Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy: Volume 3. John Duns Scotus, 1265-1965.

Duns Scotus has a remarkably unique and comprehensive theory concerning the nature of justice. Alas, commentators on his work have yet to full flesh out the details. Here, we begin the process of doing so, focusing primarily on his metaethical views on justice, i.e., what justice is or amounts to. While Scotus’s most detailed account of justice can be found in his Ordinatio (IV, q. 46 especially), we find further specifics emerging in a number of other contexts and works. We argue that Scotus offers a unique contribution in the history of philosophy: justice in God is a formality (formalitas), in humans a virtue, and when attributed to actions, a relation. Even though formalities, virtues, and relations are ontologically distinct items, each can satisfy Scotus’s preferred Anselmian definition of justice—rectitude of will preserved for its own sake—since each characterizes a will aimed at rendering to goodness what is its due.

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John Duns Scotus in the History of Medieval Philosophy from the Sixteenth Century to Étienne Gilson (†1978)

Bulletin de Philosophie Médiévale ◽

10.1484/j.bpm.5.113344 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 58 ◽

pp. 355-445

Author(s):

R.Trent Pomplun

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

John Duns Scotus ◽

Medieval Philosophy ◽

Duns Scotus ◽

History Of ◽

Etienne Gilson

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Medieval Modal Spaces

Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume ◽

10.1093/arisup/akaa004 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 94 (1) ◽

pp. 225-254

Author(s):

I—Robert Pasnau

Keyword(s):

Fourteenth Century ◽

Possible Worlds ◽

John Duns Scotus ◽

Modal Theory ◽

Duns Scotus ◽

History Of ◽

Modal Space

Abstract There is often said to be something peculiar about the history of modal theory up until the turn of the fourteenth century, when John Duns Scotus decisively reframed the issues. I wish to argue that this impression of dramatic discontinuity is almost entirely a misimpression. Premodern philosophers prescind from the wide-open modal space of all possible worlds because they seek to adapt their modal discourse to the explanatory and linguistic demands of their context.

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Antonie Vos, John Duns Scotus. A Life. Studies in the History of Church and Theology, 2. Kampen: Summum, 2018, 243 pp.

Mediaevistik ◽

10.3726/med.2019.01.109 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 32 (1) ◽

pp. 443-445

Author(s):

Jan Alexander van Nahl

Keyword(s):

Middle Ages ◽

State Of The Art ◽

John Duns Scotus ◽

Late Middle Ages ◽

Duns Scotus ◽

Present Book ◽

History Of ◽

The University ◽

Early Late ◽

P 53

“There exists little direct documentation regarding Duns’ life. […] The secret is to combine many new aspects with the significant body of biographical literature hidden in many books and contributions published in many countries in quite different languages over many decades” (p. 53). Few scholars would seem ready to reveal this secret in the sense of a state-of-the-art biography of John Duns Scotus (ca. 1266–1308), one of the foremost thinkers in philosophy and theology during the high or early late Middle Ages. Among those few, Antonie Vos (*1944) appears particularly well-prepared with his research on Duns spanning several decades, including seminal studies such as his 2006 monograph The Philosophy of John Duns Scotus. In the introduction to the present book, Vos openly reflects upon shortcomings of his own earlier research, thus justifying yet another attempt at coping with Duns and his work, or “the Scotist riddle” (p. 9), as Vos calls it. Despite his confident claim of being able “to extend, to enrich and to correct my story” (p. 7), the author is humble enough to start his journey into Duns’s life by stating: “The best professors at the university and the best handbooks do not speak with one voice. In the humanities, there are groups and movements, and even ideologies. There is confusion and there are many mistakes, but we do not give in” (p. 9).

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