John Duns Scotus (1265/66–1308) was one of the most importantand influential 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 suchdisparate topics as the semantics of religious language, the problemof universals, divine illumination, and the nature of human freedom.This essay first lays out what is known about Scotus’s life andthe dating of his works. It then offers an overview of some of his keypositions in four main areas of philosophy: natural theology,metaphysics, the theory of knowledge, and ethics and moralpsychology.

• 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
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Life and Works

1.1 The life of John Duns the Scot

‘Scotus’ identifies Scotus as a Scot. His family name wasDuns, which was also the name of the Scottish village in which he wasborn, just a few miles from the English border. We do not know theprecise date of his birth, but we do know that Scotus was ordained tothe priesthood in the Order of Friars Minor—theFranciscans—at Saint Andrew’s Priory in Northampton,England, on 17 March 1291. The minimum age for ordination wastwenty-five, so we can conclude that Scotus was born before 17 March1266. But how much before? The conjecture, plausible but by no meanscertain, is that Scotus would have been ordained as early ascanonically permitted. Since the Bishop of Lincoln (the diocese thatincluded Oxford, where Scotus was studying, as well as StAndrew’s Priory) had ordained priests in Wycombe on 23 December1290, we can place Scotus’s birth between 23 December 1265 and17 March 1266.

Scotus studied philosophy and then theology at Oxford beginning sometime in the 1280s. In the academic year 1298–99 he commented onthe first two books of theSentences of Peter Lombard. Scotusleft Oxford for Paris, probably in 1302, and began lecturing on theSentences again (we think in the order Book I, Book IV, BookII, Book III). In June 1303 Scotus was expelled from France along witheighty other friars for taking Pope Boniface VIII’s side in adispute with King Philip IV of France. After Boniface died in October1303 the king allowed the exiled students and masters to return, soScotus could have returned in the late fall of 1303 to resume hislectures on theSentences. Scotus became Doctor of Theologyin 1305 and was Franciscan regent master at Paris in 1306–07. Hewas transferred to the Franciscanstudium at Cologne,probably beginning his duties as lector in October 1307. He died therein 1308; the date of his death is traditionally given as 8November.

1.2 Scotus’s works

It is generally agreed that Scotus’s earliest works were hiscommentaries on the Old Logic: questions on Porphyry’sIsagoge and Aristotle’sCategories, two setsof questions onPeri hermeneias, andDe sophisticiselenchis. These probably date to around 1295; theQuaestionessuper De anima is also very likely an early work (the editorsdate it to the late 1280s or early 1290s). Scotus’s otherAristotelian commentary, theQuaestiones super librosMetaphysicorum Aristotelis, seems to have been started early; butBooks VI through IX are all late or were at least revised later inScotus’s career. Scotus also wrote anExpositio onAristotle’sMetaphysics. It had been unidentified forcenturies but was recently identified and edited by Giorgio Pini.

Things really get complicated when we come to Scotus’scommentaries on the four books ofSentences of Peter Lombard,since he commented on theSentences more than once andrevised his lectures over a long period; the relations among thevarious versions that have come down to us are not always clear.Certainly theLectura presents us with Scotus’s Oxfordlectures on Books I and II of theSentences in 1298–99.There is anOrdinatio (i.e., a version prepared forpublication by the author himself) of lectures at Oxford, based inpart on theLectura and on material from his lectures inParis. TheOrdinatio, which Scotus seems to have beenrevising up to his death, is generally taken to be Scotus’spremier work; the critical edition was at last completed in 2013.Finally, Scotus lectured on theSentences at Paris, and thereare variousReportationes of these lectures. A criticaledition is in progress; at present we have a transcription of areasonably reliable manuscript of Book I. Although the Paris lecturesthemselves were later than the Oxford lectures, it seems probable thatparts of theOrdinatio—Book IV and perhaps also BookIII—are later than the corresponding parts of theReportatio.

In addition to these works, we have 46 short disputations calledCollationes dating from 1300–1305, a late work innatural theology calledDe primo principio, andQuaestiones Quodlibetales from Scotus’s days as regentmaster (either Advent 1306 or Lent 1307). Finally, there is a workcalledTheoremata. Though doubts have been raised about itsauthenticity, the recent critical edition accepts it as a genuine workof Scotus.

2. Natural Theology

2.1 Some methodological preliminaries

Natural theology is, roughly, the effort to establish the existenceand nature of God by arguments that in no way depend on the contentsof a purported revelation. But is it evenpossible 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 God startsfrom creatures, and that as a result we can only prove the existenceand nature of God by what the medievals call an argumentquia(reasoning from effect to cause), not by an argumentpropterquid (reasoning from essence to characteristic). Aquinas andScotus further agree that, for that same reason, we cannot know theessence of God in this life. The main difference between the twoauthors is that Scotus believes we can apply certain predicatesunivocally—with exactly the same meaning—to God andcreatures, whereas Aquinas insists that this is impossible, and thatwe can only use analogical predication, in which a word as applied toGod has a meaning different from, although related to, the meaning ofthat same word as applied to creatures. (Seemedieval theories of analogy for details.)

Scotus has a number of arguments for univocal predication and againstthe doctrine of analogy (Ordinatio 1, d. 3, pars 1, q.1–2, nn. 26–55). One of the most compelling usesAquinas’s own view against him. Aquinas had said that all ourconcepts come from creatures. Scotus says, very well, where will thatanalogous concept come from? It can’t come from anywhere. If allour concepts come from creatures (and Scotus doesn’t deny this),then the concepts we apply to God will also come from creatures. Theywon’t just belike the concepts that come fromcreatures, as in analogous predication; they will have to bethevery same concepts that come from creatures, as in univocalpredication. Those are the only concepts we can have—the onlyconcepts we can possibly get. So if we can’t use the concepts weget from creatures, we can’t use any concepts at all, and so wecan’t talk about God—which is false.

Another argument for univocal predication is based on an argument fromAnselm. Consider all predicates, Anselm says. Now get rid of the onesthat are merely relatives, since no relative expresses the nature of athing as it is in itself. (So we’re not talking about suchpredicates as “supreme being” or “Creator,”since even though those properly apply to God, they don’t tellus anything about what God is in himself, only about how he is relatedto other things.) Now take the predicates that are left. Here’sthe test. LetF be our predicate-variable. For anyF, either

(a) It is in every respect better to beF than not to beF.
~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 argumentis that we can (indeed must) predicate of God every predicate thatfalls into 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). Apure perfection 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 bepredicatedunivocally of God; otherwise the whole business ofpure perfections won’t make any sense. Here’s theargument. If we are going to use Anselm’s test, we must firstcome up with our concept—say, of good. Then we check out theconcept to see whether it is in every respect better to be good thannot-good. We realize that it is, and so we predicate‘good’ of God. That test obviously won’t work unlessit’s the same concept that we’re applying in bothcases.

One can see this more clearly by considering the two possible ways inwhich one might deny that the same concept is applied to both God andcreatures. 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 saying that we can come up with something that is in everyrespect better to be than not to be, but it doesn’t apply toGod. Such a view would destroy the idea that God is the greatest andmost perfect being. So then one might try the second possibility: theconcept of the pure perfection really applies only to God. Scotuspoints out that that can’t be right either. For then theperfection we apply to creatures won’t be the pure perfectionany more, and so the creature wouldn’t be better off for havingthis pseudo-perfection. But the whole way in which we came up with theidea of the pure perfection in the first place was by consideringperfections in creatures—in other words, by considering whatfeatures made creatures better in every respect. So this possibilitygets the test backwards: it says that we have to start with knowingwhat features God has and thereby determining what is a pureperfection, but in fact we first figure out what the pure perfectionsare and thereby know what features God has.

Not only can we come up with concepts that apply univocally to God andcreatures, we can even come up with aproper (distinctive)concept of God. Now in one sense we can’t have a proper conceptof God in this life, since we can’t know his essence as aparticular thing. We know God in the way that we know, say, a personwe have heard about but have never met. That is, we know him throughgeneral concepts that can apply both to him and to other things. Inanother sense, though, we can have a proper concept of God, that is,one that applies only to God. If we take any of the pure perfectionsto the highest degree, they will be predicable of God alone. Betteryet, we can describe God more completely by taking all the pureperfections in the highest degree and attributing 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 everybit as composite as “highest good” or “firstcause,” but it’s really not. For “infinitebeing” is a concept of something essentially one: a being thathas infinity (unlimitedness) as its intrinsic way of existing. I willreturn to the crucial role of the concept of infinite being inScotus’s natural theology after I examine his proof of theexistence of God.

2.2 Proof of the existence of God

Scotus’s argument for the existence of God is rightly regardedas one 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;Ordinatio1, d. 2, q. 1, nn. 39–190;Reportatio 1, d. 2, q. 1;andDe primo principio.)

Scotus begins by arguing that there is a first agent (a being that isfirst in efficient causality). Consider first the distinction betweenessentially ordered causes and accidentally ordered causes. In anaccidentally ordered series, the fact that a given member of thatseries is itself caused is accidental to that member’s owncausal activity. For example, Grandpa A generates a son, Dad B, who inturn generates a son of his own, Grandson C. B’s generating C inno way depends on A—A could be long dead by the time B startshaving children. The fact that B was caused by A is irrelevant toB’s own causal activity. That’s how an accidentallyordered series of causes works.

In an essentially ordered series, by contrast, the causal activity oflater members of the series depends essentially on the causal activityof earlier members. For example, my shoulders move my arms, which inturn move my golf club. My arms are capable of moving the golf clubonly because they are being moved by my shoulders.

With that distinction in mind, we can examine Scotus’s argumentfor the existence of a first efficient cause:

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 a being that is first in efficient causality, in finalcausality, and in pre-eminence. Scotus next proves that the threeprimacies are coextensive: that is, any being that is first in one ofthese three ways will also be first in the other two ways. Scotus thenargues that a being enjoying the triple primacy is endowed withintellect and will, and that any such being is infinite. Finally, heargues that there can be only one such being.

2.3 Divine infinity and the doctrine of univocity

In 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,the concept of “infinite being” has a privileged role inScotus’s natural theology. As a first approximation, we can saythat divine infinity is for Scotus what divine simplicity is forAquinas. It’s the central divine-attribute generator. But thereare some important differences between the role of simplicity inAquinas and the role of infinity in Scotus. The most important, Ithink, is that in Aquinas simplicity acts as an ontological spoilsportfor theological semantics. Simplicity is in some sense the key thingabout God, metaphysically speaking, but it seriously complicates ourlanguage about God. God is supposed to be a subsistent simple, butbecause our language is all derived from creatures, which are alleither subsistent but complex or simple but non-subsistent, wedon’t have any way to apply our language straightforwardly toGod. The divine nature systematically resists being captured inlanguage.

For Scotus, though, infinity is not only what’s ontologicallycentral about God; it’s the key component of our best availableconcept of God and a guarantor of the success of theological language.That is, our best ontology, far from fighting with our theologicalsemantics, both supports and is supported by our theologicalsemantics. The doctrine of univocity rests in part on the claim that“[t]he difference between God and creatures, at least withregard to God’s possession of the pure perfections, isultimately one of degree” (Cross [1999], 39). Remember one ofScotus’s arguments for univocity. If we are to follow Anselm inascribing to God every pure perfection, we have to affirm that we areascribing to Godthe very same thing that we ascribe tocreatures: God has it infinitely, creatures in a limited way. Onecould hardly ask for a more harmonious cooperation between ontology(what God is) and semantics (how we can think and talk about him).

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 aninstance of denying the antecedent.) But even apart from the fallacy,simplicity is not going to get us infinity. As Scotus puts it:“if an entity is finite or infinite, it is so not by reason ofsomething accidental to itself, but because it has its own intrinsicdegree of finite or infinite perfection” (Ordinatio 1,d. 1, pars 1, q. 1–2, n. 142). So simplicity does not entailinfinity, because finitude is not the result of composition. To lookat it another way, Aquinas’s conception of infinity isnegative andrelational. The infinite is that whichisnot bounded by something else. But Scotus thinks we canhave a positive conception of infinity, according to which infinity isnot a negative, relational property, but instead a positive, intrinsicproperty. It is an “intrinsic degree of perfection.”

How do we acquire that conception of positive, intrinsic infinity? Thestory 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 anactualqualitative infinity. Think of some quality (say,goodness) as existing infinitely: so that there is, as it were, nomore goodness that you could add to that goodness to make it anygreater. That’s infinite goodness. But notice that youcan’t think of infinite goodness as in some way composed oflittle goodness-bits (just an infinite number of them). If I say thatan angel is better than a human being, I can’t mean that a humanbeing has a certain number of goodness-bits while the angel has thatmany plus some extras. Rather, the specific degree of goodness of athing is just an intrinsic, non-quantitative feature of that thing.Infinite being is just like that. Scotus describes it as “ameasure of intrinsic excellence that is not finite.” This is whythe concept of “infinite being” is the simplest conceptavailable to us for understanding God. Infinity is not some sort ofaccidental addition to being, but an intrinsic mode of being. Ofcourse, if this is right, then the concepts of ‘infinitegoodness’, ‘infinite power’, and so forth, are everybit as simple as the concept of ‘infinite being’. So whydoes Scotus make such a big deal about ‘infinite being’?Because ‘infinite being’ “virtually contains”all the other infinite perfections of God. That is, we can deduce theother infinite perfections from infinite being. So besides being thenext best thing to a simple concept, it’s the most theoreticallyfruitful concept we can have of God in this life.

3. Metaphysics

3.1 The subject matter of metaphysics

Metaphysics, according to Scotus, is a “real theoreticalscience”: it is real in that it treats things rather thanconcepts, theoretical in that it is pursued for its own sake ratherthan as a guide for doing or making things, and a science in that itproceeds from self-evident principles to conclusions that followdeductively from them. The various real theoretical sciences aredistinguished by their subject matter, and Scotus devotes considerableattention to determining what the distinctive subject matter ofmetaphysics is. His conclusion is that metaphysics concerns“beingqua being” (ens inquantum ens).That is, the metaphysician studies being simply as such, rather thanstudying, say, material being as material.

The study of beingqua being includes, first of all, thestudy of the transcendentals, so called because they transcend thedivision of being into finite and infinite, and the further divisionof finite being into the ten Aristotelian categories. Being itself isa transcendental, and so are the “proper attributes” ofbeing—one, true, and good—which are coextensive withbeing. Scotus also identifies an indefinite number of disjunctionsthat are coextensive with being and therefore count astranscendentals, such as infinite-or-finite andnecessary-or-contingent. Finally, all the pure perfections (see above)are transcendentals, since they transcend the division of being intofinite and infinite. Unlike the proper attributes of being and thedisjunctive transcendentals, however, they are not coextensive withbeing. For God is wise and Socrates is wise, butearthworms—though they are certainly beings—are notwise.

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 existinsomething else. Beings in any of the other nine categories, calledaccidents, exist in substances. The nine categories of accidents arequantity, quality, relation, action, passion, place, time, position,and state (habitus).

3.2 Matter and form, body and soul

Now 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. Thisillustrates an important feature of substances: they can successivelyhave contrary accidents and yet retain their numerical identity. Thissort of change is known, appropriately enough, as accidental change.In an accidental change, a substance persists through the change,having first one accident and then another. But clearly not allchanges are accidental changes. There was once a time when I did notexist, and then I came into existence. We can’t analyze thischange as an accidental change, since there doesn’t seem to beany substance that persists through the change. Instead, a substanceis precisely what comes into being; this is not an accidental but asubstantial change. And yet there must be something thatpersists even through substantial change, since otherwise wewouldn’t have change at all; substances would come to exist fromnothing and disappear into nothing. Scotus follows Aristotle inidentifyingmatter as what persists through substantialchange andsubstantial 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 anyof this 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 matter can exist withoutany form whatsoever, that not all created substances are composites ofform 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 God can create and conserve what was called“prime matter”: that is, matter that has no formwhatsoever. (For an analysis of the arguments, see Ward 2014.) Matterand form are distinct things, as the case of substantial change makesclear: matter persists when forms come and go. Now that fact by itselfmight be taken to show only that matter can exist apart from anygiven form (and Scotus thinks that too), but Scotus takes theseparability of matter and form even further. Divine omnipotence meansthat God can cause immediately (that is, without a secondary cause)whatever he ordinarily causes through a secondary cause. Godordinarily causes matter through form; but given divine omnipotence,he need not. He can create matter without any form. Moreover, giventhat matter is a thing distinct from form, God creates matter directlyand immediately; and what God creates immediately, he can conserveimmediately. So God can conserve matter without conserving any of theforms that characterize that matter.

Second, Scotus denies “universal hylomorphism,” the viewthat all created substances are composites of form and matter(Lectura 2, d. 12, q. un., n. 55). Universal hylomorphism(from the Greekhyle, meaning ‘matter’, andmorphe, meaning ‘form’) had been the predominantview among Franciscans before Scotus. Saint Bonaventure, for example,had argued that even angels could not be altogether immaterial; theymust be compounds of form and “spiritual matter.” Formatter is potentiality and form is actuality, so if the angels werealtogether immaterial, they would be pure actuality without anyadmixture of potentiality. But only God is pure actuality. But as wehave already seen in his affirmation of the existence of prime matter,Scotus simply denies the unqualified equation of matter withpotentiality and form with actuality. Prime matter, though entirelywithout form, could be actual; and a purely immaterial being is notautomatically bereft of potentiality.

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 formis supposed 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;there is an entirely new substance, with entirely new accidents (foraccidents depend for their being on the substance in which theyinhere). For what made it that very body was its substantial form,which (ex hypothesi) is no longer there.

To Scotus and many of his fellow Franciscans it therefore seemedobvious that we need to posit a plurality of substantial forms toavoid these metaphysical incongruities. One standard form of suchpluralism postulated a “form of the body” (formacorporeitatis) that makes a given parcel of matter to be adefinite, unique, individual organism, and the “animatingform” or soul, which makes that body alive. At death, theanimating soul ceases to vivify the body, but numerically the samebody remains, and the form of the body keeps the matter organized, atleast for a while. Since the form of the body is too weak on its ownto keep the body in existence indefinitely, however, it graduallydecomposes.

Scotus’s view is more complicated still, for he treats eachorgan of a living body as a substance (a composite of matter andsubstantial form). Whether Scotus also acknowledges aformacorporeitatis over and above the forms of the bodily organs isdisputed (see Ward 2014, 90–93). If he does not, he must acceptthe unpalatable conclusion that a corpse is not the same body as thebody of the organism. He can, however, avoid the conclusion that noaccidents of that body remain: any accidents that inhere in the organscan remain, because the organs are substances and continue to exist(for a while, anyway) when the body of which they were parts ceases toexist.

Note that the general tendency of Scotus’s theories of form andmatter is to allow a high degree of independence to form and matter.In positing the existence of prime matter, Scotus envisions matter asexisting without any form; in denying universal hylomorphism, heenvisions form as existing without any matter. And the doctrine of theplurality of substantial forms strongly suggests that the human soulis an identifiable individual in its own right. So everything Scotussays in this connection seems to make room for thepossibility that the soul survives the death of the body andcontinues to exist as an immaterial substance in its own right. ButScotus canvases a number of philosophical arguments for the claim thatthis possibility is in fact realized, and he finds none of themcompelling. That the human soul survives the death of the body issomething we can know only through faith.

3.3 Universals and individuation

The 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 universalreality—humanity—that is somehowrepeatable, inwhich Socrates and Plato both share? Or is there nothingmetaphysically common to them at all? Those who think there is someactual universal existing outside the mind are called realists; thosewho deny extra-mental universals are called nominalists. Scotus was arealist about universals, and like all realists he had to give anaccount of what exactly those universals are: what their status is,what sort of existence they have outside the mind. So, in the case ofSocrates and Plato, the question is “What sort of item is thishumanity that both Socrates and Plato exemplify?” A relatedquestion that realists have to face is the problem of individuation.Given that there is some extra-mental reality common to Socrates andPlato, we also need to know what it is in each of them that makes themdistinct exemplifications of that extra-mental reality.

Scotus calls the extra-mental universal the “commonnature” (natura communis) and the principle ofindividuation the “haecceity” (haecceitas). Thecommon nature is common in that it is “indifferent” toexisting in any number of individuals. But it has extra-mentalexistence onlyin the particular things in which it exists,and in them it is always “contracted” by the haecceity. Sothe common naturehumanity exists in both Socrates and Plato,although in Socrates it is made individual by Socrates’shaecceitas and in Plato by Plato’shaecceitas.The humanity-of-Socrates is individual and non-repeatable, as is thehumanity-of-Plato; yet humanity itself is common and repeatable, andit is ontologically prior to any particular exemplification of it(Ordinatio 2, d. 3, pars 1, qq. 1–6, translated inSpade [1994], 57–113).

4. Theory of Knowledge

4.1 Sensation and abstraction

Scotus 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.” Theintellect pulls out the universal, as it were, from the materialsingular in which it is embedded. This activity is performed by theactive or agent intellect, which takes the “phantasms”derived from sense experience and turns them into “intelligiblespecies.” Those species are actualized in the possible orreceptive intellect, whose function is to receive and then store theintelligible species provided by the active intellect. Scotus deniesthat the active and passive intellect are really distinct. Rather,there is one intellect that has these two distinct functions orpowers.

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 somesensory context 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 ourintellect’s need for phantasms is a temporary state. It is onlyin this present life that the intellect must turn to phantasms; in thenext life we will be able to do without them. For another thing,Scotus argues in his later works that even in this life we enjoy akind of intellectual cognition that bypasses phantasms. He called it“intuitive cognition.”

4.2 Intuitive cognition

Scotus 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,my intelligible species of dog only tells me what it is to be a dog;it doesn’t tell me whether any particular dog actually exists.Intuitive cognition, by contrast, “yields information about howthings are right now” (Pasnau [2002]). Sensory cognition, asScotus explicitly acknowledges, counts as intuitive cognition on thisaccount. It is, after all, quite uncontroversial that my seeing orhearing a dog gives me information about some particular dog as itexists when I see or hear it. Scotus’s much bolder claimconcernsintellectual intuitive cognition, by which theintellect cognizes a particular thing as existing at that very moment.Intellectual intuitive cognition does not require phantasms; nor doesit involve intelligible species (which, like phantasms, areabstractive).

Intellectual intuitive cognition has two different kinds of objects:extramental sensible objects and the soul’s own acts. (Scotuscomes around to affirming the possibility of such cognition ofextramental objects in his later works, having denied it earlier inhis career; he is consistent about the possibility of intuitivecognition of the soul’s acts. See Cross 2014, 43–64, onwhom I draw thoughout this section.) We must have intuitive cognitionof extramental objects because we can cognize them intellectuallyas existing; we can form propositions about them and use suchpropositions in syllogisms. So, for example, if I form the proposition“This flower is red,” the contents of that propositionmust be in the intellect, not merely in the sense. This isintellectual cognition because it is conceptual; it isintuitive cognition because it concerns somethingasexisting. The information contained in the sensiblespecies—the shape and color of the flower—is "promoted" bythe agent intellect from material existence in an organ to immaterialexistence in the non-organic intellect, so that it is available forintellectual cognition. The role of sensible species in intuitiveintellectual cognition explains why Scotus denies that we can havesuch cognition of non-sensible objects, such as angels, in thislife.

We also have intuitive cognition of our mental acts. (As I discuss inthe next section, Scotus attaches considerable importance to ourintuitive self-knowledge). Abstractive cognition could provide me withan abstract concept ofthinking about Scotus, for example,but I need intuitive cognition to know that I am in fact exemplifyingthat concept right this minute. This kind of intuitive cognitionclearly dispenses even with sensible species, since theintellect’s acts, like the intellect itself, are immaterial andtherefore not the sorts of things that can be sensed.

4.3 The attack on skepticism and illuminationism

Scotus 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,and illuminationism, which insists that we need special divineillumination in order to attain certainty. He works out his attack onboth doctrines in the course of a reply to Henry of Ghent inOrdinatio 1, d. 3, pars 1, q. 4. (For a translation, see vanden Bercken [2016], 114–143.)

According to Henry, truth involves a relation to an“exemplar.” (We can think of this relation as akin to therelation of correspondence appealed to by certain theories of truth,and the exemplar itself as the mental item that is one of the relataof the correspondence-relation. The other relatum, of course, is“the way things really are.”) Now there are two exemplars:the created exemplar, which is the species of the universal caused bythe thing known, and the uncreated exemplar, which is an idea in thedivine mind. Henry argues that the created exemplar cannot provide uswith certain and infallible knowledge of a thing. For, first, theobject from which the exemplar is abstracted is itself mutable andtherefore cannot be the cause of something immutable. And how canthere be certain knowledge apart from some immutable basis for thatknowledge? Second, the soul itself is mutable and subject to error,and it can be preserved from error only by something less mutable thanitself. But the created exemplar is even more mutable than the soul.Third, the created exemplar by itself does not allow us to distinguishbetween reality and dreaming, since the content of the exemplar is thesame in either case. Henry therefore concludes that if we are to havecertainty, we must look to the uncreated exemplar. And since we cannotlook to the uncreated exemplar by our natural powers, certainty isimpossible apart from 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 thatthere is no certainty to be had by knowing a mutable object asimmutable. To the second he replies that anything in thesoul—including the very act of understanding that Henry thinksis achieved through illumination—is mutable. So by Henry’sargument it would be impossible for anything whatever to preserve thesoul from error. And to the third argument he replies that if thecreated exemplar is such as to preclude certainty, adding extraexemplars will not solve the problem: “When somethingincompatible 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 ispossible through divine illumination, actually lead to a pervasiveskepticism. Scotus counters that we can show that skepticism is false.We can in fact attain certainty, and we can do so by the unaidedexercise of our natural intellectual powers. There are four types ofknowledge in which infallible certainty is possible. First, knowledgeof first principles is certain because the intellect has only to formsuch judgments to see that they are true. (And since the validity ofproper syllogistic inference can be known in just this way, it followsthat anything that is seen to be properly derived from firstprinciples by syllogistic inference is also known with certainty.)Second, we have certainty with respect to quite a lot of causaljudgments derived from experience. Third, Scotus says that many of ourown acts are as certain as first principles. It is no objection topoint out that our acts are contingent, since some contingentpropositions must be known immediately (that is, without needing to bederived from some other proposition). For otherwise, either somecontingent proposition would follow from a necessary proposition(which is impossible), or there would be an infinite regress incontingent propositions (in which case no contingent proposition wouldever be known). Fourth, certain propositions about present senseexperience are also known with certainty if they are properly vettedby the intellect in light of the causal judgments derived fromexperience.

5. Ethics and Moral Psychology

5.1 The natural law

For Scotus the natural law in the strict sense contains only thosemoral propositions that areper se notae ex terminis alongwith whatever propositions can be derived from them deductively(Ordinatio 3, d. 37, q. un.).Per se notae meansthat they 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 necessarytruths. So the natural law in the strict sense does not depend onGod’s will. This means that even if (as I believe) Scotus issome sort of divine-command theorist, he is not whole-hog in hisdivine command theory. Some moral truths are necessary truths, andeven God can’t change those. They would be true no matter whatGod 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 theway in which God is to be treated. For Scotus says that the followingproposition isper se nota ex terminis: “If God exists,then he is to be loved as God, and nothing else is to be worshiped asGod, and no irreverence is to be done to him.” Given the verydefinition of God, it follows that if there is such a being, he is tobe loved and worshiped, and no irreverence should be shown to him.Because these commandments are self-evident and analytic, they arenecessary truths. Not even God himself could make them false.

But even the first three commandments, once we start looking at them,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 beworshiped on Saturday” is not self-evident or analytic. In fact,Scotus says it’s not even true any more, since Christians are toworship on Sunday, not Saturday. So, Scotus asks, what about theproposition “God is to be worshiped at some time orother”? Even that is not self-evident or analytic. The best onecan 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 aboutwhether and when we should worship God.

So by the time Scotus completes his analysis, we are left with nothingin 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 God. Everything else in theDecalogue belongs to the natural law in a weaker or looser sense.These are propositions that are notper se notae ex terminisand do not follow from such propositions, but are “highlyconsonant” with such propositions. Now the important point forScotus is this: since these propositions are contingent, they arecompletely up to God’s discretion. Any contingent truthwhatsoever 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 acontingent proposition. Therefore, it is up to God’s willwhether that proposition will be true or false. The same goes forcontingent moral propositions. Take any such proposition and call itL, and call the opposite ofL, not-L. BothL and not-L are contingent propositions. God canmake either of them true, but he can’t make both of them true,since they are contradictories. Suppose that God willsL.L is now part of the moral law. How do we explain why GodwilledL rather than not-L? Scotus says wecan’t. God’s will with respect to contingent propositionsis unqualifiedly free. So while there might be some reasons why Godchose the laws he chose, there is no fully adequate reason, no totalexplanation. If there were a total explanation other than God’swill itself, those propositions wouldn’t be contingent at all.They would be necessary. So at bottom there is simply the sheer factthat God willed one 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 beelephants but no unicorns. And why did he will that? He just did.That’s part of what we mean by saying that God was free increating. There was nothing constraining him or forcing him to createone thing rather than another. The same is true about the moral law.Why is there an obligation to honor one’s parents but no suchobligation toward cousins? Because God willed that there be anobligation to honor one’s parents, and he did not will thatthere be any such obligation toward one’s cousins. He could havewilled both of these obligations, and he could have willed neither.What explains the way that he did in fact will? Nothing whatsoeverexcept the sheer fact that he did will that way.

(For recent criticisms of this strongly voluntaristic reading ofScotus’s account of the moral law, see Borland and Hillman 2017and Ward 2019.)

5.2 The will, freedom, and morality

Scotus quite self-consciously puts forward his understanding offreedom as an alternative to Aquinas’s. According to Aquinas,freedom comes in simply because the will is intellectual appetiterather than mere sense appetite. Intellectual appetite is aimed atobjects as presented by the intellect and sense appetite at objects aspresented by the senses. Sense appetite is not free because the sensesprovide only particulars as objects of appetite. But intellectualappetite is free because the intellect deals with universals, notparticulars. Since universals by definition include many particulars,intellectual appetite will have a variety of objects. Considergoodness as an example. The will is not aimed at this good thing orthat good thing, but at goodness in general. Since that universal,goodness, contains many different particular things, intellectualappetite has many different 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 presentsx as good, soI willx; but later on the intellect presentsy asgood, so then I willy. But Scotus thinks of freedom asinvolving multiple options at the very moment of choice. It’snot enough to say that now I willx, but later I can willy. We have to say that at the very moment at which I willx, I also am able to willy. Aquinas’sarguments don’t show that intellectual appetite is free in thisstronger sense. So as far as Scotus is concerned, Aquinas hasn’tmade room for the right kind of freedom.

This is where Scotus brings in his well-known doctrine of the twoaffections of the will (see especiallyOrdinatio 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: theaffectiocommodi, or affection for the advantageous, and theaffectioiustitiae, 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?For the reason we’ve already discussed. He doesn’t see howintellectual appetite could be genuinely free. Now he can’t denythat the will involves intellectual appetite. Intellectual appetite isaimed at happiness, and surely happiness does have some role to playin our moral psychology. But the will has to include something morethan intellectual appetite if it’s going to be free. Thatsomething more is theaffectio iustitiae. But one can’tfully understand what theaffectio iustitiae is until Aquinasand Scotus are compared 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 why Aquinas can understand the will as an intellectualappetite for happiness. 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—onlywhen they are aimed at the ultimate end, which is happiness. SoAquinas just defines the will as the capacity to choose in accordancewith a conception of the human good—in other words, asintellectual appetite.

When Scotus rejects the idea that will is merely intellectualappetite, he is saying that there is something fundamentally wrongwith eudaimonistic ethics. Morality is not tied to human flourishingat all. For it is Scotus’s fundamental conviction that moralityis impossible without libertarian freedom, and since he sees no wayfor there to be libertarian freedom on Aquinas’s eudaimonisticunderstanding of ethics, Aquinas’s understanding must berejected. And just as Aquinas’s conception of the will wastailor-made to suit his eudaimonistic conception of morality,Scotus’s conception of the will is tailor-made to suit hisanti-eudaimonistic conception of morality. It’s not merely thathe thinks there can be no genuine freedom in mere intellectualappetite. It’s also that he rejects the idea that moral normsare intimately bound up with human nature and human happiness. Thefact that God creates human beings with a certain kind of nature doesnot require God to command or forbid the actions that he in factcommanded or forbade. The actions he commands are not necessary forour happiness, and the actions he forbids are not incompatible withour happiness. Now if the will were merely intellectualappetite—that is, if it were aimed solely at happiness—wewould not be able to choose in accordance with the moral law, sincethe moral law itself is not determined by any considerations abouthuman happiness. So Scotus relegates concerns about happiness to theaffectio commodi and assigns whatever is properly moral tothe other affection, theaffectio iustitiae.

Bibliography

Primary texts in Latin

• Cuestiones Cuodlibetales. InObras del Doctor Sutil,Juan Duns Escoto. Ed. Felix Alluntis. Madrid: Biblioteca deAutores Cristianos, 1963.
• Opera Omnia. (“The Wadding edition”) Lyon,1639; reprinted Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1968. Thisis the best source for material not yet available in the criticaleditions. It does include some material now known to be inauthentic,and it prints as Book 1 of theReportatio what is actuallytheAdditiones magnae compiled and edited by Scotus’sstudent and secretary, William of Alnwick.
• Opera Omnia. (“The Vatican edition”) CivitasVaticana: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950–2013. TheOrdinatio (vol. I–XIV) andLectura (vol.XVI–21).
• Opera Philosophica. St. Bonaventure, NY: The FranciscanInstitute, 1997–2006. The question-commentaries onPorphyry’sIsagoge and Aristotle’sCategories (vol. I), onPeri hermeneias andSophistical Refutations, along with theTheoremata(vol. II), theQuaestiones super libros MetaphysicorumAristotelis (vols. III–IV), and theQuaetiones superSecundum et Tertium de Anima (vol. V).
• Notabilia Scoti super Metaphysicam: una testimonianzaritrovata dell’insegnamento di Duns Scoto sulla Metafisica,Giorgio Pini (ed.),Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 89(1996): 137–180.

Primary texts in English translation

• Buckner, Edward, and Jack Zupko (trans., eds.), 2014.DunsScotus on Time and Existence: The Questions on ‘DeInterpretatione’, Washington, DC: Catholic University of AmericaPress.
• Bychkov, Oleg B., and Trent Pomplun, 2016.John Duns Scotus:The Report of the Paris Lecture: Reportatio IV-A. St.Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute. (An English translation andpreliminary edition of the Latin text through distinction 10.)
• Etzkorn, Girard J., and Allan B. Wolter, OFM, 1997–98.Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle by John DunsScotus. St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute.
• Jaczn, A. Vos, H. Veldhuis, A. A. Looman-Graaskamp, E. Dekker, andN. W. Den Bok (trans.), 1994.John Duns Scotus, Contingency andFreedom: Lectura I 39 (New Synthese Historical Library, 42),Dordrecht: Kluwer.
• Newton, Lloyd (trans.), 2014.Questions on Aristotle’sCategories, Washington, DC: Catholic University of AmericaPress.
• Spade, Paul Vincent, 1994.Five Texts on the Mediaeval Problemof Universals. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
• van den Bercken, John, 2016.On Being and Cognition: Ordinatio1.3. New York: Fordham University Press.
• Vos, A., H. Veldhuis, E. Dekker, N.W. den Bok and A.J. Beck(eds.), 2003.Duns Scotus on Divine Love: Texts and Commentary onGoodness and Freedom, God and Humans, Aldershot: Ashgate.
• Williams, Thomas, 2017.Duns Scotus: Selected Writings onEthics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Wolter, Allan B., OFM, 1987.Duns Scotus: PhilosophicalWritings. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
• –––, 2000.A Treatise on Potency and Act.Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle Book IX, St.Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Publications.
• –––, 2001.Political and EconomicPhilosophy, St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan InstitutePublications.
• 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.
• Wolter, Allan B., OFM, and Oleg V. Bychkov, 2004.The ExaminedReport of the Paris Lecture: Reportatio I-A. St. Bonaventure, NY:The Franciscan Institute. (An English translation and preliminaryLatin edition.)

Secondary literature

• Borland, Tully, and T. Allan Hillman 2017. “Scotus andGod’s Arbitrary Will: A Reassessment,”AmericanCatholic Philosophical Quarterly 91: 399–429.
• Cross, Richard, 1999.Duns Scotus, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.
• –––, 2014.Duns Scotus’s Theory ofCognition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 2016.Duns Scotus on God, NewYork: Routledge.
• Frank, William A. and Allan B. Wolter, OFM, 1995.Duns Scotus: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.
• Ingham, Mary Beth, et al. (eds.), 2010–2012.Proceedingsof the Quadruple Congress on Duns Scotus, 4 volumes, St.Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute.
• Ingham, Mary Beth, and Mechthild Dreyer, 2004.ThePhilosophical Vision of John Duns Scotus: An Introduction,Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press.
• King, Peter, 2002. “Scotus on Metaphysics,” inWilliams 2002.
• Pasnau, Robert, 2002. “Cognition,” in Williams 2002,285–311.
• Pini, Giorgio, 2002.Categories and Logic in Duns Scotus: AnInterpretation of Aristotle’sCategories in the LateThirteenth Century, Köln: Brill.
• Vos, Antonie, 2018.The Theology of John Duns Scotus,Leiden: Brill.
• Ward, Thomas M., 2014.John Duns Scotus on Parts, Wholes, andHylomorphism, Leiden: Brill.
• –––, 2019. “A Most Mitigated Friar: Scotuson Natural Law and Divine Freedom,”American CatholicPhilosophical Quarterly 93: 385–409.
• Williams, Thomas, 1995. “How Scotus Separates Morality fromHappiness,”American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly,69: 425–445. [Preprint available online.]
• –––, 1998. “The Unmitigated Scotus,”Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 80:162–181. [Preprint available online.]
• –––, 2000. “A Most Methodical Lover: OnScotus’s Arbitrary Creator,”Journal of the History ofPhilosophy, 38: 169–202. [Preprint available online.]
• –––, 2002.The Cambridge Companion to DunsScotus, New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Wolter, Allan B., OFM, 1990.The Philosophical Theology ofJohn Duns Scotus, Marilyn McCord Adams (ed.), Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press.

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Other Internet Resources

• Duns Scotus Bibliography, from 1950 to the present. This very valuable bibliography of work onDuns Scotus is maintained by Tobias Hoffmann.
• Duns Scotus online. Links to online Latin texts, including the Vivès reprint ofthe Wadding edition, maintained by Sydney Penner.
• The Franciscan Archive: John Duns Scotus. Offers Latin texts, translations, scholarly papers, and otherresources.
• A Treatise on God as First Principle, Allan B. Wolter’s translation ofDe primoprincipio.
• International Scotistic Commission, includes information on the status of the critical edition, upcomingevents, online studies, and conferences.

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