Sousedík, S. Jan Duns Scotus. Doctor subtilis a jeho čeští žáci

Stanislav Sousedík, Jan Duns Scotus, doctor subtilis a jeho čeští žáci, Praha, Vyšehrad, 1989.

Chapters and Key terms

Life and work

Philosophy in Scotus’s theological system: science as habitus, subject of science, essence and propria, propter quid and quia, metaphysics as the science of being, perfect (God’s) and imperfect (human) theology, the non-scientific status of human theology, metaphysics and its role in theology – transcendentality of concepts, God’s existence, God’s essence, God’s attributes

Cognition of individuality: Aristotle and senses/intellect, medieval reception: descriptive cognition (Albert et al.), reflexive cognition (Aquinas), direct cognition (Franciscans), Scotus: senses do not grasp individuality; Aquinas vs. Scotus on the principle of individuation, intuitive and abstractive cognition, intuitive cognition of individuals by the intellect, Ockham

Cognition of universality: universals as a problem in psychology (abstraction), metaphysics (structure), logic (second intentions), real and formal distinction, ultrarealism and Scotus’s realism, Thomistic virtual distinction, Aquinas vs. Scotus on the status and unity of natura absoluta, predicables and categories, Aquinas and being as the first concept, Scotus and the confused specific concepts, resolution, ultimate differences

The concept of being: the being is not a genus, modal distinctions of the being, transcendency, consistency of “the infinite being”, Scotus vs. Henry of Ghent on univocity of concepts, ultimate differences as non-beings)

Metaphysics: Avicenna vs. Averroes and ontological vs. theological conception of metaphysics, Scotus ontological conception as the departure for the proof of God’s existence, a being as “id, cui esse non repugnat” (an absence of contradiction within essence as the sufficient condition), Aquinas’s act of being, Scotus and abstraction from existence, transcendentals: (1) being, (2) convertibles: one, true, good, (3) disjunctive, (4) pure perfections. Scotus’s proof of God’s existence (first cause, unity, infinity, uniqueness).

Anselm’s and Scotus’s proof of God’s existence: modes of being (intentional, real), existence as first order predicate, Anselm’s vs. Scotus’s point of departure: intentional vs. possible

Scotus’s philosophy in historical context: knowing the world from the Absolute vs. knowing the Absolute from the world, Aquinas vs. Soctus on essence/existence distinction, Aquinas and Scotus on God’s transcendence, Scotus’s influence