green numbers give full details | back to texts | unexpand these ideas
| 22121 | The concept of being has only one meaning, whether talking of universals or of God |
| Full Idea: Duns Scotus was the first scholastic to hold that the concept of being and other transcendentals were univocal, not only in application to substance and accidents, but even to God and creatures. | |||
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.205 | |||
| A reaction: So either it exists or it doesn't. No nonsense about 'subsisting'. Russell flirted with subsistence, but Quine agrees with Duns Scotus (and so do I). |
| 22122 | Being (not sensation or God) is the primary object of the intellect |
| Full Idea: Duns Scotus said the primary object of the created intellect was being, rejecting Aquinas's Aristotelian view that it was limited to the quiddity of the sense particular, and Henry of Ghent's Augustinian view that it was God. | |||
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.205 | |||
| A reaction: I suppose the 'primary object of the intellect' is the rationalist/empiricism disagreement. So (roughly) Aquinas was an empiricist, Duns Scotus was a rationalist, and Augustine was a transcendentalist? Augustine sounds like Spinoza. |
| 22125 | Duns Scotus was a realist about universals |
| Full Idea: Duns Scotus was a realist on the issue of universals and one of the main adversaries of Ockham's programme of nominalism. | |||
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |||
| A reaction: The view of Scotus seems to be the minority view. It is hard to find thinkers who really believe that universals have an independent existence. My interest in Duns Scotus waned when I read this. How does he imagine universals? |
| 22127 | Scotus said a substantial principle of individuation [haecceitas] was needed for an essence |
| Full Idea: Rejecting the standard views that essences are individuated by either actual existence, quantity or matter, Scotus said that the principle of individuation is a further substantial difference added to the species - the so-called haecceitas or 'thisness'. | |||
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |||
| A reaction: [Scotus seldom referred to 'haecceitas'] I suppose essences have prior existence, but are too generic, so something must fix an essence as pertaining to this particular object. Is the haecceitas part of the essence, or of the particular? |
| 22126 | Avicenna and Duns Scotus say essences have independent and prior existence |
| Full Idea: Duns Scotus endorsed Avicenna's theory of the common nature, according to which the essences have an independence and priority to their existence as either universal in the mind or singular outside it. | |||
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |||
| A reaction: I occasionally meet this weird idea in modern discussions of essence (in Lowe?), and now see its origin. It makes little sense without a divine mind to support the independent essences. Scotus had to add a principle of individuation for essences. |
| 22129 | Certainty comes from the self-evident, from induction, and from self-awareness |
| Full Idea: Duns Scotus grounded certitude in the knowledge of self-evident propositions, induction, and awareness of our own state. | |||
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |||
| A reaction: Induction looks like the weak link here. |
| 22130 | Scotus defended direct 'intuitive cognition', against the abstractive view |
| Full Idea: Scotus allocated to the intellect a direct, existential awareness of the intelligible object, called 'intuitive cognition', in contrast to abstractive knowledge, which seized the object independently of its presence to the intellect in actual existence. | |||
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |||
| A reaction: Presumably if you see a thing, shut your eyes and then know it, that is 'abstractive'. Scotus says open your eyes for proper knowledge. |
| 22128 | Augustine's 'illumination' theory of knowledge leads to nothing but scepticism |
| Full Idea: Scotus rejected Henry of Ghent's defence of Augustine's of knowledge by 'illumination', as leading to nothing but scepticism. ...After this, illumination never made a serious recovery. | |||
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 |
| 22131 | The will retains its power for opposites, even when it is acting |
| Full Idea: Scotus said the will is a power for opposites, in the sense that even when actually willing one thing, it retains a real, active power to will the opposite. He detaches the idea of freedom from time and variability. | |||
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |||
| A reaction: In the sense that we can abandon an action when in the middle of it, this seems to be correct. Not just 'I could have done otherwise', but 'I don't have to be doing this'. This shows that the will has wide power, but not that it is 'free'. |
| 22123 | The concept of God is the unique first efficient cause, final cause, and most eminent being |
| Full Idea: Duns Scotus establishes God as first efficient cause, as ultimate final cause, and as most eminent being - his so-called 'triple primacy' - and says there is a unique nature within these primacies. | |||
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |||
| A reaction: This is the first stage of Duns Scotus's unusually complex argument for God's existence. Asserting the actual infinity of this unique being concludes his argument. |
| 22124 | We can't infer the infinity of God from creation ex nihilo |
| Full Idea: Duns Scotus rejected the traditional argument that the infinity of God can be inferred from creation ex nihilo. | |||
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |||
| A reaction: He accepted the infinity of God, however, but not for this reason. I don't know why he rejected it. I suppose the rejected claim is that something has to be infinite, and if it isn't the Cosmos then that leaves God? |