first cause has an intellect and will, that its intellectual and voluntary acts are identical to its essence and that it knows all that can be known both distinctly and actually. From this he argues that since the divine intellect knows distinctly and actually all that can be known, it knows these things all at once, for an intellect knows successively only if it moves from confused to distinct or from potential to actual knowledge. The things that can be known are infinitely many; therefore, since the intellect of the first efficient cause knows infinitely many things at once, it is actually infinite.
In sum, then, Scotus accepts proofs for infinity based upon the first efficient cause as prime mover and exemplar but not as creating cause. After completing further proofs for infinity based on finality and eminence, he concludes that the existence of God has been demonstrated according to the highest attainable concept (see God, arguments for the existence of).
12 Universals and individuation
Generally speaking, Scotus is regarded as a realist on the issue of universals because he admits that the universal has some reality and unity prior to any act of the intellect and accordingly that it has some sort of real distinction – the so called formal distinction – from the individual. On this score, he was attacked by William of Ockham, who, committed to a thorough nominalism, denied any sort of distinction within the individual that would grant the universal a reality of its own (see Nominalism; Universals). As such, Scotus and Ockham are typically viewed as poles in the fourteenth-century strain of the realist–nominalism debate. Scotus, however, was not an extreme realist. For instance, he argued at length against Henry of Ghent’s theory which accorded the essences of things a real being in the mind of God antecedent to their creation (see Henry of Ghent). Even Ockham places Scotus next to last in his series of opinions ranked according to their degree of realism.
Scotus does not directly treat the problem of the reality of universals, as one finds it treated in the commentaries of Boethius and Abelard, but rather addresses it in the course of determining the principle of individuation. By Scotus’ time, the thirteenth-century discussion of individuation had become highly involved, leading Peter Olivi to remark that there was ‘an endless forest of opinions on the matter’. Scotus reaches his own position after a lengthy examination and rejection of five possible views: a common opinion that there is no need to posit a separate principle of individuation, followed by four specific views: negation (Henry of Ghent), actual existence (a common view), quantity (Giles of Rome) and matter (a common view attributed to Aristotle). Scotus devotes a separate question to the elimination of each of these opinions, leaving him to conclude in a sixth view what the principle of individuation must be.
The greatest burden of Scotus’ entire discussion is the refutation of the first view that there is no need to posit a distinct principle of individuation. The issue is whether a common nature, such as equinity or humanity, is of itself individual. This first view holds that the nature is individual of itself, so that there is no need to account for its individuality by any other factors than those that bring the nature itself into actual existence, namely, the generating causes themselves. It is not, in this view, that the nature is first produced as universal and then some intervening causes are required to contract it to a singular instance, for the nature is produced and exists only as singular. To the contrary, what is required is an explanation of the nature’s universality, for this does not belong to the nature as it exists absolutely and in reality but only in relation to the intellect.
In essence, what Scotus is combating is the nominalistic position that reality is thoroughly singular and hence individuality requires no explanation. Scotus mounts two main arguments against this view, both of which bring out his realism. The first is that the object of a power, insofar as it functions as its object, is naturally prior to the act of that power. The reason is that a cause is prior to its effect, and the object is a cause of the act of a power. However, if the nature is of itself singular insofar as it is prior to an act of the intellect, then the intellect in its act of understanding will grasp its object in a way contrary to the very nature of that object itself, namely, as common rather than singular. Therefore, the nature cannot be of itself singular but must be the common antecedent to an act of the intellect.
Scotus’ second argument issues in his doctrine of a lesser or ‘minor’ unity. He maintains that the nature must have its own proper unity which is both real and less than the numerical unity of the singular. Otherwise, every real unity would be numerical, which is false. The reason is that many relationships are recognized as real in the sense that they are not mind-dependent, yet are not based on things numerically one but on species, genera and other common classes. Therefore, these must have unity which is less than numerical but nonetheless real. For instance, the basis of all physical change, which is real, is contrariety; but things are not contrary insofar as they are numerically one, for then there would be as many contraries as individuals. Thus contraries – hot and cold, up and down – must each be one by a unity that is real but less than numerical. Or again, the relation of similarity is real in the sense that it is not simply the product of the mind. It cannot be based on what is numerically one, for then all things would be equally similar. Conversely, there are degrees of diversity that are not merely mind-imposed, so that Socrates differs more from rock than from Plato. This would not follow, however, if all unity were numerical, for then all individuals would be equally diverse.
Accordingly, Scotus concludes that the natures of things, such as equinity and humanity, are not of themselves individual but are the common antecedent to any act of the intellect. From this it follows that natures taken in themselves are not, strictly speaking, universal either, for universality in the strict sense is a relation of reason resulting from an act of the intellect. Quoting Avicenna’s famous text on the common nature (natura communis), Scotus says that the nature taken in itself is neither universal nor singular: ‘Equinity is nothing else but equinity alone. Of itself it is neither one nor many, neither universal nor particular’ (Ordinatio 2 d.3 n.31) That is, according to Scotus, although the nature is never found except as universal in the mind or as singular outside the mind, it cannot of itself be either. If equinity were in itself universal, so as to include the note of universality in its definition, it could not be predicated of any singular instance, for no individual is a universal. If it were singular of itself, it could be asserted of only one instance. Thus, in order to be capable of realization in either state, the nature taken in itself must be neutral with respect to both. It is this common nature that forms the proper object of the intellect, functions as the predicate in true, universal statements, and has the real, lesser unity demonstrated above.
Given that the natures or essences of things are not of themselves singular, they must be made such by some individuating factor, just as they are made universal in the strict sense by an intervening act of the intellect. As indicated, Scotus rejects four candidates for this individuating principle. The first is Henry of Ghent’s position that a nature is individual when it cannot be pluralized further (for example, Socrates cannot be multiplied) and is not identified with another (Socrates is not Plato).Thus, Henry concluded that a nature is individuated by a twofold negation. Scotus argues that an individual is something positive and thus cannot be caused by negation. In any event, Henry’s theory does not give an exact cause, for every negation presupposes something positive. What is sought then is the positive factor that causes these two negative properties of an individual.
The next opinion is that actual existence individuates, which is based upon the principle that actuality distinguishes. Since existence is the ultimate act, it must cause the ultimate distinction, namely, individuality (see Henry of Ghent). Against this, Scotus argues that while existence is an act, it is not an act relevant to individuation. At issue is what makes some substance, such as a horse or stone, individual. Existence is an act outside of and posterior to the whole predicamental line of substance; it is in this sense that existence is often said to be ‘accidental’, for it lies outside the essence or natures of things. One of the more common views was that individuation was caused by quantity, since a form was taken to be pluralized insofar as it was found in an extended, material substrate. Scotus replies that if accidents are posterior to substance, this holds a fortiori of individual substance, since Aristotle identifies this as substance in the primary sense. Therefore, quantity as a accident is posterior to whatever makes a substance individual. Elsewhere, Scotus deploys this same line of reasoning against the Boethian theory that a collection of accidents individuates (see Boethius, A.M.S.). Finally, he rejects the standard Aristotelian view that matter individuates, since matter is in itself indeterminate and indistinct. It cannot therefore be a principle of distinction.
From all of this, Scotus concludes that the principle of individuation must be something real and positive in the substantial order as opposed to any kind of accident, whether existential or categorical, and, while not a substantial form itself, the ultimate reality or perfection of that form. In other words, the principle of individuation is a further substantial difference added to the specific nature; indeed, Scotus calls it an ‘individual difference’. While the individual difference is of course not a further specific difference, Scotus depicts it as functioning metaphysically in a closely analogous way. Thus, just as the specific difference renders the nature of which is it a part incapable of division into any further species, so the individual difference renders the singular absolutely indivisible. Further, the specific difference is a reality formally distinct from, and actual with respect to, the reality of the genus. Also, the individual difference is actual with respect to the reality of the specific nature and formally distinct from it. Finally, the individual difference is irreducibly simple and hence wholly diverse from any other individual difference. In this it is comparable to ultimate specific differences, which are absolutely simple and diverse. The individual difference, however, is unlike any specific difference, because it adds no further quidditative or essential reality. If the nature or essence of a thing be considered its form, then the individuating difference may be considered ‘material’ in the extended sense that it contributes no common essence or nature but rather contracts such a nature to an ultimate subject. Posterity has labelled this individual difference haecceitas or ‘thisness’, a term used sparingly by Scotus himself and then usually to mean the state of being singular (singularitas) rather than the principle of individuation itself.
The significance of Scotus’ theory of individuation is that it breaks with the fundamental Greek conception of the species as the principal locus of both being and intelligibility, codified in the Latin tradition by the Boethian dictum that ‘The species is the entire being of an individual.’ As schematized in the so called Porphyrian tree, differences proper in the category of substance were seen to end with the final species and individuation was explained through something extrinsic, whether by way of accidents or matter. Scotus, however, extends the process of division and differentiation in the substantial line past the species and down into the constitution of the individual itself, going so far as to place the species and individual difference in a relation of potency and act akin to that of genus and specific difference. He thus accords the individual a true reality and admits as a consequence that the individual is per se intelligible. In so elevating both the reality and intelligibility of the individual, Scotus’ realism on the issue of universals is decidedly un-Platonic.
13 Intuitive and abstractive cognition
In the area of epistemology, Scotus’ most influential contributions were the distinction between intuitive and abstractive cognition and the demolition of Augustinian illumination, at least in the highly sophisticated form given to it by Henry of Ghent. While the latter is of broader philosophical interest, virtually every scholastic discussion in epistemology after Scotus utilizes his distinction between abstraction and intuition, which contemporaries claimed originated with him. Scotus’ notion especially of intuitive cognition was, of course, subjected to refinement and revision in subsequent discussions, but always with Scotus’ original definition in mind.
As defined technically by Scotus, intuitive cognition is knowledge of an object insofar as it is actually existing and present to the intellect. Abstractive cognition is knowledge of the object insofar as it is abstracted from actual existence or non-existence. A number of clarifications are in order. First of all, as will be clear from Scotus’ argument for the distinction, both intuitive and abstractive cognition are acts of the intellect proper and do not differ in that intuition grasps the sense particular and abstraction the universal. Both types of cognition have as their object the essence or quiddity as opposed to the sense particular. In intuition, the quiddity is known as being caused by what is existing and present, in abstractive cognition by the intelligible species residing in the intellect as surrogate for the existing object itself. In this context, then, ‘abstractive’ does not for Scotus refer to Aristotelian abstraction of the universal. Second, Scotus is specific that ‘intuitive’ is not here equated with ‘non-discursive’, the common epistemological sense associated with the Augustinian term intuitus (glance), particularly in the context of divine knowledge or the beatific vision (see Augustinianism). Some abstractive knowledge can be ‘intuitive’ in this sense, since it can be non-discursive. Scotus says that he is here taking ‘intuitive’ absolutely, as when we say that we ‘see (intueri) a thing as it really is’.
Scotus argues that the intellect must possess both types of cognition based upon its commonly admitted functions. Thus, the intellect must be capable of abstractive cognition, for otherwise scientific knowledge in the strict Aristotelian sense would be impossible. The reason is that an object is contingent insofar as it is actually existent and present to the intellect. If therefore the intellect cannot grasp an object in abstraction from its existence, all knowledge would be contingent. In other words, the intellect could know no statements about an object as true or false independent of that object’s existential state. Conversely, the intellect must be capable of intuitive cognition, for a perfection found in a lower power must be found in a higher power of the same type. However, the senses, which are cognitive faculties like the intellect, seize the sensible particular as present and existing. Therefore, the intellect must also have this capacity. As Scotus explains, the particular senses have intuitive, sensible cognition of the particular, while the imagination knows the same object abstractively by means of the sensible species which can remain in the absence of the sensible thing itself. The same twofold cognitive capacity must, by parity, be found in the intellect. At the level of sense, however, two separate powers are required for these two different cognitive acts because the sense powers are distinguished by having different material organs. Owing to its greater perfection as an immaterial power, the intellect possesses both capacities in a united way. Furthermore, intuitive cognition is also required to account for the beatific vision, where the divine essence will be known, according to scripture, ‘face to face’; that is, as existentially present to the intellect.
For Scotus, then, the intellect has a direct apprehension of an intelligible object insofar as it is the actually existing and present cause of its cognitive act. The chief philosophical use to which Scotus puts intuitive cognition is to supply certitude for contingent propositions. For example, he claims that by means of intuitive cognition we are as certain about our own acts as we are about necessary, self-evident propositions. After Scotus, the entire fourteenth-century preoccupation with certitude was regularly cast in terms of intuitive cognition. For instance, a common problem discussed was whether God could cause an intuitive cognition of a non-existent object (see William of Ockham §4).
14 Theory of will
While perhaps better known for his metaphysics than his ethics, Scotus’ ethical theory has attracted increasing attention for being innovative and even radical. For example, he departs from fundamental thirteenth-century positions by holding that not all of the natural law (the decalogue) is absolutely binding, that prudence is not necessarily connected to moral virtue and that the will can act contrary to a fully correct moral judgment of the intellect. These and other such conclusions arise from Scotus’ strong notion of will itself, which is complex and the focus of much of the attention given to his ethical theory. Three features of Scotus’ conception of will have been seen as particularly important: the will as a power for opposites, the will as rational power and the dual inclination or ‘affection’ (affectio) of the will.
Scotus holds that there is a twofold freedom arising from the will as a power for opposites. The will is free in an evident way, says Scotus, since it is capable of opposite acts successively, such as loving and hating. This type of freedom, however, is not a perfection, since it pertains to the will as changeable and variable. In a second, less evident way, Scotus argues, the will is also free apart from any succession or change, for at the very moment at which it is willing an act, it remains a real, active power to will the opposite. Obviously Scotus does not mean by this that the will is capable of willing contrary acts simultaneously. Rather, he means that, if there is to be a contingent and free cause called the will, an act must be consistent with the real possibility of its opposite at the same time. (Scotus goes to considerable lengths to clarify the logical ambiguities of his position.)
Scotus argues for this ‘less evident’ sense of freedom and contingency by means of his famous hypothetical case of an instantaneously existent will, which in fact derived from the standard scholastic question of whether an angel could have sinned at the first instant of its creation. Consider a created will that has been brought into existence only for an instant and at that instant has a determinate act of willing. Scotus argues that, despite existing only for an instant, this will cannot produce its volition necessarily, but must do so freely and contingently. The reason is that a cause, when it actually causes, must do so either necessarily or contingently. That is, a cause is not now contingent because it existed previously and then, at that previous time, was able either to cause or not, but only because it is such at the moment when it actually operates. Thus, if a will existing at an instant causes necessarily, it would cause in that way at every instant, and thus never be a free or contingent cause. Therefore, since the will causes contingently and freely at that instant, it must have a real power for the opposite at that same instant. The will is thus a power for opposites apart from any succession, for there is no succession at an instant.
In arguing that the will is a power for opposites apart from any succession or change, Scotus departed from a long standing conception of free choice, such as represented by the standard discussion of freedom in Lombard’s Sentences. There, Lombard states that choice is not free with respect to what is past or present, but only with respect to the future. The reason is that what is present is already determined, and it is not within our power to make what already is not be the case. Rather, we are only free to change what will be in the future. Scotus denies this on the above grounds that it would render the will a necessary rather than contingent and free cause, for the causal nature of the will is determined only when it operates as a cause. To be free, therefore, the will must be contingently related to its act of volition even at the moment of that act. This means that the will must have a real power for the opposite of what it wills at that very moment (see Free will).
The notion of contingency resulting from this particular aspect of Scotus’ doctrine of will is regarded by some as his most important philosophical contribution of all. In this connection, Scotus is regularly portrayed as breaking with Aristotelian conceptions of modality that persisted until the scholastic period. As the above account indicates, something is contingent according to Scotus if, at the moment it occurs, there is a real possibility for its opposite. This is in contrast to Aristotle’s construction of contingency, where something is contingent if its opposite can actually occur at some other time. In this, Scotus is seen as ushering in a modern conception of possibility previously thought to have begun with Leibniz. While Scotus’ originality on this score has been overstated – the basic doctrine of will behind this new notion of contingency is found in Peter Olivi – there can be little doubt that the extended analysis given to it by Scotus ensured its influence.
In a position related to the above conception of the will, Scotus maintained that the will was a rational power. Commenting on the text of Aristotle in which rational powers are defined as those capable of producing contrary effects, Scotus made the primary division of all active powers the natural versus the voluntary. A natural agent is one that is of itself determined to act. That is, a natural power will issue in a determinate act necessarily and to its greatest capacity unless impeded. A voluntary or free power is not determined of itself to act, so that it may issue in a contrary act or no act at all. By this Scotus really means that the will is self-determining. Its indeterminacy to act is not a defect owing to an insufficiency of power but a perfection that results from an abundance of power capable of contrary effects. Given this primary division of nature and will, Scotus places the intellect on the side of natural powers so that, in Aristotle’s definition, it is not strictly speaking rational. The will consequently became the only truly rational power, where ‘rational’ was contrasted with ‘naturally determined’. In a complete reversal of the intellectualist and Aristotelian model accepted by Aquinas, Scotus concluded that the intellect was rational only in the qualified sense that it is required as a precondition for the action of the will.
The will, however, is not only an active power, but an appetite with inclinations. Here too, Scotus sought to protect the will from natural determinism by adopting Anselm’s distinction between an affection or inclination for the advantageous (affectio commodi) and an affection for justice (affectio iustitiae) (see Anselm of Canterbury §6). As interpreted by Scotus, the former is the inclination to self-fulfilment characteristic of natural desire. What is sought is the perfection of the agent. The latter is an inclination not for the good of the agent but for the good in itself. Scotus claims that the will has an ‘innate’ affection for the just and that this is the basis of its liberty. The affection for the just enables the will to transcend the determination of natural appetite to self-fulfilment by loving the supreme good, God, for its own sake or other lesser goods for their own worth (see Right and good §2).
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