Abstract
As Hannah Arendt observes, the concept of the will has a history—a history shaped in significant ways by Christian theologians and philosophers.1 According to Arendt, “Freedom becomes a problem, and the Will as an independent autonomous faculty is discovered, only when men begin to doubt the coincidence of the Thou-shalt and the I-can, when the question arises: Are things that concern only me within my power?”2 The awareness of the double construction of the self evidenced in our postmodern and modern thinkers substantiates Arendt’s claim; however, depending on one’s perspective, it also broadens and complexifies it. Historically, the Greeks, of course, spoke profusely about natures and desire, and with Aristotle in particular we see the emergence of the faculty of choice (proairesis). However, the idea of a distinct faculty of the will as an active power undetermined by external forces is notably absent in Aristotle’s thought. Such an understanding of the will comes into view much later, having been anticipated in large part via the reflections of St. Paul, St. Augustine, and others in the Christian tradition. Having come at last to our final premodern dialogue partner, John Duns Scotus, I shall elaborate several of his philosophical as well as theological contributions relevant to my present project.3
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Notes
For a detailed discussion of the history of the concept of the will, see Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, one volume edition (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, 1978), 55–146.
For a helpful introduction to Scotus’s life in Oxford, Paris, Cambridge, and Cologne, see Antonie Vos, The Philosophy of John Duns Scotus (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006), 15–102.
For a helpful discussion on the unstable harmonization of Greek and biblical notions of the divine, and the ways in which, for theological reasons, philosophers in the late medieval period challenged Aristotle’s position, see Francis Oakley, Natural Law, Laws of Nature, Natural Rights (New York: Continuum, 2005). Oakley also analyzes how late medieval philosophers employed the two power distinction (potentia dei absoluta et ordinata) in their arguments for the contingency of creation and to counter all forms of Greek and other necessitarian views. Potentia dei absoluta, as Oakley observes, was understood not merely as a hypothetical power but as operational power (ibid., 56; for the extended discussion on this topic, see 55–60).
Allan B. Wolter, “Duns Scotus on the Will as Rational Potency,” in The Philosophical Theology of Duns Scotus, ed. Marilyn McCord Adams (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), 163–80, 174.
See Stephen D. Dumont, “The Origin of Scotus’s Theory of Synchronic Contingency,” The Modern Schoolman 72 (1995), 149–67.
For further study on the topic, see John Duns Scotus, Contingency and Freedom, Lectura I.39, introduction, commentary, and trans. A. Vos et al. (The New Synthese Historical Library, 4. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994). In the collaborative introduction to this work, Vos and company provide a helpful commentary on Scotus’s notion of synchronic contingency. As the authors emphasize, Scotus’s development of the doctrine of synchronic contingency emerges, as his works evidence, “from a radical reflection on the experience of God’s love, which is man’s—and reality’s—free source, and on the specifically Christian faith of God’s Trinitarian character” (27–8). See also Dumont, “The Origin of Scotus’s Theory of Synchronic Contingency.”
Calvin G. Normore, “Duns Scotus’s Modal Theory,” in The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus, ed. Thomas Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 142.
Allan B. Wolter, “Scotus’s Ethics,” in Scotus and Ockham: Selected Essays (St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 2003), 176. Scotus, like other medieval theologians, lectured on Lombard’s Sentences I–IV with the ultimate goal of producing an ordinatio, which was a polished, published work, corresponding (to greater or lesser degrees) to Lombard’s theological loci. Scotus’s early departure from this life in 1308 precluded his completing the task. Nonetheless, what we refer to today as his Ordinatio I–IV consists of the edited drafts for what eventually would have been his final commentary on books I–IV of Lombard’s Sentences. For a fascinating study on the role of Lombard’s Sentences from the late medieval and into the early modern period,
see Philipp W. Rosemann, The Story of a Great Medieval Book: Peter Lombard’s Sentences (Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 2007).
See also Allan B. Wolter, “Native Freedom of the Will as a Key to the Ethics of Scotus,” in The Philosophical Theology of Duns Scotus, ed. Marilyn McCord Adams (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), esp. 152–7.
Thomas A. Shannon, “Method in Ethics: A Scotistic Contribution,” Theological Studies 54 (1993), 277.
Mary Elizabeth Ingham, The Harmony of Goodness: Mutuality and Moral Living according to John Duns Scotus (Quincy: Franciscan Press, 1996), 52.
Thomas Williams, “The Decalogue and the Natural Law,” in Philosophy in the Middle Ages: The Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Traditions, eds. Arthur Hyman, James J. Walsh, and Thomas Williams (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2010), 603; Scotus, Ord. III, d. 37, q. un., n. 18 (ed. Vat. X 280). (This is the most recent English translation of Ord. III, d. 37, q. un.)
Ibid. See also Francis Kovach, essay six, “Divine and Human Beauty in Duns Scotus’ Philosophy and Theology,” in Scholastic Challenges to Some Mediaeval and Modern Ideas (Stillwater, OK: Western Publications, 1987), 91–110. Kovach makes a case for Scotus’s bringing back the so-called lost transcendental beauty. According to Kovach, Scotus argues for the real identity of beauty and goodness, claiming only a formal distinction obtains between the two. Thus, beauty and goodness are coextensive with being and the other simple transcendentals.
In footnote 18 Ingham states that “the Index Thomisticus reveals a ratio of health to art images at about three to one.” Since “Aristotle himself favors the medical imagery,” Thomas’s own appropriation of the Stagirite’s medical analogies is not surprising (The Harmony of Goodness, 56). For example, Aquinas repeatedly references Aristotle’s discussion of health in the former’s explication of analogy as a third way between univocity and equivocation. See, e.g., ST 1.13 a. 5. See also Quaestiones disputatae de potentia Dei, q. 6, a. 5, ad. 2. Aquinas likewise employs biological terminology in his explanation of the knowing process and its difficulties. See, e.g., his use of the terms “ concipio,” “ conceptio,” and “ propago ” in SCG 4.11 and Quaestiones disputatae de potentia Dei, q. 8, a. 1. Aquinas does, however, also use the term “ convenientia ” to describe his notion of analogy. See, e.g., De veritate, q. 2, a. 11. Trent Pomplun agrees with Ingham’s assessment and argues that Scotus’s corpus is saturated with artistic metaphors. See Pomplun, “Notes on Scotist Aesthetics in Light of Gilbert Narcisse’s Les Raisons de Dieu,” Franciscan Studies 66 (2008), 247–68.
On Scotus’s view of the insufficiency of philosophy to direct human beings to true happiness, which is union with God, see Olivier Boulnois, Duns Scot: la rigueur de la charité (Paris: Cerf, 1998).
See Wladysław Tatarkiewicz, “Did Aesthetics Progress?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 31 (1970), 47–59. Tatarkiewicz traces the medieval notion of decorum (the Latin translation of the Greek to prepon) to the classical theory in which one aspect of beauty was understood as the “appropriateness of things to their end” (48). Here beauty consists in aptness and suitability, and it was, for the Greeks, only a relative rather than an absolute beauty of proportion. To the Greek mind, mathematics broadly understood was considered a primary example of absolute beauty due to its precision and symmetry (ibid).
Gérard Sondag argues that Scotus’s definition of beauty as a harmonious aggregation of many elements (including context, relations, proportion, and so forth) bears strong similarities to the Stoic understanding of beauty mediated to the tradition through Alexander of Hales. See Sondag, “The Conditional Definition of Beauty by Scotus,” Medioevo 30 (2005), 191–206. See also Tatarkiewicz, “Did Aesthetics Progress?” Tatarkiewicz enumerates a series of propositions describing the characteristic features of beauty characterizing classical aesthetical theory. Such features include: beauty as harmony, beauty as goodness, beauty as a proper balance of proportions, beauty as suitability, and so forth. Tatarkiewicz then analyzes how beauty was understood by several medieval figures—e.g., Albert the Great, Bonaventure, Hugo the Victorine, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham. He concludes that in the main, the Middle Ages remained faithful to the classical theory. See ibid, esp. 49–52.
Scotus, De Primo Principio A Treatise on God as First Principle, trans. and ed. Allan B. Wolter (Chicago: Forum Books, 1966), n. 4.64, 123.
Ingham, “Duns Scotus’ Moral Reasoning and the Artistic Paradigm,” in Via Scoti: Methodologica ad Mentem Joannis Duns Scoti, 2 vols (Rome: Antonianum, 1995), 830.
For a similar argument focusing on Ockham and the Franciscan tradition, see Luca Parisoli, “The Anthropology of Freedom,” The Personalist Forum 15 (1999), 347–65. I employ and develop a number of Parisoli’s insights in the latter part of this section. For a critical view of Scotus’s metaphysics and its alleged implications concerning the body politic,
see André de Muralt, L’unité de la philosophie politique de Scot, Occam et Suárez au libéralisme contemporain (Paris: Vrin, 2002).
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© 2013 Cynthia R. Nielsen
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Nielsen, C.R. (2013). Duns Scotus and Multidimensional Freedom. In: Foucault, Douglass, Fanon, and Scotus in Dialogue. New Approaches to Religion and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137034113_5
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