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This chapter examines the life and career of John Duns Scotus in Paris, Oxford, Cambridge and Cologne during the period from 1303 to 1308, explaining that during this time, he was constantly on the move. Scotus spent his time in exile, in a new effort as baccalaureus sententiarius in Cambridge, and in a short Parisian professorship. The chapter suggests that Scotus's early death in Cologne is wedded to a long-term perspective of eternal richness, and also reviews the complicated literature on this subject.

This chapter focuses on the complicated nature of the legacy of John Duns Scotus's works, explaining that Scotus's death in 1308 left many of his books unfinished. It discusses the efforts of Scotus's friends to ensure that his unfinished legacy would survive, particularly his Ordinatio and Lectura, and highlights the discovery that some of the older editions of his works were not authentic. The chapter describes the second revolution in textual criticism concerning the authentic works and outlines the tragic paradoxes connected with the tensions of the 1930s in relation to the question concerning the authenticity of works attributed to Scotus.

This chapter examines the early life and career of John Duns Scotus at Oxford University. Scotus studied theology and philosophy in Oxford, and was ordained a priest in 1291. He was later selected to become a master of divinity at Oxford, and delivered a masterly course on systematic theology that would change his life and interrupt his Oxonian and English career. The chapter suggests that Scotus's Lectura I–II are the key to the revolutionary turn in his life.

This chapter examines the accounts which various scholastic theologians gave of a notion central to medieval discussions of the Trinity, that of ‘distinction’. The following theologians: Bonaventure, Henry of Ghent, and Duns Scotus have been chosen not only for their general contribution to the development of Trinitarian theology, but also because their treatment of the issue established the main lines of argument running through and focusing the discussion between Durandus and Hervaeus. Some of the fundamental features in the contrasting positions of Durandus and Hervaeus appear foreshadowed in the earlier accounts, thus representing the main sources and theological allegiances of the two Dominicans.

This chapter offers comments on a wide variety of Scotian subjects and theories. It considers John Duns Scotus's thought as a central focus and ingredient of a main tradition of Western thought, not as an idiosyncratic -ism or movement. The chapter describes some of the characteristics of Scotus's oeuvre and the dilemma of two types of philosophy, attempting to expound on the deep structure of Scotus's way of thinking by explaining some specific terminological points and by reviewing his explanation of contingency. It also analyses Scotus's philosophical theology of God and looks at the perspective of a philosophia Christiana.

This chapter analyses the works of John Duns Scotus about ontology. It explains that Scotus's philosophy has many ontological solutions which arise from theological dilemmas, and that the tension originates from the familiar modal limitations of conceptual structures at home in traditional thought. The chapter discusses the main line of Scotus's ontology of contingency and the dilemma of rival interpretations of potential, and explores his thoughts about neutral proposition and conceptual univocity.

This chapter examines John Duns Scotus's writings about individuality, will and freedom. It discusses the matter theory of individuals and the early nominalist theory of individuality, and expounds on Scotus's own personal theory of individuality. The chapter considers the issue of whether Scotus's teachings in Oxford differed from his Parisian doctrine, and attempts to establish the links between ‘willing’ and ‘freedom’.

This chapter explores the works of John Duns Scotus related to ethics. It presents the bare challenge of Scotian ethical dilemma and interprets the key words of Scotus's ethical terminology with a view to his language of argumentation in ethics. The chapter discusses the essentials of his philosophy of love, proposes solutions to the Quintonian and Harrisian fallacies, and also considers the Scotian solution of the problem of dispensation from law and the structure of virtue.

This chapter examines John Duns Scotus's philosophical theory of God. It explores issues regarding the existence and nature of God, and considers several additional aspects of God's knowledge, including contingent nature of his immutable knowledge and the infallibility and eternity of divine knowledge. The chapter explains that although terms such as philosophy of religion and philosophical theory of divine attributes are not immediately applicable to Scotus's doctrine of God, large parts of his doctrine can be transposed into a modern theory of divine nature because of his use of a concept of demonstration which is derived from a strict theory of proof.

This chapter focus on John Duns Scotus's writings about logic. It explains that his Lectura and the Ordinatio contain many analytical and conceptual praenotanda, or introductions, which serve as preliminary analyses for logical investigations. The chapter discusses a series of topics important for understanding Scotus's way of analysing systematic issues once the way has been cleared with some introductory remarks on the significance of his logical writings. These include the problem of meaning and the problem of knowledge, logical impossibility and elements of the theory relation.

This chapter examines John Duns Scotus's ideas and thoughts about epistemology. It discusses the basic epistemological and methodological principle of parsimony, analyses Scotus's epistemological excursus in Lectura I and looks at its systematic background. The chapter explores the three kinds of certain knowledge mentioned in Scotus's Ordinatio I, which include knowledge of self-evident principles, experiential and inductive knowledge, and self-evident knowledge of human acts. It also explains Scotus's treatment of intuitive knowledge and memory.

This chapter examines the influence of John Duns Scotus on Gilles Deleuze's concepts of univocity or univocal being. It compares Deleuze's and Duns Scotus's engagements with the ancient and medieval controversies surrounding the relations possible within primary diversity, and demonstrates that even where it is put in the service of Platonist-Christian thought, univocity nevertheless speaks to difference. The chapter discusses Deleuze's view on the fundamental limitation of the Scotist ontology and suggests that his discussion of Duns Scotus in the difference in itself section of his Difference and Repetition is central to the development of Deleuze's overall philosophy.

This chapter analyses the ideas and thoughts of John Duns Scotus related to physics. It discusses Scotus's theory of matter and theory of unity, and describes his view on the debate on the unicity or plurality of forms, which was a heated one in the thirteenth century. The chapter suggests that many creative lines in Scotus's thought can be extended and extrapolated. An example of this is Axel Schmidt's linking of Scotus's contingency ontology to quantum theory by exploring the intimate connections between reality that is synchronically contingent and the ontological structures which quantum physics is in need of.

Medieval philosophers usually explained the passions of the soul in terms of a bodily change, John Duns Scotus rejects this view and explains the passions in terms of the inclinations of appetitive powers as such, regardless of whether they have a material aspect. The will therefore, even though it is a purely spiritual and immaterial power, can be the proper subject of emotions such as joy and sadness; these passions are ultimately voluntary, argues Scotus, because the inclinations of the will are due to its own free acts of volition. However, if the will is naturally inclined as the rational appetite to the good of the whole human being, some passions of the will seem not to be traceable to any free act. It is thus not clear whether Scotus can reconcile the traditional conception of the will as the rational appetite with his account of its free self-determination

This chapter focuses on the conceptual devices of John Duns Scotus. It analyses Scotus's way of handling the distinction between in sensu composito and in sensu diviso, and explains the principle of his theory of the formal distinction. The chapter suggests that this theory presupposes the theory of the real and the rational relation on the one hand, and the concept of identity on the other.

This chapter explores the role of argument, proof and science in the philosophy of John Duns Scotus. It explains that Scotus draws the contents of his thought from the wells of faith, revelation and the theology of the Church, while his central method derives from the structure of scientific deducibility. The chapter suggests that his theories of proof and scientia are vital both to the epistemological contents and to the methods of his thinking.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the life and works of John Duns Scotus, one of the significant philosopher-theologians of the Middle Ages. It suggests that by discovering the historical truth of Scotus's thought, we can discern that its historical place is embedded in an overall process of Western theology and philosophy emancipated from ancient thought patterns, both in the old-Semitic and in the ancient Greek mould. The book explores Scotus's philosophy and his contributions to various disciplines including ethical theory, metaphysics and logic.

This chapter investigates how John Duns Scotus looked at Aristotle and how he assessed his philosophy. It suggests that the critical tendencies of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century thought provide the broader context of Scotism and nominalism. The chapter explains that Scotus listed a group of thinkers in his Lectura I which included Aristotle and Avicenna, and highlights Scotus's immense personal admiration for these two philosophers. It also explores Scotus's thoughts about philosophical way of ideas, proof theoretical comments and auctoritates culture.

John Duns Scotus was born in the village of Duns in Berwickshire in the Scottish Borders, and God was the focal point of almost all of his thinking. He writes against both the negative interpretation and the analogical interpretation of religious language, while accepting that the two interpretations are not wholly wrong. Scotus's doctrine of the univocity of being does not imply that there can be in the world a being that is neither finite nor infinite, neither created nor uncreated. This chapter discusses his immensely influential doctrines regarding individuals and universals, and also describes the relation between intellect and will and the nature of the unity that they form. It addresses the question of how Scotus's doctrine stands in relation to the politics of Scotland in the first two decades of the fourteenth century, and in particular to the Declaration of the Clergy and the Declaration of Arbroath.

This chapter argues that medieval critics of Thomism began to see the free will in which virtues develop as having the power to generate moral motivation. Immanuel Kant inherits from John Duns Scotus this idea of projective motivation in the moral realm. The chapter analyzes Kant's conception of the motive of duty and libertarian freedom and traces the idea that virtues and vices are primarily volitional dispositions into Scotus's innovative conception of the will to justice or righteousness as the true form of moral motivation. The medieval shift away from eudaimonism is also discussed, along with Bonnie Kent's views on virtues of the will and the arguments of Henry Allison and Karl Ameriks regarding freedom.