Medieval Europe · c. 1266–1308
John Duns Scotus
Franciscan theologian, the “Subtle Doctor”
“Being” means the same thing when said of God and of creatures, so we can reason about God; each individual is made itself by a unique “thisness” (haecceity), and the will is freer and higher than the intellect.
Life and thought
John Duns Scotus was born around 1266 in Duns, in the Scottish Borders, and joined the Franciscans as a youth. He studied and lectured at Oxford and Paris, was briefly expelled from Paris in 1303 for siding with the pope against King Philip IV, and was sent to Cologne in 1307, where he died in 1308, leaving his main work, the Ordinatio, unfinished. His intricate distinctions earned him the title “Subtle Doctor”.
Aquinas had said that words like “being” or “good” apply to God and creatures only by analogy. Scotus answered that if they meant something different in each case, our reasoning about God would equivocate; at least “being” must mean the same, univocally, or natural theology is impossible. He also asked what makes this horse this one, and answered: not its matter, but an individual “thisness” (haecceity). And he gave the will priority over the intellect, even in God. Ockham attacked his realism; Renaissance humanists mocked his followers, whence the word “dunce”.