John Duns Scot

John Duns Scot (towards 1266 has Duns - 1308 has Cologne), also said John Duns Scotus in English, Johannes Duns Scotus in German and Jean Duns Scot in French, called the subtle doctor , Théologien and Philosophe Irish, founder of the school Scolastique known as scotist.

Biography

We do not know where it was born. Its life is little known and gave place to legends. It was béatifié by Jean Paul II in 1993.

Philosophy and method

Reason and revelation

Duns Scot, like most of the philosophers of its time, separates clearly Philosophie and Théologie, but resorts sometimes to clarify the other. Nevertheless it is the philosophy which especially tends to take the most place in its work, until in the questions concerning the revelation. One can thus say that the Pensée of Duns Scot is worried to draw all the rational conclusions from the dogma of the Liberté of the divine creation. But, rejecting all the supposed reasoning to explain the divine plans, he affirms the arbitrary character of the laws instituted by God: “Not quaerenda ratio quorum not is ratio. ” ( one should not seek the reason of that of which there is no reason ). Its method thus could appear purely critical with regard to the Raison and be a form of Scepticisme.

Self-knowledges and compared to us

Duns Scot defines the Science like the complete Intuition of the object of this science, i.e the knowledge of its gasoline and the consequences which rise from this principle. But it is a knowledge which is not for us possible, and it then distinguishes science in oneself and science for us. There will be thus two quite distinct scientific methods:

“the characteristic of metaphysics is to base its divisions and definitions on the gasoline, then to absolutely make demonstrations by the consideration of the essential causes first. But it is clean metaphysics in oneself. ”

This knowledge a priori is not possible, because:

“in consequence of the weakness of our understanding, it is on the basis of the sensitive things and less known in themselves than we come to knowledge from the immaterial things which in oneself are known and should be in metaphysics taken as the principles of the knowledge of the other things. ” ( Questions about Metaphysics )

We cannot thus leave the concept of God to deduce all the remainder from it. Nothing is naturally known for us before the experiment which comes us from feel (there is no innate idea, nor of intuition of the absolute), and any knowledge will be thus a posteriori .

Division of sciences

It divides the Science S into two following their object: on the one hand sciences which relate to beings (Mathématiques, Métaphysique, Physique which are theoretic sciences of Aristote); other share sciences which have as an aim the forms of the thought and the laws of the Langage (Logique, Rhétorique, Grammaire). In logic, it distinguishes the formal logic (which are a science, i.e a theory from the demonstrations necessary) and the practical logic (which is a Art of the discussion on what is probable).

Knowledge

Aristote distinguished the feeling, which does not exist without the body bodies (it is thus common to all the animals) and the intellect which in is independent (at least in interpretation scholastic of the Philosopher) and belongs only to the Homme. This distinction is included in the Scolastique. The study of these faculties poses the problems following for the Connaissance: is

which the role of intellect in knowledge?
which knowledge the heart does it have itself?
which knowledge do we have God?
which report/ratio is there between our intellect and God as a principle?

The feeling

Duns Scot admits the existence of five external directions (seats and subjects of the feeling) and of an internal common direction. It rejects the value direction of certain theories according to which this direction is a faculty lower than the understanding, and which would make feel without judging what useful and what are harmful. Sometimes it seems moreover to confuse in only one direction the common direction, the memory (because the Temps is not perceived by the directions) and the Imagination (because imagination supplements sometimes the feelings).

The five directions are characterized by their Organe; each direction makes known opposites of the same order. As for the common direction, causes and root of the particular directions, and which has its base in the Cœur and its termination in the Cerveau, it has as an aim the sensitive clean ones and the sensitive commun runs, such as the size and the figure. It thus makes us know the differences of sensitive in different orders. Duns Scot employs the image of the center of the circle: the center receives information of each direction which is with the periphery.

For Duns Scot, the feeling is not entirely passive; it has a certain activity ( Of animated , 7). Indeed, if it is necessary that a body is initially modified so that there is feeling, it can have modifications without feelings there when the activity of the heart is suspended or turned on another side. It is necessary thus that the heart acts with the cause of the modification of a body so that a feeling occurs.

In the scholastic, these modifications of the bodies are significant impressions of species, from which Duns Scott distinguishes three kinds ( De Rerum Principio , 14):

the appearance attached to the object;
the species enters the object and the body;
the species formed in the body.

This theory must first of all be distinguished from the theory of the emanations of Démocrite and Épicure; indeed, the emanation is produced by the movements of the Atome S, and about this point Aristote does not come to a conclusion. On the other hand, the scholastic admits that the feeling is produced by a change in the medium between the object and the body; knowledge is thus not direct. Duns Scot however seems to in the case of admit the possibility of a knowledge without intermediate medium the touch (and that, contrary to Aristote).

It remains that the feeling makes known to us directly qualities of the things such as they are, but this Connaissance needs the understanding.

Intellect

“intellect has clean operations which distinguish it from the sensitive power: these operations are the universal design, the analysis and the synthesis, the reasoning. ” (In ium. feels. 3,6).

Intellect thus makes us design the species and the kinds, the principles and the bonds between our ideas. The adequate object of intellect is the being in general, i.e that all our thoughts are reduced to the categories of the to be, because all that we think (kind, species, individual, report/ratio, quality) is beings or modifications to be it. But it does not do anything to us to know without the help of the directions, just as without the possession of intellect and the reflection on its operations, we do not have science but only feelings by which we cannot raise us with the question of the truth and the reality of a felt thing. Tiny room to the feeling, in an Animal state , we feel but let us not judge:

“To know is to perceive the truth of a thing; such is not the role of the direction, but only of the reason. ” (Ibid)

Thus intellect recognizes it the truth; but, moreover, it is by him that we acquire the certainty on particular things. Intellect then exerts a control on the directions to avoid the error:

by comparing the data of the directions, and by rectifying them;
while judging according to principles (causality, contradiction, etc) what is possible or impossible.

Intellect thus discovers in the directions what is certain; and, consequently, according to Duns Scot, it can know the private individuals directly. “Great men were mistaken” on this point (i.e Thomas d' Aquin), by affirming that intellect has as an aim released immediate of knowledge the universal one of the significant species, and while following Aristote according to which the private individual is known only by the directions. According to Thomas, to determine what individualizes a being, it should be characterized terms which are kinds (such individual is a man, he is theologist, he is this and that, etc), until we are obliged to distinguish two individuals by their significant species. However, for Duns Scot, this distinction by the significant species is precisely a judgment of intellect; it is the intellect which judges truth of the data of the directions, therefore the significant species do not make us know the individuals.

Universals

Intellect designs the general things; but how do we arrive at these Connaissance S? The knowledge of the universals implies a generalization and the knowledge of the Loi S: thus we separately know the idea of Animal and qualities that one attaches to him. Duns Scott rejects the idea that we can know the Universaux by a higher principle or a kind of supernatural revelation; but it also rejects the idea that the universality can come from the direction (because they seize only the presence of an object).

It is then necessary to distinguish two roles from intellect, a role by which it produces the universal one, and a role by which he knows it. In other words, it is necessary to distinguish an active intellect and a possible intellect. Possible intellect is the Pensée which in act or power; and active intellect is what causes the thought. Intellect is then a habitus principiorum , a state of the principles, which will clarify the theory of the understandable species.

The understandable species

From this division of intellect in agent and possible the idea rises indeed from the Existence of the understandable species. The understandable species is defined like the product of intellect agent by transforming the data of the directions or the memory. Whereas the significant species is in the heart and the body, the understandable species is in the heart, and it is “a new form that revêt the intelligence. ” The universal one is thus creates and thought; what comes then to the intelligence, after having received images, it is a form which it gives itself to itself and which logically precedes the thought, and which remains when the thought is not any more in act. But what remains is not an idea (because it would be known that one it a), it is a reality higher than the Pensée and the Représentation, insofar as, contrary to the thought, it is permanent.

The Psychology

The Theology

The evidence of the existence of God

Duns Scot thinks that God can be sought by the Raison, even if there is a revelation, because to believe is not to include/understand. There is thus a Science of God, and the Connaissance which we can have comprises several degrees:

most is the knowledge of God in his gasoline, but it is only as a God; it is perfect theology;
comes then the theology from the angels and happy which is a gift of God;
comes then the knowledge which we can have by our understanding, and which Duns Scot divides into two:

the human theology which is based on the revelation;
the Philosophy which does without the authority of the Église and of the holy books.

Human theology needs other sciences, but it however remains higher to them by the nature of its object. Thus sciences are subordinated to the faith. Philosophy raises of theology and must agree with the Écritures, although it of it is independent. What can the natural reason to then know God? Since God alone knows himself sub rations deitatis , we need demonstrations.

We can know that there is God, i.e a being infinite and necessary, but this knowledge is not the knowledge of the gasoline. We know that God is, we do not know what it is. The knowledge of the gasoline of God would make known to us a priori its existence; in the absence of this knowledge, we must reason a posteriori , i.e that we form the idea of God only according to the testimony of the directions, and it is by going up effect with the cause that we can provide the proof of sound Existence.

This reasoning starts with the question of knowing if there is some infinite being: utrum in entibus sit aliquid actu existens infinitum. We indeed have the idea of an infinite being, but it is a concept formed using other concepts. God will have to then be conceived as efficient Cause: since the Néant can nothing produce, and that a thing cannot occur itself, all that is product is produced by other thing; and this other thing, because one cannot go back to the Infini, must be by itself and not be not produced. Thus each being it in a series and is caused by another thing that oneself, but apart from this series, there is an efficient cause of another nature. The contingent series of the beings supposes a being necessary.

This main cause is also the supreme end, indeed:

what acts by oneself, acts for an end;
the end precedes the action;
but there cannot be of supreme end preceding the main cause;
thus the main cause and fine supreme is to it only one and even thing.

Duns Scot also proposes a proof by the idea of eminent Nature.

Attributes of God

Duns Scot from of deduced that God is necessary, one, has intelligence and Volonté, that it is infinite.

Indeed, a to be which is by oneself cannot be produced nor destroyed, it is a being necessary; can this being only be single, because by what could be different two beings necessary if it is not by some accident which would contradict to them Nature? There cannot thus be two eminent natures.

Works

Before 1295:

Parva logicalia :

Quaestiones super Porphyrii Isagogem
Quaestiones in librum Praedicamentorum
Quaestiones in I and II librum Perihermeneias
Octo quaestiones in duets libros Perihermeneias
Quaestiones in libros Elenchorum

Lectura
Quaestiones super libros Of animated
Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis ( Questions about Metaphysics , before and around 1300)
Expositio super libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis
Ordinatio (about 1300 - 1304)
Collationes oxonienses and parisienses (about 1303 - 1305)
Reportatio parisiensis (1304 - 1305?)
Quaestiones Quodlibetales (1306 - 1307)
Of firstly principio
Theoremata

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