John Duns Scotus was one of the greatest Franciscan theologians. He founded a doctrine called "scotism", which is a special form of scholasticism. Duns was a philosopher and logician, known as "Doctor Subtilis" - this nickname was awarded to him for the skillful, unobtrusive mix of different worldviews and philosophical movements in one teaching. Unlike other prominent thinkers of the Middle Ages, including William Ockham and Thomas Aquinas, Scott adhered to moderate voluntarism. Many of his ideas had a significant impact on the philosophy and theology of the future, and arguments for the existence of God are being studied by religious scholars today.
A life
No one knows for sure when John Duns Scott was born, but historians are sure that he owes his last name to the city of Duns of the same name, located near the Scottish border with England. Like many compatriots, the philosopher received the nickname "Cattle", meaning "Scot." He was ordained on March 17, 1291. Considering that a local priest ordained a group of other people to the dignity at the end of 1290, it can be assumed that Duns Scott was born in the first quarter of 1266 and became a clergyman as soon as he reached the legal age. In his youth, the future philosopher and theologian joined the Franciscans who sent him to Oxford around 1288. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the thinker was still in Oxford, because between 1300 and 1301 he took part in the famous theological discussion - as soon as he finished giving a course of lectures on Maxims. However, he was not accepted into Oxford as a permanent teacher, as the local abbot sent a promising figure to the prestigious University of Paris, where he lectured on the Maxims a second time.
Duns Scott, whose philosophy made an invaluable contribution to world culture, could not finish his studies in Paris due to the ongoing confrontation between Pope Boniface VIII and the French king Philip the Just. In June 1301, emissaries of the king interrogated every Franciscan in the French convention, separating royalists from papists. Those who supported the Vatican were invited to leave France for three days. Duns Scott was a representative of the papists and therefore he was forced to leave the country, but the philosopher returned to Paris in the autumn of 1304, when Boniface died, and his place was replaced by the new Pope Benedict XI, who managed to find a common language with the king. It is not known where Duns spent several years of forced exile; historians suggest that he returned to teach at Oxford. For a while, a well-known figure lived and lectured in Cambridge, but the time frame of this period cannot be clarified.
Scott completed his studies in Paris and received the status of master (head of college) around the beginning of 1305. Over the next couple of years, he held an extensive discussion on scholastic issues. The order then sent him to the Franciscan house of teachings in Cologne, where Duns lectured on scholasticism. In 1308, the philosopher passed away; The date of his death is officially considered November 8th.
Subject of metaphysics
The teachings of the philosopher and theologian are inseparable from the beliefs and worldviews that dominated during his life. The Middle Ages defines the views that John Duns Scott shared. The philosophy that briefly describes his vision of the divine principle, as well as the teachings of the Islamic thinkers Avicenna and Ibn Rushd, is largely based on various provisions of Aristotle's work Metaphysics. The basic concepts in this vein are “being,” “God,” and “matter.” Avicenna and Ibn Rushd, who had an unprecedented influence on the development of Christian scholastic philosophy, have diametrically opposed views in this regard. Thus, Avicenna denies the assumption that God is the subject of metaphysics in view of the fact that no science can prove and affirm the existence of its own subject; at the same time, metaphysics is able to demonstrate the existence of God. According to Avicenna, this science studies the essence of the being. Man in a certain way correlates with God, matters and cases, and this ratio makes it possible to study the science of being, which would include God and individual substances, as well as matter and action in his subject. Ibn Rushd ultimately only partially agrees with Avicenna, confirming that the study of the metaphysics of a creature implies its study of various substances and, in particular, of individual substances and God. Given that physics, and not the more noble science of metaphysics, determines the existence of God, one can not prove the fact that God is the subject of metaphysics. John Duns Scott, whose philosophy largely follows the path of knowledge of Avicenna, supports the idea that metaphysics studies beings, the highest of which, without a doubt, is God; he is the only perfect being on whom all the others depend. That is why God occupies an important place in the system of metaphysics, which also includes the doctrine of transcendentals, reflecting the Aristotle scheme of categories. Transcendental is a creature, its own qualities ("one", "true", "right" are transcendental concepts, since they coexist with substance and denote one of the definitions of substance) and all that is included in relative opposites ("finite "and" infinite "," necessary "and" conditional "). However, in the theory of knowledge, Duns Scott emphasized that any real substance that falls under the term "creature" can be considered the subject of the science of metaphysics.
Universals
Medieval philosophers base all their work on ontological classification systems - in particular, on the systems described in Aristotle's "Categories" - to demonstrate the key relationships between created beings and provide people with scientific knowledge about them. So, for example, the personalities of Socrates and Plato belong to the form of human beings, which, in turn, belong to the genus of animals. Donkeys also belong to the genus of animals, but the difference in the form of the ability to think rationally distinguishes a person from other animals. The genus "animals" together with other groups of the corresponding order (for example, the genus "plants") belongs to the category of substances. No one disputes these truths. The discussion issue, however, remains the ontological status of the listed genera and species. Do they exist in extraordinary reality or are they just concepts generated by the human mind? Do genera and species consist of individual creatures, or do we need to consider them as independent, relative terms? John Duns Scott, whose philosophy is based on his personal idea of general natures, pays much attention to these scholastic questions. In particular, he argues that such general natures as “humanity” and “animalism” really exist (although their being is “less significant” than the being of individuals) and that they are common both in themselves and in reality.
Unique theory
It is difficult to peremptorily accept the views that guided John Duns Scott; citations preserved in primary sources and summaries demonstrate that certain aspects of reality (for example, genera and species) in his view have less than a quantitative unity. Accordingly, the philosopher offers a whole set of arguments in favor of the conclusion that not all real unities are quantitative ones. In his strongest arguments, he emphasizes that if things were in the exact opposite way, then the whole real variety would be a numerical variety. However, at the same time, any two things that are quantitatively dissimilar are equally different from each other. The result is that Socrates is as different from Plato as he is different from a geometric figure. In this case, human intelligence is unable to detect anything in common between Socrates and Plato. It turns out that when applying the universal concept of "human being" to two personalities, a person uses a simple invention of his own mind. These absurd conclusions demonstrate that quantitative diversity is not the only one, but since it is the largest, it means that there is something less than quantitative, diversity and corresponding less than quantitative unity.
Another argument is that in the absence of intelligence capable of cognitive thinking, the flame of a fire will still produce a new flame. The forming fire and the formed flame will have a real unity of form - a unity that proves that this case is an example of unambiguous causation. The two types of flame thus have an intellect-dependent common nature with unity less than quantitative.
Issue of indifference
These problems are carefully studied by the late scholasticism. Duns Scott believed that common natures in themselves are not individuals, independent units, since their own unity is less than quantitative. Moreover, common natures are not universals either. Following Aristotle’s claims, Scott agrees that universalism defines one of many and relates to many. As a medieval thinker understands this idea, the universal F must be so indifferent that it can relate to all individual F so that the universal and each individual element are identical. In simple words, the universal F defines each individual F equally well. Cattle agrees that in this sense no general nature can be a universal, even if it is characterized by a certain kind of indifference: a general nature cannot have the same properties with another general nature, relating to a separate type of creatures and substances. All late scholasticism gradually comes to such conclusions; Dunes Scott, William Ockham, and other thinkers are trying to subject being rationally to being.
The role of intelligence
Although Scott was the first to talk about the difference between universals and general natures, he draws inspiration from Avicenna’s famous saying that a horse is just a horse. As Dunes understands this statement, general natures are indifferent to personality or universality. Although in fact they cannot exist without individualization or universalization, the general natures themselves are neither one nor the other. Following this logic, Duns Scot characterizes universality and individuality as random features of a common nature, which means that they need to be justified. All late scholasticism is distinguished by similar ideas; Duns Scott, William Ockham, and some other philosophers and theologians give a key role to the human mind. It is intelligence that makes the general nature be universal, forcing it to belong to such a classification, and it turns out that in a quantitative sense one concept can become a statement that characterizes many individuals.
The existence of God
Although God is not the subject of metaphysics, he nonetheless represents the goal of this science; metaphysics seeks to prove its existence and supernatural nature. Scott offers several versions of evidence for a higher mind; all of these works are similar in terms of the nature of the narrative, structure, and strategy. Duns Scott created the most complex rationale for the existence of God in all scholastic philosophy. His arguments unfold in four stages:
- There is a root cause, a superior being, a primordial one.
- Only one nature is the first in all of these three cases.
- The nature, which is the first in any of the cases presented, is endless.
- There is only one infinite being.
To substantiate the first statement, he gives a modeless argument of the root cause:
- Creates a certain creature X.
Thus:
- X was created by some other creature Y.
- Either Y is the root cause, or it was created by some third creature.
- A series of created creators cannot continue indefinitely.
This means that the series ends on the root cause - the un-created being, which is capable of producing regardless of other factors.
In terms of modality
Duns Scott, whose biography consists only of periods of apprenticeship and teaching, in these arguments in no way departs from the main principles of the scholastic philosophy of the Middle Ages. He also offers a modal version of his argument:
- It is possible that there is absolutely the first powerful causal force.
- If being A cannot come from another being, then if A exists, it is independent.
- Absolutely the first powerful causal force cannot come from another being.
- This means that the absolutely first powerful causal force is independent.
If the absolute root cause does not exist, then there is no real possibility of its existence. After all, if she is truly the first, it is impossible for her to depend on any other reason. Since there is a real possibility of its existence, it means that it exists by itself.
Teaching of uniqueness
Duns Scott's contribution to world philosophy is invaluable. As soon as a scientist begins to indicate in his writings that the subject of metaphysics is a creature as such, he continues the thought, arguing that the concept of a creature should clearly relate to everything that is studied by metaphysics. If this statement is true only in relation to a certain group of objects, the subject lacks the unity necessary for the possibility of studying this subject by a separate science. According to Duns, analogy is just a form of equivalence. If the concept of being defines various objects of metaphysics only by analogy, science cannot be considered unified.
Duns Scot offers two conditions for recognizing the phenomenon as unambiguous:
- confirmation and denial of the same fact in relation to an individual subject form a contradiction;
- the concept of this phenomenon can serve as the middle term for syllogism.
For example, without contradiction, we can say that Karen was among the jurors of her own free will (because she would rather go to court than pay a fine) and at the same time against her own free will (since she felt coercion on an emotional level). In this case, the contradiction does not work, since the concept of "own will" is equivalent. And vice versa, the syllogism “Inanimate objects cannot think. Some scanners think for a very long time before yielding the result. Thus, some scanners are animated objects” leads to an absurd conclusion, since the concept of “thinking” is used in it equivalently. Moreover, in the traditional sense of the word, the term is used only in the first sentence; in the second sentence it has a figurative meaning.
Ethics
The concept of absolute power of God is the beginning of positivism, which penetrates into all aspects of culture. John Duns Scott believed that theology should explain the contentious issues of religious texts; he explored new approaches to Bible study based on the priority of divine will. An example is the idea of deserving: moral and ethical principles and actions of a person are considered as worthy or unworthy rewards from God. Scott's ideas justified the new doctrine of predestination.
The philosopher is often associated with the principles of voluntarism - a tendency to emphasize the importance of divine will and human freedom in all theoretical issues.
The Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception
As for theology, the most significant achievement of Duns is his defense of the virgin birth of the Virgin Mary. In the Middle Ages, numerous theological disputes were devoted to this topic. By all accounts, Mary could have been a virgin at the conception of Christ, however, scholars of biblical texts did not understand how to solve the following problem: only after the death of the Savior did the stigma of original sin disappear from her.
The great philosophers and theologians of Western countries were divided into several groups, discussing this issue. It is believed that even Thomas Aquinas denied the validity of the doctrine, although some Thomists are not ready to accept this statement. Duns Scott, in turn, made the following argument: Mary needed redemption, like all people, but through the goodness of Christ's crucifixion, taken into account before the events occurred, the stigma of original sin disappeared from her.
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