Thinker · TH-0133
Duns Scotus
John Duns Scotus was a Scottish Franciscan theologian who taught at Oxford and Paris and died in Cologne. Known as the 'Subtle Doctor', he…
On the Coordinates: 1.6 Modality · 1.6.1 Possible Worlds · 4.3 Modal Logic
Also known as John Duns Scotus, Ioannes Duns Scotus, the Subtle Doctor
c. 1266 – 1308 · Duns (Scotland); Oxford; Paris; Cologne
Traditions: Medieval Christian
Schools: Scholasticism
John Duns Scotus was a Scottish Franciscan theologian who taught at Oxford and Paris and died in Cologne. Known as the 'Subtle Doctor', he developed the univocity of being, the formal distinction and the doctrine of individual 'thisness' (haecceity). He also argued for synchronic contingency: at the very moment a will chooses, it could choose otherwise, an idea often seen as anticipating the modern notion of alternative possibilities.
Key ideas
- Alternatives are possible at a single moment, not merely across different times (synchronic contingency).
- Being is said univocally of God and creatures.
- Each individual is individuated by its haecceity, or 'thisness'.
- God's existence can be proved from the need for a first efficient cause.
Major works
- Ordinatio (Opus Oxoniense)
- Lectura
- Tractatus de primo principio
- Quaestiones quodlibetales
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In the Coordinates
The questions of philosophy where Duns Scotus takes a place, from The Coordinates of Thought.
- 1.6 Modality What does it mean to say something could have been different?
- 1.6.1 Possible Worlds When you say something could have gone differently, what are you talking about?
- 4.3 Modal Logic How do you reason validly about what must be, and what merely might?