Duns Scotus Quotes
John Duns Scotus was a 13th and early 14th-century Scottish Franciscan friar, philosopher, and theologian, regarded as one of the most important medieval scholastic philosophers alongside Aquinas and William of Ockham. Known to subsequent tradition as the Subtle Doctor for the rigour and complexity of his arguments, he developed influential positions on the univocity of being, the distinction between essence and existence, the principle of individuation through what he called haecceity or thisness, and the primacy of the will over the intellect. The quotes below are attributed to Duns Scotus, organized by topic.
Browse Duns Scotus by topic
Duns Scotus on Freedom
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Attributed to Duns Scotus:
“Nothing other than the will is the total cause of volition in the will.”
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Attributed to Duns Scotus:
“The will is the freer the more able it is to choose the good for its own sake.”
Duns Scotus on Justice
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“I say that some things can be said to belong to the law of nature in two ways: One way is as first practical principles known from their terms or as conclusions necessarily entailed by them. These are said to belong to the natural law in the strictest sense, and there can be no dispensation in their regard... But this is not the case when we speak in general of all the precepts of the second table”
Scotus (c. 1300), Ordinatio 3.37 as cited in: Peter A. (2004) "Kwasniewski William of Ockham and the Metaphysical Roots of Natural Law" in: The Aquinas Review , 2004
Duns Scotus on Knowledge
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“sic: si omnes homines natura scire desiderant, ergo maxime scientiam maxime desiderabunt. Ita arguit Philosophus I huius cap. 2. Et ibidem subdit: "quae sit maxime scientia, illa scilicet quae est circa maxime scibilia". Maxime autem dicuntur scibilia dupliciter: uel quia primo omnium sciuntur sine quibus non possunt alia sciri; uel quia sunt certissima cognoscibilia. Utroque autem modo considerat ista scientia maxime scibilia. Haec igitur est maxime scientia, et per consequens maxime desiderabilis.”
If all men by nature desire to know, then they desire most of all the greatest knowledge of science . So the Philosopher argues in chap. 2 of his first book of the work [ Metaphisics ]. And he immediately indicates what the greatest science is, namely the science which is about those things that are most knowable. But there are two senses in which things are said to be maximally knowable: either b -
“Quaestiones subtilissimae de metaphysicam Aristotelis , as translated in: William A. Frank, Allan Bernard Wolter (1995) Duns Scotus, metaphysician . p. 18-19”
sic: si omnes homines natura scire desiderant, ergo maxime scientiam maxime desiderabunt. Ita arguit Philosophus I huius cap. 2. Et ibidem subdit: "quae sit maxime scientia, illa scilicet quae est circa maxime scibilia". Maxime autem dicuntur scibilia dupliciter: uel quia primo omnium sciuntur sine quibus non possunt alia sciri; uel quia sunt certissima cognoscibilia. Utroque autem modo considerat -
“Quaestiones subtilissimae de metaphysicam Aristotelis , as translated in: William A. Frank, Allan Bernard Wolter (1995) Duns Scotus, metaphysician . p. 20-21”
loquimur de materia "circa quam" est scientia, quae dicitur a quibusdam subiectum scientiae, uel magis proprie obiectum, sicut et illud circa quod est uirtus dicitur obiectum uirtutis proprie, non subiectum. De isto autem obiecto huius scientiae ostensum est prius quod haec scientia est circa transcendentia; ostensum est autem quod est circa altissimas causas. Quod autem istorum debeat poni propri
Duns Scotus on Nature
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Attributed to Duns Scotus:
“Each individual has its own haecceity, its thisness, that makes it the thing it is and no other.”
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Attributed to Duns Scotus:
“Where there is no order, there is no being.”
Duns Scotus on Truth
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Attributed to Duns Scotus:
“It does not behoove the philosopher to deny what is self-evident.”