John Duns Scotus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Cite this entry Search the SEP • Advanced Search • Tools • RSS FeedTable of Contents• What's New• Archives• Projected ContentsEditorial Information• About the SEP• Editorial Board• How to Cite the SEP• Special CharactersSupport the SEPContact the SEP ©Metaphysics Research Lab,CSLI,Stanford University  Open access to the SEP is made possible by a world-wide funding initiative. Please Read How You Can Help Keep the Encyclopedia FreeJohn Duns ScotusFirst published Thu May 31, 2001; substantive revision Fri Sep 21, 2007John Duns Scotus (1265/66-1308) was one of the most important andinfluential philosopher-theologians of the High Middle Ages. Hisbrilliantly complex and nuanced thought, which earned him the nickname"the Subtle Doctor," left a mark on discussions of such disparatetopics as the semantics of religious language, the problem ofuniversals, divine illumination, and the nature of human freedom. Thisessay first lays out what is known about Scotus's life and the datingof his works. It then offers an overview of some of his key positionsin four main areas of philosophy: natural theology, metaphysics, thetheory of knowledge, and ethics and moral psychology. 1. Life and Works 1.1 The life of John Duns the Scot 1.2 Scotus's works 2. Natural Theology 2.1 Some methodological preliminaries 2.2 Proof of the existence of God 2.3 Divine infinity and the doctrine of univocity 3. Metaphysics 3.1 The subject matter of metaphysics 3.2 Matter and form, body and soul 3.3 Universals and individuation 4. Theory of Knowledge 4.1 Sensation and abstraction 4.2 Intuitive cognition 4.3 The attack on skepticism and illuminationism 5. Ethics and Moral Psychology 5.1 The natural law 5.2 The will, freedom, and morality Bibliography Primary texts in Latin Primary texts in English translation Secondary literature Other Internet ResourcesRelated Entries1. Life and Works1.1 The life of John Duns the Scot‘Scotus’ is a nickname: it identifies Scotus as a Scot.His family name was Duns, which was also the name of the Scottishvillage in which he was born, just a few miles from the English border.We do not know the precise date of his birth, but we do know thatScotus was ordained to the priesthood in the Order of Friars Minor —the Franciscans — at Saint Andrew's Priory in Northampton, England, on17 March 1291. The minimum age for ordination was twenty-five, so wecan conclude that Scotus was born before 17 March 1266. But how muchbefore? The conjecture, plausible but by no means certain, is thatScotus would have been ordained as early as canonically permitted.Since the Bishop of Lincoln (the diocese that included Oxford, whereScotus was studying, as well as St Andrew's Priory) had ordainedpriests in Wycombe on 23 December 1290, we can place Scotus's birthbetween 23 December 1265 and 17 March 1266.It appears that Scotus began his formal studies at Oxford in October1288 and concluded them in June 1301. In the academic year 1298-99 hecommented on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. We know that bythe fall of 1302 Scotus was lecturing on the Sentences inParis. In June 1303 Scotus was expelled from France along with eightyother friars for taking the Pope's side in a dispute with the king.They were allowed to return in April 1304; it appears that Scotuscompleted his lectures on the Sentences not long thereafter.On 18 November 1304 Scotus was appointed the Franciscan regent masterin theology at Paris. For reasons no one quite understands, Scotus wastransferred to the Franciscan studium at Cologne, probablybeginning his duties as lector in October 1307. He died there in 1308;the date of his death is traditionally given as 8 November.1.2 Scotus's worksIt is generally agreed that Scotus's earliest works were his"parva logicalia" (little logical works): questions onPorphyry's Isagoge and Aristotle's Categories,Peri hermeneias, and De sophisticis elenchis. Theseprobably date to around 1295; the Quaestionessuper De anima is also very likely an early work. Scotus's otherAristotelian commentary, the Quaestiones subtilissimae superMetaphysicam Aristotelis, seems to have been started early; butBook 9 is probably late, and it is possible that Books 6 through 9 areall late or were at least revised later in Scotus's career. Scotus also wrote an Expositio on Aristotle's Metaphysics. It had been lost for centuries but was recently rediscovered and edited by Giorgio Pini.Things really get complicated when we come to Scotus's commentarieson the four books of Sentences of Peter Lombard, since itappears that he commented on the Sentences on severaloccasions, and the relations among the various versions are not alwaysclear. Certainly the Lectura presents us with Scotus's notesfor his Oxford lectures on Books 1 and 2 of the Sentences in1298-99 (or possibly 1300-01). There is a Reportatio (i.e., atranscript based on student notes) of lectures at Cambridge; thisprobably dates to some time between 1297 and 1300. (It has never beencritically edited and exists in only three manuscripts.) There is anOrdinatio (i.e., a version prepared for publication by theauthor himself) of lectures at Oxford, based in part on theLectura and on material from his lectures in Paris. TheOrdinatio is generally taken to be Scotus's premier work, butunfortunately the critical edition is nowhere near complete (at thistime it extends through Book 2, distinction 3). Scotus seems to havebeen revising it up to his death. Finally, Scotus lectured on theSentences several times at Paris, and there are variousReportationes of these lectures, all dating from the period1302-1307. Easily the most important is the Reportatioexaminata of Book 1; the designation examinata indicatesthat it was examined and corrected by Scotus himself. Unfortunately ithas never been critically edited.In addition to these works, we have 46 short disputations calledCollationes dating from 1300-1305, a late work in naturaltheology called De primo principio, and QuaestionesQuodlibetales from Scotus's days as regent master (either Advent1306 or Lent 1307). Finally, there is a work calledTheoremata. Though doubts have been raised about itsauthenticity, the recent critical edition accepts it as a genuine workof Scotus.For a more detailed account of Scotus's works, see the link in theOther Internet Resources section to “The Works of DunsScotus”.2. Natural Theology2.1 Some methodological preliminariesNatural theology is, roughly, the effort to establish the existenceand nature of God by arguments that in no way depend on the contents ofa purported revelation. But is it even possible for humanbeings to come to know God apart from revelation? Scotus certainlythinks so. Like any good Aristotelian, he thinks all our knowledgebegins in some way with our experience of sensible things. But he isconfident that even from such humble beginnings we can come to graspGod.Scotus agrees with Thomas Aquinas that all our knowledge of Godstarts from creatures, and that as a result we can only prove theexistence and nature of God by what the medievals call an argumentquia (reasoning from effect to cause), not by an argumentpropter quid (reasoning from essence to characteristic).Aquinas and Scotus further agree that, for that same reason, we cannotknow the essence of God in this life. The main difference between thetwo authors is that Scotus believes we can apply certain predicatesunivocally — with exactly the same meaning — to God and creatures,whereas Aquinas insists that this is impossible, and that we can onlyuse analogical predication, in which a word as applied to God has ameaning different from, although related to, the meaning of that sameword as applied to creatures. (See medieval theories of analogy fordetails.)Scotus has a number of arguments for univocal predication andagainst the doctrine of analogy (Ordinatio 1, d. 3, pars 1, q.1-2, nn. 26-55). One of the most compelling uses Aquinas's own viewagainst him. Aquinas had said that all our concepts come fromcreatures. Scotus says, very well, where will that analogous conceptcome from? It can't come from anywhere. If all our concepts come fromcreatures (and Scotus doesn't deny this), then the concepts we apply toGod will also come from creatures. They won't just be like theconcepts that come from creatures, as in analogous predication; theywill have to be the very same concepts that come fromcreatures, as in univocal predication. Those are the only concepts wecan have — the only concepts we can possibly get. So if we can't usethe concepts we get from creatures, we can't use any concepts at all,and so we can't talk about God — which is false.Another argument for univocal predication is based on an argumentfrom Anselm. Consider all predicates, Anselm says. Now get rid of theones that are merely relatives, since no relative expresses the natureof a thing as it is in itself. (So we're not talking about suchpredicates as "supreme being" or "Creator," since even though thoseproperly apply to God, they don't tell us anything about what God is inhimself, only about how he is related to other things.) Now take thepredicates that are left. Here's the test. Let F be ourpredicate-variable. For any F, either(a) It is in every respect better to be F than notto be F. ~or~(b) It is in some respect better to be not-F thanF.A predicate will fall into the second category if and only if itimplies some sort of limitation or deficiency. Anselm's argument isthat we can (indeed must) predicate of God every predicate that fallsinto the first category, and that we cannot predicate of God anypredicate that falls into the second (except metaphorically, perhaps).Scotus agrees with Anselm on this point (as did Aquinas: seeSCG I.30). Scotus has his own terminology for whatever it isin every respect better to be than not to be. He calls such things"pure perfections" (perfectiones simpliciter). A pureperfection is any predicate that does not imply limitation.So Scotus claims that pure perfections can be predicated of God. Buthe takes this a step further than Anselm. He says that they have to bepredicated univocally of God; otherwise the whole business ofpure perfections won't make any sense. Here's the argument. If we aregoing to use Anselm's test, we must first come up with our concept —say, of good. Then we check out the concept to see whether it is inevery respect better to be good than not-good. We realize that it is,and so we predicate ‘good’ of God. That test obviouslywon't work unless it's the same concept that we're applying in bothcases.One can see this more clearly by considering the two possible waysin which one might deny that the same concept is applied to both Godand creatures. One might say that the concept of the pure perfectionapplies only to creatures, and the concept we apply to God has to besomething different; or one might try it the other way around and saythat the concept of the pure perfection applies only to God, and theconcept we apply to creatures has to be something different. Take thefirst possibility. If we come up with the idea of a pure perfectionfrom creatures and don't apply the same concept to God, we're sayingthat we can come up with something that is in every respect better tobe than not to be, but it doesn't apply to God. Such a view woulddestroy the idea that God is the greatest and most perfect being. Sothen one might try the second possibility: the concept of the pureperfection really applies only to God. Scotus points out that thatcan't be right either. For then the perfection we apply to creatureswon't be the pure perfection any more, and so the creature wouldn't bebetter off for having this pseudo-perfection. But the whole way inwhich we came up with the idea of the pure perfection in the firstplace was by considering perfections in creatures — in other words, byconsidering what features made creatures better in every respect. Sothis possibility gets the test backwards: it says that we have to startwith knowing what features God has and thereby determining what is apure perfection, but in fact we first figure out what the pureperfections are and thereby know what features God has.Not only can we come up with concepts that apply univocally to Godand creatures, we can even come up with a proper (distinctive)concept of God. Now in one sense we can't have a proper concept of Godin this life, since we can't know his essence as a particular thing. Weknow God in the way that we know, say, a person we have heard about buthave never met. That is, we know him through general concepts that canapply both to him and to other things. In another sense, though, we canhave a proper concept of God, that is, one that applies only to God. Ifwe take any of the pure perfections to the highest degree, they will bepredicable of God alone. Better yet, we can describe God morecompletely by taking all the pure perfections in the highest degree andattributing them all to him.But these are all composite concepts; they all involve putting twoquite different notions together: ‘highest’ with‘good’, ‘first’ with ‘cause’, andso on. Scotus says that we can come up with a relativelysimple concept that is proper to God alone, the concept of"infinite being." Now that concept might seem to be every bit ascomposite as "highest good" or "first cause," but it's really not. For"infinite being" is a concept of something essentially one: a beingthat has infinity (unlimitedness) as its intrinsic way of existing. Iwill return to the crucial role of the concept of infinite being inScotus's natural theology after I examine his proof of the existence ofGod.2.2 Proof of the existence of GodScotus's argument for the existence of God is rightly regarded asone of the most outstanding contributions ever made to naturaltheology. The argument is enormously complex, with severalsub-arguments for almost every important conclusion, and I can onlysketch it here. (Different versions of the proof are given atLectura 1, d. 2, q. 1, nn. 38-135; Ordinatio 1, d. 2,q. 1, nn. 39-190; Reportatio 1, d. 2, q. 1; and De primoprincipio.)Scotus begins by arguing that there is a first agent (a being thatis first in efficient causality). Consider first the distinctionbetween essentially ordered causes and accidentally ordered causes. Inan accidentally ordered series, the fact that a given member of thatseries is itself caused is accidental to that member's own causalactivity. For example, Grandpa A generates a son, Dad B, who in turngenerates a son of his own, Grandson C. B's generating C in no waydepends on A — A could be long dead by the time B starts havingchildren. The fact that B was caused by A is irrelevant to B's owncausal activity. That's how an accidentally ordered series of causesworks.In an essentially ordered series, by contrast, the causal activityof later members of the series depends essentially on the causalactivity of earlier members. For example, my shoulders move my arms,which in turn move my golf club. My arms are capable of moving the golfclub only because they are being moved by my shoulders.With that distinction in mind, we can examine Scotus's argument forthe existence of a first efficient cause:(1)No effect can produce itself.(2)No effect can be produced by just nothing at all.(3)A circle of causes is impossible.(4)Therefore, an effect must be produced by somethingelse. (from 1, 2, and 3)(5)There is no infinite regress in an essentially orderedseries of causes.(5a)It is not necessarily the case that a being possessinga causal power C possesses C in an imperfect way.(5b)Therefore, it is possible that C is possessed withoutimperfection by some item.(5c)If it is not possible for any item to possess Cwithout dependence on some prior item, then it is not possible thatthere is any item that possesses C without imperfection (sincedependence is a kind of imperfection).(5d)Therefore, it is possible that some item possesses Cwithout dependence on some prior item. (from 5b and 5c by modustollens)(5e)Any item possessing C without dependence on some prioritem is a first agent (i.e., an agent that is not subsequent to anyprior causes in an essentially ordered series).(5f)Therefore, it is possible that something is a firstagent. (from 5d and 5e)(5g)If it is possible that something is a first agent,something is a first agent. (For, by definition, if there were no firstagent, there would be no cause that could bring it about, so it wouldnot in fact be possible for there to be a first agent.)(5h)Therefore, something is a first agent (i.e., an agentthat is not subsequent to any prior causes in an essentially orderedseries — Scotus still has to prove that there is an agent that is notsubsequent to any prior causes in an accidentally ordered serieseither. That's what he does in step (6) below). (from 5f and 5g)(6)It is not possible for there to be an accidentallyordered series of causes unless there is an essentially orderedseries.(6a)In an accidentally ordered series, each member of theseries (except the first, if there is a first) comes into existence asa result of the causal activity of a prior member of the series.(6b)That causal activity is exercised in virtue of acertain form.(6c)Therefore, each member of the series depends on thatform for its causal activity.(6d)The form is not itself a member of the series.(6e)Therefore, the accidentally ordered series isessentially dependent on a higher-order cause.(7)Therefore, there is a first agent. (from 4, 5, and6)Scotus then goes on to argue that there is an ultimate goal ofactivity (a being that is first in final causality), and a maximallyexcellent being (a being that is first in what Scotus calls"pre-eminence").Thus he has proved what he calls the "triple primacy": there is abeing that is first in efficient causality, in final causality, and inpre-eminence. Scotus next proves that the three primacies arecoextensive: that is, any being that is first in one of these threeways will also be first in the other two ways. Scotus then argues thata being enjoying the triple primacy is endowed with intellect and will,and that any such being is infinite. Finally, he argues that there canbe only one such being.2.3 Divine infinity and the doctrine of univocityIn laying out Scotus's proof of the existence of God, I passedrather quickly over the claim that God is infinite. But the divineinfinity deserves more detailed treatment. As we have already seen, theconcept of "infinite being" has a privileged role in Scotus's naturaltheology. As a first approximation, we can say that divine infinity isfor Scotus what divine simplicity is for Aquinas. It's the centraldivine-attribute generator. But there are some important differencesbetween the role of simplicity in Aquinas and the role of infinity inScotus. The most important, I think, is that in Aquinas simplicity actsas an ontological spoilsport for theological semantics. Simplicity isin some sense the key thing about God, metaphysically speaking, but itseriously complicates our language about God. God is supposed to be asubsistent simple, but because our language is all derived fromcreatures, which are all either subsistent but complex or simple butnon-subsistent, we don't have any way to apply our languagestraightforwardly to God. The divine nature systematically resistsbeing captured in language.For Scotus, though, infinity is not only what's ontologicallycentral about God, it's the key component of our best available conceptof God and a guarantor of the success of theological language. That is,our best ontology, far from fighting with our theological semantics,both supports and is supported by our theological semantics. Thedoctrine of univocity rests in part on the claim that "[t]he differencebetween God and creatures, at least with regard to God's possession ofthe pure perfections, is ultimately one of degree" (Cross [1999], 39).Remember one of Scotus's arguments for univocity. If we are to followAnselm in ascribing to God every pure perfection, we have to affirmthat we are ascribing to God the very same thing that weascribe to creatures: God has it infinitely, creatures in a limitedway. One could hardly ask for a more harmonious cooperation betweenontology (what God is) and semantics (how we can think and talk abouthim).Scotus ascribes to Aquinas the following argument for the divineinfinity: If a form is limited by matter, it is finite. God, beingsimple, is not limited by matter. Therefore, God is not finite. This,as Scotus points out, is a fallacious argument. (It's an instance ofdenying the antecedent.) But even apart from the fallacy, simplicity isnot going to get us infinity. As Scotus puts it: "if an entity isfinite or infinite, it is so not by reason of something accidental toitself, but because it has its own intrinsic degree of finite orinfinite perfection" (Ordinatio 1, d. 1, pars 1, q. 1-2, n.142). So simplicity does not entail infinity, because finitude is notthe result of composition. To look at it another way, Aquinas'sconception of infinity is negative and relational.The infinite is that which is not bounded by something else.But Scotus thinks we can have a positive conception of infinity,according to which infinity is not a negative, relational property, butinstead a positive, intrinsic property. It is an "intrinsic degree ofperfection."How do we acquire that conception of positive, intrinsic infinity?The story goes like this. We begin with "the potentially infinite inquantity." According to Aristotle, you can never have an actualquantitative infinity, since no matter how great a quantity you have,you can always have more. What you can have (and in fact do have,Aristotle thinks) is a quantitative infinity by successive parts. Thenext step is to imagine that all the parts of that quantitativeinfinity remained in existence simultaneously. That is, we imagine anactual quantitative infinity. Scotus then asks us to shift fromthinking about an actual quantitative infinity to thinking about anactual qualitative infinity. Think of some quality (say,goodness) as existing infinitely: so that there is, as it were, no moregoodness that you could add to that goodness to make it any greater.That's infinite goodness. But notice that you can't think of infinitegoodness as in some way composed of little goodness-bits (just aninfinite number of them). If I say that an angel is better than a humanbeing, I can't mean that a human being has a certain number ofgoodness-bits while the angel has that many plus some extras. Rather,the specific degree of goodness of a thing is just an intrinsic,non-quantitative feature of that thing. Infinite being is just likethat. Scotus describes it as "a measure of intrinsic excellence that isnot finite." This is why the concept of "infinite being" is thesimplest concept available to us for understanding God. Infinity is notsome sort of accidental addition to being, but an intrinsic mode ofbeing. Of course, if this is right, then the concepts of‘infinite goodness’, ‘infinite power’, and soforth, are every bit as simple as the concept of ‘infinitebeing’. So why does Scotus make such a big deal about‘infinite being’? Because ‘infinite being’"virtually contains" all the other infinite perfections of God. Thatis, we can deduce the other infinite perfections from infinite being.So besides being the next best thing to a simple concept, it's the mosttheoretically fruitful concept we can have of God in this life.3. Metaphysics3.1 The subject matter of metaphysicsMetaphysics, according to Scotus, is a "real theoretical science":it is real in that it treats things rather than concepts, theoreticalin that it is pursued for its own sake rather than as a guide for doingor making things, and a science in that it proceeds from self-evidentprinciples to conclusions that follow deductively from them. Thevarious real theoretical sciences are distinguished by their subjectmatter, and Scotus devotes considerable attention to determining whatthe distinctive subject matter of metaphysics is. His conclusion isthat metaphysics concerns "being qua being" (ens inquantumens). That is, the metaphysician studies being simply as such,rather than studying, say, material being as material.The study of being qua being includes, first of all, thestudy of the transcendentals, so called because they transcend thedivision of being into finite and infinite, and the further division offinite being into the ten Aristotelian categories. Being itself is atranscendental, and so are the "proper attributes" of being — one,true, and good — which are coextensive with being. Scotus alsoidentifies an indefinite number of disjunctions that are coextensivewith being and therefore count as transcendentals, such asinfinite-or-finite and necessary-or-contingent. Finally, all the pureperfections (see above) are transcendentals, since they transcend thedivision of being into finite and infinite. Unlike the properattributes of being and the disjunctive transcendentals, however, theyare not coextensive with being. For God is wise and Socrates is wise,but earthworms — though they are certainly beings — are not wise.The study of the Aristotelian categories also belongs to metaphysicsinsofar as the categories, or the things falling under them, arestudied as beings. (If they are studied as concepts, they belonginstead to the logician.) There are exactly ten categories, Scotusargues. The first and most important is the category of substance.Substances are beings in the most robust sense, since they have anindependent existence: that is, they do not exist in somethingelse. Beings in any of the other nine categories, called accidents,exist in substances. The nine categories of accidents are quantity,quality, relation, action, passion, place, time, position, and state(habitus).3.2 Matter and form, body and soulNow imagine some particular substance, say, me. Suppose I go frombeing pale to being tan. Now it is still I who exist both before andafter the sun has had its characteristic effect on me. This illustratesan important feature of substances: they can successively have contraryaccidents and yet retain their numerical identity. This sort of changeis known, appropriately enough, as accidental change. In an accidentalchange, a substance persists through the change, having first oneaccident and then another. But clearly not all changes are accidentalchanges. There was once a time when I did not exist, and then I cameinto existence. We can't analyze this change as an accidental change,since there doesn't seem to be any substance that persists through thechange. Instead, a substance is precisely what comes into being; thisis not an accidental but a substantial change. And yet theremust be something that persists even through substantial change, sinceotherwise we wouldn't have change at all; substances would come toexist from nothing and disappear into nothing. Scotus follows Aristotlein identifying matter as what persists through substantialchange and substantial form as what makes a given parcel ofmatter the definite, unique, individual substance that it is. (Thereare also accidental forms, which are a substance's accidentalqualities.)Thus far Scotus is simply repeating Aristotelian orthodoxy, and noneof his contemporaries or immediate predecessors would have found any ofthis at all strange. But as Scotus elaborates his views on form andmatter, he espouses three important theses that mark him off from someother philosophers of his day: he holds that there exists matter thathas no form whatsoever, that not all created substances are compositesof form and matter, and that one and the same substance can have morethan one substantial form. Let us examine each of these theses inturn.First, Scotus argues that there is matter that is entirely devoid ofform, or what is known as "prime matter" (Quaestiones inMetaphysicam 7, q. 5; Lectura 2, d. 12, q. un.). Scholarsdebate now (just as they debated in Scotus's day) whether Aristotlehimself really believed that there is prime matter or merely introducedit as a theoretical substratum for substantial change, believinginstead that in actual fact matter always has at least some minimalform (the form of the elements being the most minimal of all). Aquinasdenied both that Aristotle intended to posit it and that it could existon its own. For something totally devoid of form would be utterlyfeatureless; it would be pure potentiality, but not actually anything.Scotus, by contrast, argues that prime matter not only can but doesexist as such: "it is one and the same stuff that underlies everysubstantial change" (King [2003]).Second, Scotus denies "universal hylemorphism," the view that allcreated substances are composites of form and matter (Lectura2, d. 12, q. un., n. 55). Universal hylemorphism (from the Greekhyle, meaning ‘matter’, and morphe,meaning ‘form’) had been the predominant view amongFranciscans before Scotus. Saint Bonaventure, for example, had arguedthat even angels could not be altogether immaterial; they must becompounds of form and "spiritual matter." For matter is potentialityand form is actuality, so if the angels were altogether immaterial,they would be pure actuality without any admixture of potentiality. Butonly God is pure actuality. But as we have already seen in hisaffirmation of the existence of prime matter, Scotus simply denies theunqualified equation of matter with potentiality and form withactuality. Prime matter, though entirely without form, is actual; and apurely immaterial being is not automatically bereft ofpotentiality.Third, Scotus holds that some substances have more than onesubstantial form (Ordinatio 4, d. 11, q. 3, n. 54). Thisdoctrine of the plurality of substantial forms was commonly held amongthe Franciscans but vigorously disputed by others. We can very easilysee the motivation for the view by recalling that a substantial form issupposed to be what makes a given parcel of matter the definite,unique, individual substance that it is. Now suppose, as many medievalthinkers (including Aquinas) did, that the soul is the one and onlysubstantial form of the human being. It would then follow that when ahuman being dies, and the soul ceases to inform that parcel of matter,what is left is not the same body that existed just before death. Forwhat made it that very body was its substantial form, which (exhypothesi) is no longer there. When the soul is separated from thebody, then, what is left is not a body, but just a parcel of matterarranged corpse-wise. To Scotus and many of his fellow Franciscans itseemed obvious that the corpse of a person is the very same body thatexisted before death. Moreover, they argued, if the only thingresponsible for informing the matter of a human being is the soul, itwould seem that (what used to be) the body should immediately dissipatewhen a person dies. Accordingly, Scotus argues that the human being hasat least two substantial forms. There is the "form of the body"(forma corporeitatis) that makes a given parcel of matter tobe a definite, unique, individual human body, and the "animating form"or soul, which makes that human body alive. At death, the animatingsoul ceases to vivify the body, but numerically the same body remains,and the form of the body keeps the matter organized, at least for awhile. Since the form of the body is too weak on its own to keep thebody in existence indefinitely, however, it gradually decomposes.While Scotus's account of form and matter has clear implications forwhat happens to the body at death, it is less forthcomingabout what happens to the soul. Can the animating soul survivethe death of the body it informs? Scotus considers a number ofarguments for the incorruptibility of the human soul, but he finds noneof them persuasive. This is not to say that he denies the immortalityof the soul, of course, but that he does not think it can be proved byhuman reason unaided by revelation.Note that the general tendency of Scotus's theories of form andmatter is to allow a high degree of independence to form and matter. Inpositing the existence of prime matter, Scotus envisions matter asexisting without any form; in denying universal hylpemorphism, heenvision form as existing without any matter. And the doctrine of theplurality of substantial forms strongly suggests that the human soul isan identifiable individual in its own right. So everything Scotus saysin this connection seems to make room for the possibility thatthe soul survives the death of the body and continues to exist as animmaterial substance in its own right. That this possibility is in factrealized, however, is something we can know only through faith.3.3 Universals and individuationThe problem of universals may be thought of as the question of what,if anything, is the metaphysical basis of our using the same predicatefor more than one distinct individual. Socrates is human and Plato ishuman. Does this mean that there must be some one universal reality —humanity — that is somehow repeatable, in which Socrates andPlato both share? Or is there nothing metaphysically common to them atall? Those who think there is some actual universal existing outsidethe mind are called realists; those who deny extra-mental universalsare called nominalists. Scotus was a realist about universals, and likeall realists he had to give an account of what exactly those universalsare: what their status is, what sort of existence they have outside themind. So, in the case of Socrates and Plato, the question is "What sortof item is this humanity that both Socrates and Plato exemplify?" Arelated question that realists have to face is the problem ofindividuation. Given that there is some extra-mental reality common toSocrates and Plato, we also need to know what it is in each of themthat makes them distinct exemplifications of that extra-mentalreality.Scotus calls the extra-mental universal the "common nature"(natura communis) and the principle of individuation the"haecceity" (haecceitas). The common nature is common in thatit is "indifferent" to existing in any number of individuals. But ithas extra-mental existence only in the particular things inwhich it exists, and in them it is always "contracted" by thehaecceity. So the common nature humanity exists in bothSocrates and Plato, although in Socrates it is made individual bySocrates's haecceitas and in Plato by Plato'shaecceitas. The humanity-of-Socrates is individual andnon-repeatable, as is the humanity-of-Plato; yet humanity itself iscommon and repeatable, and it is ontologically prior to any particularexemplification of it (Ordinatio 2, d. 3, pars 1, qq. 1-6,translated in Spade [1994], 57-113).4. Theory of Knowledge4.1 Sensation and abstractionScotus adopts the standard medieval Aristotelian view that humanbeings, alone among the animals, have two different sorts of cognitivepowers: senses and intellect. The senses differ from the intellect inthat they have physical organs; the intellect is immaterial. In orderfor the intellect to make use of sensory information, therefore, itmust somehow take the raw material provided by the senses in the formof material images and make them into suitable objects forunderstanding. This process is known as abstraction, from the Latinabstrahere, which is literally "to drag out." The intellectpulls out the universal, as it were, from the material singular inwhich it is embedded. This activity is performed by the active or agentintellect, which takes the "phantasms" derived from sense experienceand turns them into "intelligible species." Those species areactualized in the possible or receptive intellect, whose function is toreceive and then store the intelligible species provided by the activeintellect. Scotus denies that the active and passive intellect arereally distinct. Rather, there is one intellect that has these twodistinct functions or powers.Phantasms do not, however, become irrelevant once the intelligiblespecies has been abstracted. Scotus holds (just as Aquinas had held)that the human intellect never understands anything without turningtowards phantasms (Lectura 2, d. 3, pars 2, q. 1, n. 255).That is, in order to deploy a concept that has already been acquired,one must make some use of sensory data — although the phantasmsemployed in using a concept already acquired need not be anything likethe phantasms from which that concept was abstracted in the firstplace. I acquired the intelligible species of dog from phantasms ofdogs, but I can make use of that concept now not only by calling up animage of a dog but also by (say) imagining the sound of the Latin wordfor dog. Scotus's point is simply that there must be some sensorycontext for any act of intellectual cognition.And even that point is not quite as general as my unqualifiedstatement suggests. For one thing, Scotus believes that our intellect'sneed for phantasms is a temporary state. It is only in this presentlife that the intellect must turn to phantasms; in the next life wewill be able to do without them. For another thing, Scotus may havethought that even in this life we enjoy a kind of intellectualcognition that bypasses phantasms. He called it "intuitivecognition."4.2 Intuitive cognitionScotus understands intuitive cognition by way of contrast withabstractive cognition. The latter, as we have seen, involves theuniversal; and a universal as such need not be exemplified. That is, myintelligible species of dog only tells me what it is to be a dog; itdoesn't tell me whether any particular dog actually exists. Intuitivecognition, by contrast, "yields information about how things are rightnow" (Pasnau [2003]). Sensory cognition, as Scotus explicitlyacknowledges, counts as intuitive cognition on this account. It is,after all, quite uncontroversial that my seeing or hearing a dog givesme information about some particular dog as it exists when I see orhear it. Scotus's much bolder claim concerns intellectualintuitive cognition, by which the intellect cognizes a particular thingas existing at that very moment. Intellectual intuitive cognition doesnot require phantasms; the cognized object somehow just causes theintellectual act by which its existence is made present to theintellect. As Robert Pasnau rightly notes, intellectual intuitivecognition is in effect a "form of extra-sensory perception" (Pasnau[2003]).In some places Scotus seems to think of this sort of intuitivecognition as a mere theoretical possibility, but in others he arguesvigorously for the reality of intellectual intuitive cognition. Indeed,in the latter sorts of passages it becomes clear that intuitivecognition is quite pervasive in human thought. (For three differenttakes on what to make of Scotus's apparently conflicting signals onthis matter, see Day [1947], Pasnau [2003], and Wolter [1990a].) Heargues, for example, that since the intellect engages in reasoning thatmakes reference to the actual existence of particular sensible objects,it must know that they exist. Abstractive cognition, of course, cannotprovide such knowledge. Moreover, without intuitive cognition I couldnever know about my own intellectual states. Abstractive cognitioncould provide me with an abstract concept of thinking aboutScotus, but I need intuitive cognition to know that I am in factexemplifying that concept right this minute.If these arguments represent Scotus's considered views on intuitivecognition, then Scotus is making a bold exception to the general rulethat in this life the intellect acquires knowledge only by turning tophantasms. It would seem that he has little choice, given theimportance he attaches to our intuitive self-knowledge (as I discuss inthe next section). For our intellect is immaterial, as are its acts,and it is difficult to see how an immaterial act can be captured in asensory phantasm. Even so, Scotus is enough of an Aristotelian aboutthe functioning of our intellect on this side of heaven to insist thateven though our brute acquaintance with those acts isindependent of phantasms, the descriptions under which we knowthose acts must be capable of being captured in a phantasm. And ourintuitive cognition of extra-mental singulars extends only tomaterial singulars, i.e., those that are capable of beingcaptured in a phantasm. Scotus consistently denies that we can haveintuitive cognition of non-sensible objects (such as angels) oruniversals in this life.4.3 The attack on skepticism and illuminationismScotus argues that the human intellect is capable of achievingcertainty in its knowledge of the truth simply by the exercise of itsown natural powers, with no special divine help. He therefore opposesboth skepticism, which denies the possibility of certain knowledge, andilluminationism, which insists that we need special divine illuminationin order to attain certainty. He works out his attack on both doctrinesin the course of a reply to Henry of Ghent in Ordinatio 1, d.3, pars 1, q. 4. (For the text and translation, see Wolter [1987],96-132.)According to Henry, truth involves a relation to an "exemplar." (Wecan think of this relation as akin to the relation of correspondenceappealed to by certain theories of truth, and the exemplar itself asthe mental item that is one of the relata of thecorrespondence-relation. The other relatum, of course, is "the waythings really are.") Now there are two exemplars: the created exemplar,which is the species of the universal caused by the thing known, andthe uncreated exemplar, which is an idea in the divine mind. Henryargues that the created exemplar cannot provide us with certain andinfallible knowledge of a thing. For, first, the object from which theexemplar is abstracted is itself mutable and therefore cannot be thecause of something immutable. And how can there be certain knowledgeapart from some immutable basis for that knowledge? Second, the soulitself is mutable and subject to error, and it can be preserved fromerror only by something less mutable than itself. But the createdexemplar is even more mutable than the soul. Third, the createdexemplar by itself does not allow us to distinguish between reality anddreaming, since the content of the exemplar is the same in either case.Henry therefore concludes that if we are to have certainty, we mustlook to the uncreated exemplar. And since we cannot look to theuncreated exemplar by our natural powers, certainty is impossible apartfrom some special divine illumination.Scotus argues that if Henry is right about the limitations of ournatural powers, even divine illumination is not enough to save us frompervasive uncertainty. To Henry's first argument he replies that thereis no certainty to be had by knowing a mutable object as immutable. Tothe second he replies that anything in the soul — including the veryact of understanding that Henry thinks is achieved through illumination— is mutable. So by Henry's argument it would be impossible foranything whatever to preserve the soul from error. And to the thirdargument he replies that if the created exemplar is such as to precludecertainty, adding extra exemplars will not solve the problem: "Whensomething incompatible with certainty concurs, certainty cannot beattained" (Ordinatio 1, d. 3, pars 1, q. 4, n. 221).So Henry's arguments, far from showing that certainty is possiblethrough divine illumination, actually lead to a pervasive skepticism.Scotus counters that we can show that skepticism is false. We can infact attain certainty, and we can do so by the unaided exercise of ournatural intellectual powers. There are four types of knowledge in whichinfallible certainty is possible. First, knowledge of first principlesis certain because the intellect has only to form such judgments to seethat they are true. (And since the validity of proper syllogisticinference can be known in just this way, it follows that anything thatis seen to be properly derived from first principles by syllogisticinference is also known with certainty.) Second, we have certainty withrespect to quite a lot of causal judgments derived from experience.Third, Scotus says that many of our own acts are as certain as firstprinciples. It is no objection to point out that our acts arecontingent, since some contingent propositions must be knownimmediately (that is, without needing to be derived from some otherproposition). For otherwise, either some contingent proposition wouldfollow from a necessary proposition (which is impossible), or therewould be an infinite regress in contingent propositions (in which caseno contingent proposition would ever be known). Fourth, certainpropositions about present sense experience are also known withcertainty if they are properly vetted by the intellect in light of thecausal judgments derived from experience.5. Ethics and Moral Psychology5.1 The natural lawFor Scotus the natural law in the strict sense contains only thosemoral propositions that are per se notae ex terminis alongwith whatever propositions can be derived from them deductively(Ordinatio 3, d. 37, q. un.). Per se notae means thatthey are self-evident; ex terminis adds that they areself-evident in virtue of being analytically true. Now one importantfact about propositions that are self-evident and analytically true isthat God himself can't make them false. They are necessary truths. Sothe natural law in the strict sense does not depend on God's will. Thismeans that even if (as I believe) Scotus is some sort of divine-commandtheorist, he is not whole-hog in his divine command theory. Some moraltruths are necessary truths, and even God can't change those. Theywould be true no matter what God willed.Which ones are those? Scotus's basic answer is that they are thecommandments of the first tablet of the Decalogue (Ten Commandments).The Decalogue has often been thought of as involving two tablets. Thefirst covers our obligations to God and consists of the first threecommandments: You shall have no other gods before me, Youshall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, andRemember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. (Note that manyProtestants divide them up differently.) The second tablet spells outour obligations toward others: Honor your father and mother,You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery,You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witnessagainst your neighbor, and two commandments against coveting. Thecommandments of the first tablet are part of the natural law in thestrict sense because they have to do with God himself, and with the wayin which God is to be treated. For Scotus says that the followingproposition is per se nota ex terminis: "If God exists, thenhe is to be loved as God, and nothing else is to be worshiped as God,and no irreverence is to be done to him." Given the very definition ofGod, it follows that if there is such a being, he is to be loved andworshiped, and no irreverence should be shown to him. Because thesecommandments are self-evident and analytic, they are necessary truths.Not even God himself could make them false.But even the first three commandments, once we start looking atthem, are not obviously part of the natural law in the strict sense. Inparticular, the third commandment, the one about the Sabbath day, is alittle tricky. Obviously, the proposition "God is to be worshiped onSaturday" is not self-evident or analytic. In fact, Scotus says it'snot even true any more, since Christians are to worship on Sunday, notSaturday. So, Scotus asks, what about the proposition "God is to beworshiped at some time or other"? Even that is not self-evident oranalytic. The best one can do is "God is not to be hated." Now that'sself-evident and analytic, since by definition God is the being mostworthy of love and there is nothing in him worthy of hate. Butobviously that's far weaker than any positive commandment about whetherand when we should worship God.So by the time Scotus completes his analysis, we are left withnothing in the natural law in the strict sense except for negativepropositions: God is not to be hated, no other gods are to beworshiped, no irreverence is to be done to him. Everything else in theDecalogue belongs to the natural law in a weaker or looser sense. Theseare propositions that are not per se notae ex terminis and donot follow from such propositions, but are "highly consonant" with suchpropositions. Now the important point for Scotus is this: since thesepropositions are contingent, they are completely up to God'sdiscretion. Any contingent truth whatsoever depends on God's will.According to Scotus, God of course is aware of all contingentpropositions. Now God gets to assign the truth values to thosepropositions. For example, "Unicorns exist" is a contingentproposition. Therefore, it is up to God's will whether that propositionwill be true or false. The same goes for contingent moral propositions.Take any such proposition and call it L, and call the oppositeof L, not-L. Both L and not-L arecontingent propositions. God can make either of them true, but he can'tmake both of them true, since they are contradictories. Suppose thatGod wills L. L is now part of the moral law. How dowe explain why God willed L rather than not-L? Scotussays we can't. God's will with respect to contingent propositions isunqualifiedly free. So while there might be some reasons why God chosethe laws he chose, there is no fully adequate reason, no totalexplanation. If there were a total explanation other than God's willitself, those propositions wouldn't be contingent at all. They would benecessary. So at bottom there is simply the sheer fact that God willedone law rather than another.Scotus intends this claim to be exactly parallel to the way we thinkabout contingent beings. Why are there elephants but no unicorns? Aseveryone would agree, it's because God willed for there to be elephantsbut no unicorns. And why did he will that? He just did. That's part ofwhat we mean by saying that God was free in creating. There was nothingconstraining him or forcing him to create one thing rather thananother. The same is true about the moral law. Why is there anobligation to honor one's parents but no such obligation towardcousins? Because God willed that there be an obligation to honor one'sparents, and he did not will that there be any such obligation towardone's cousins. He could have willed both of these obligations, and hecould have willed neither. What explains the way that he did in factwill? Nothing whatsoever except the sheer fact that he did will thatway.5.2 The will, freedom, and moralityScotus quite self-consciously puts forward his understanding offreedom as an alternative to Aquinas's. According to Aquinas, freedomcomes in simply because the will is intellectual appetite rather thanmere sense appetite. Intellectual appetite is aimed at objects aspresented by the intellect and sense appetite at objects as presentedby the senses. Sense appetite is not free because the senses provideonly particulars as objects of appetite. But intellectual appetite isfree because the intellect deals with universals, not particulars.Since universals by definition include many particulars, intellectualappetite will have a variety of objects. Consider goodness as anexample. The will is not aimed at this good thing or that good thing,but at goodness in general. Since that universal, goodness, containsmany different particular things, intellectual appetite has manydifferent options.But Scotus insists that mere intellectual appetite is not enough toguarantee freedom in the sense needed for morality. The basicdifference comes down to this. When Aquinas argues that intellectualappetite has different options, he seems to be thinking of this over aspan of time. Right now the intellect presents x as good, so Iwill x; but later on the intellect presents y asgood, so then I will y. But Scotus thinks of freedom asinvolving multiple options at the very moment of choice. It's notenough to say that now I will x, but later I can willy. We have to say that at the very moment at which I willx, I also am able to will y. Aquinas's argumentsdon't show that intellectual appetite is free in this stronger sense.So as far as Scotus is concerned, Aquinas hasn't made room for theright kind of freedom.This is where Scotus brings in his well-known doctrine of the twoaffections of the will (see especially Ordinatio 2, d. 6, q.2; 2, d. 39, q. 2; 3, d. 17, q. un.; and 3, d. 26, q. un.). The twoaffections are fundamental inclinations in the will: the affectiocommodi, or affection for the advantageous, and the affectioiustitiae, or affection for justice. Scotus identifies theaffectio commodi with intellectual appetite. Notice howimportant that is. For Aquinas intellectual appetite is the same thingas will, whereas for Scotus intellectual appetite is only part of whatthe will is. Intellectual appetite is just one of the two fundamentalinclinations in the will. Why does Scotus make this crucial change? Forthe reason we've already discussed. He doesn't see how intellectualappetite could be genuinely free. Now he can't deny that the willinvolves intellectual appetite. Intellectual appetite is aimed athappiness, and surely happiness does have some role to play in ourmoral psychology. But the will has to include something more thanintellectual appetite if it's going to be free. That something more isthe affectio iustitiae. But one can't fully understand whatthe affectio iustitiae is until Aquinas and Scotus arecompared on a further point.For Aquinas the norms of morality are defined in terms of theirrelationship to human happiness. We have a natural inclination towardour good, which is happiness, and it is that good that determines thecontent of morality. So like Aristotle, Aquinas holds a eudaimonistictheory of ethics: the point of the moral life is happiness. That's whyAquinas can understand the will as an intellectual appetite forhappiness. All of our choosing is aimed at the human good (or at least,it's aimed at the human good as we conceive it). And choices are good— and, indeed, fully intelligible — only when they are aimed at theultimate end, which is happiness. So Aquinas just defines the will asthe capacity to choose in accordance with a conception of the humangood — in other words, as intellectual appetite.When Scotus rejects the idea that will is merely intellectualappetite, he is saying that there is something fundamentally wrong witheudaimonistic ethics. Morality is not tied to human flourishing at all.For it is Scotus's fundamental conviction that morality is impossiblewithout libertarian freedom, and since he sees no way for there to belibertarian freedom on Aquinas's eudaimonistic understanding of ethics,Aquinas's understanding must be rejected. And just as Aquinas'sconception of the will was tailor-made to suit his eudaimonisticconception of morality, Scotus's conception of the will is tailor-madeto suit his anti-eudaimonistic conception of morality. It's not merelythat he thinks there can be no genuine freedom in mere intellectualappetite. It's also that he rejects the idea that moral norms areintimately bound up with human nature and human happiness. The factthat God creates human beings with a certain kind of nature does notrequire God to command or forbid the actions that he in fact commandedor forbade. The actions he commands are not necessary for ourhappiness, and the actions he forbids are not incompatible with ourhappiness. Now if the will were merely intellectual appetite — thatis, if it were aimed solely at happiness — we would not be able tochoose in accordance with the moral law, since the moral law itself isnot determined by any considerations about human happiness. So Scotusrelegates concerns about happiness to the affectio commodi andassigns whatever is properly moral to the other affection, theaffectio iustitiae.BibliographyPrimary texts in LatinCuestiones Cuodlibetales. In Obras del Doctor Sutil,Juan Duns Escoto. Ed. Felix Alluntis. Madrid: Biblioteca deAutores Cristianos, 1963.Opera Omnia. ("The Wadding edition") Lyon, 1639; reprintedHildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1968. This is the bestsource for material not yet available in the critical editions. It doesinclude some material now known to be inauthentic, and it prints asBook 1 of the Reportatio what is actually the Additionesmagnae compiled and edited by Scotus's student and secretary,William of Alnwick.Opera Omnia. ("The Vatican edition") Civitas Vaticana:Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950-. So far includes Books 1 and 2 of theOrdinatio (vols. I-VII) and Books 1 and 2 of the Lectura (vols. XVI-XIX).Opera Philosophica. St. Bonaventure, NY: The FranciscanInstitute, 1997-2006. The question-commentaries onPorphyry's Isagoge and Aristotle's Categories (vol.I), on Peri hermeneias and Sophistical Refutations, along with the Theoremata (vol. II), the Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis (vols. III-IV), and the Quaetiones super Secundum et Tertium de Anima.Primary texts in English translationEtzkorn, Girard J., and Allan B. Wolter, OFM. (1997-98).Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle by John DunsScotus. St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute,1997-1998.Spade, Paul Vincent. (1994). Five Texts on the MediaevalProblem of Universals. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company,1994.Wolter, Allan B., OFM, and Felix Alluntis. (1975). John DunsScotus, God and Creatures. The Quodlibetal Questions. Washington,D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1975.Wolter, Allan B., OFM, and Oleg V. Bychkov. (2004). TheExamined Report of the Paris Lecture: Reportatio I-A.St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 2004. (An Englishtranslation and preliminary Latin edition through distinction21).Wolter, Allan B., OFM. (1986). Duns Scotus on the Will andMorality. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of AmericaPress, 1986.Wolter, Allan B., OFM. (1987). Duns Scotus: PhilosophicalWritings. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1987.Secondary literatureCross, Richard. (1999). Duns Scotus. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1999.Cross, Richard. (2003). "Philosophy of Mind." In Williams(2003).Day, Sebastian. (1947). Intuitive Cognition: A Key to theSignificance of the Later Scholastics. St Bonaventure, NY: TheFranciscan Institute, 1947.Frank, William A. and Allan B. Wolter, OFM. (1995). DunsScotus: Metaphysician. Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press,1995.Hoffmann, Tobias. (2002). Creatura intellecta: Die Ideen undPossibilien bei Duns Scotus mit Ausblick auf Franz von Mayronis,Poncius, und Mastrius. Münster: Aschendorff, 2002.King, Peter (2003). "Scotus on Metaphysics." In Williams(2003).Pasnau, Robert (2003). "Cognition." In Williams (2003).Pini, Giorgio (2002). Categories and Logic in Duns Scotus: AnInterpretation of Aristotle's Categories in the Late ThirteenthCentury. Köln: Brill, 2002.Williams, Thomas. (1995). "How Scotus Separates Morality fromHappiness," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 69(1995): 425-445. [Preprint available online.] Williams, Thomas. (1998). "The Unmitigated Scotus," Archivfür Geschichte der Philosophie 80 (1998): 162-181. [Preprint available online.] Williams, Thomas. (2000). "A Most Methodical Lover: On Scotus'sArbitrary Creator," Journal of the History of Philosophy 38(2000): 169-202. [Preprint available online.] Williams, Thomas (2003). The Cambridge Companion to DunsScotus. New York: Cambridge University Press.Wolter, Allan B., OFM. (1990a). "Duns Scotus on Intuition, Memory,and Our Knowledge of Individuals." In Wolter (1990b).Wolter, Allan B., OFM. (1990b). The Philosophical Theology ofJohn Duns Scotus. Ed. Marilyn McCord Adams. Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press, 1990.Other Internet ResourcesThe Franciscan Archive: John Duns Scotus. Offers Latin texts, translations, scholarly papers, and other resources.John Kilcullen's Teaching Materials on Medieval Philosophy. Contains commentary on texts of Duns Scotus and others.Thomas Williams's Duns Scotus Page. Contains biographical and bibliographical information, papers,translations, and images. The Works of Duns Scotus, essay by Thomas Williams A Treatise on God as First Principle. Allan B. Wolter's translation of De primo principio.Related Entries analogy: medieval theories of | Anselm, Saint [Anselm of Bec, Anselm of Canterbury] | Aquinas, Saint Thomas | conscience: medieval theories of | divine illumination | free will | future contingents: medieval theories of | haecceity: medieval theories of | intentionality: medieval theories of | medieval philosophy | modality: medieval theories of | Ockham [Occam], William | practical reason: medieval theories of | relations: medieval theories of | universals: the medieval problem of Copyright © 2007 byThomas Williams<twilliam@cas.usf.edu> |
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