John Duns Scotus: Introduction to His Fundamental Positions

911 Pages·2018·6.212 MB·English

by  Etienne Gilson

John Duns Scotus
Illuminating Modernity
Illuminating Modernity is dedicated to the renewal of faith in a world that is
both Godless and idolatrous. This renewal takes the legacy of faith seriously
and explores the tradition in the hope that the means of its contemporary
development are to be found within it. This approach takes the historical
crisis of faith seriously and makes sincere efforts to receive the strength
necessary for a renewal. We call our way the Franciscan option. And yet, one
of the greatest resources upon which we hope to build is Thomism, especially
those hidden treasures of modern Thomistic thought to be found in
Continental and phenomenological philosophy and theology.
The Franciscan option takes the history of faith seriously both in its
continuity and in its change. It takes seriously the tragic experiences of the
history of faith since the Wars of Religion and especially in late modernity.
But it also takes seriously the rich heritage of faith. As Michael Polanyi
argued, faith has become the fundamental act of human persons. Faith
involves the whole of the person in his or her absolute openness to the
Absolute. As Hegel saw, the logic of history is prefigured in the story of the
Gospels, and the great and transforming experience of humanity has
remained the experience of resurrection in the aftermath of a dramatic death.
The series editors are boundlessly grateful to Anna Turton, whose support for
this series made a hope into a reality. We also owe a huge debt of gratitude to
Notre Dame’s Nanovic Institute for European Studies for giving us financial
and moral support at the outset of our project. Many thanks to Anthony
Monta and James McAdams for caring about the ‘Hidden Treasures’.
John Duns Scotus
Introduction to His Fundamental Positions
Étienne Gilson
Translated by James Colbert
Contents
Foreword: Étienne Gilson and Jean Duns Scot Robert Trent Pomplun
Translator’s Preface
Preface
1 The Object of Metaphysics
A The limits of metaphysics
B Theology and metaphysics
C Common being
2 The Existence of the Infinite Being
A That God’s existence is not evident
B The first cause
C The last end and the supreme being
D The infinite being
a Preambles to the proof
b The path of efficiency
c The paths of intellect, will, and eminence
E Unicity of the infinite being
F Nature and scope of the proofs
3 Divine Nature
A The plurality of divine names
B Simplicity of the divine essence
C The doctrine of divine attributes
D Divine immutability
4 Origin of the Contingent
A The divine ideas
B The possible and the contingent
C Selection of contingents
D Creation of the contingents
E The production of being
F Divine omnipotence
G Omnipresence and providence
5 Angels
A Nature of angels
B Angels and duration
C Angels and place
D Angels and movement
E Angels and intellection
6 Matter
A The being of matter
B Matter and individuation
a Is matter naturally individual?
b Is matter individuated by a positive intrinsic constituent?
c Individuation by existence
d Individuation by quantity
e The principle of individuation
C Unity of the concrete
7 The Human Soul
A Origin and immortality of the soul
B The soul and the form of corporeality
C Soul and faculties
8 Intellectual Knowledge
A Intellect and intelligible species
B The cause of intellection
C Knowledge of the singular
D Knowledge and divine illumination
9 The Will
A The cause of willing
B The term of the voluntary act
C Will and morality
10 Duns Scotus and the Philosophers
Appendices
A Bibliographical information
B Biographical information
C Alphabetum Scoti
Afterword: The Dissolution of Divine Government: Gilson and the “Scotus
Story” John Milbank
A Acquiring perspective
B The Cartesian ambivalence
C Gilson on Scotus
D Assessing Gilson on Scotus
E Gilson and the “Scotus story”
F Beyond Gilson
Bibliography
Index of Names
Index of Terms
Foreword: Étienne Gilson and Jean Duns Scot
Robert Trent Pomplun
Étienne Gilson needs no introduction. Arguably the most influential
medievalist in the twentieth century, he might well have also been—
especially at the height of his powers—one of its most influential
philosophers. Henri Bergson’s star had faded by the 1950s. Heidegger had
eclipsed Husserl—who was too technical for the general reader anyway—but
Heidegger’s own influence would not extend beyond the continent until the
1960s. Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, of course, were arrivistes.
Beyond Jean-Paul Sartre and Gilson’s own friend Jacques Maritain, one is
hard pressed to find a serious competitor for the title. Gilson owed his
dominance from the 1920s through the 1960s to a steady stream of elegantly
written masterpieces, ranging from definitive treatments of Augustine,
Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventure to monumental surveys of medieval,
modern, and contemporary philosophy. Gilson’s works were revised and
enlarged, reprinted vigorously, and translated swiftly. By the end of his
career Gilson’s volumes were, like those of Flannery O’Connor, Thomas
Merton, or Teilhard de Chardin, on the bookshelves of any educated Catholic
—and more than a few educated non-Catholics. Mortimer Adler, Lionel
Trilling, and Alfred North Whitehead considered themselves lucky to be his
correspondents.
Yet, few are familiar with Gilson’s monumental work on John Duns Scotus
(c. 1266–1308). Published in 1952, when Gilson was sixty-seven years old,
Jean Duns Scot: introduction à ses positions fondamentales was in many
respects his crowning achievement.1 Since the second revised and enlarged
edition of Le thomisme: introduction au système de. S. Thomas d’Aquin
(1922), Gilson had written—and Joseph Vrin had published—the fruits of his
seminars on several great medieval thinkers during the 1920s and early
1930s. For many, La philosophie de Saint Bonaventure (1924), Introduction
à l’étude de Saint Augustin (1929), La théologie mystique de Saint Bernard
(1934), Héloïse et Abélard (1938), and Dante et la philosophie (1939) form
the backbone of any study of medieval philosophy.2 With L’esprit de la
philosophie médiévale (1932), however, Gilson expanded his expertise to
encompass more general philosophical issues. In the French works of the
1930s and 1940s—Christianisme et philosophie (1936), Réalisme thomiste et
critique de la conaissance (1939), L’être et l’essence (1948)—and in the
English—The Unity of Philosophical Experience (1937), God and
Philosophy (1941), and Being and Some Philosophers (1949)—Gilson
developed the interpretation of Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysics for which he
is best known today. He came to see the history of philosophy—indeed the
history of being—as a contest between the dynamic, person-oriented
existentialism of Thomas Aquinas and the static, concept-driven essentialism
of Augustine, Scotus, Descartes, and Kant. In Jean Duns Scot, these two
currents in Gilson’s career join in a single river, reflective of the whole. It
was Gilson’s last, largest, fully original monograph devoted to a major
medieval philosopher. It was the crucible in which he put his so-called
philosophical history of philosophy to the test. Jean Duns Scot is also—
among the dozen or more classic studies authored by Gilson—the only one
not translated into English.
* * *
Étienne Gilson (1884–1978) did not begin his career as a medievalist.3 He
learned Latin and catechism in primary school with the Christian Brothers at
Ste-Clotilde’s, and attended the best Catholic secondary school in Paris,