Introduction to Medieval Philosophy, Part 5

John Duns Scotus

The end of the Middle Ages is every bit as complicated as its beginnings, or probably more so. If what we refer to as “medieval philosophy” was born out of a sweeping effort to harmonize, unify, and illuminate diverse fields and methods of knowledge by the twin lights of faith and reason, it experienced its demise in just the opposite way—by an ever-increasing dissolution, by competing and contradictory forces tearing asunder the cautious, delicate synthesis of the thirteenth century.

If the golden age of scholasticism was characterized by a dialectic of diversity-in-unity and unity-in-diversity, the age of so-called “decadent scholasticism” was characterized by an open battle of diversity against unity, with unity violently imposed upon diversity.

In the remaining posts, I shall offer a series of observations on what happened in the late thirteenth century and in the fourteenth century—or, as it seems to me (and to many others), what went wrong. I will point out along the way the birth of ideas and approaches we tend to think of as distinctively “modern.”

It was once commonly asserted that the birth of “modernity” took place at the time of the Protestant Revolt with its background in the Italian and Northern European Renaissance movements, but this was a superficial idea. It is largely agreed upon today that the crucible in which modernity was forged was, in fact, the late Middle Ages—an era marked by nominalism and skepticism, ever-increasing moral corruption in the Church and in the State, famine, plague, and warfare, and the novel heresies that will always arise in a restless age. It was all these things that produced the Protestant rebellion and made the reform of the Catholic Church a life-or-death matter.

In my opinion, the best way to catch a glimpse of late medieval philosophy is to focus on some of its more controversial figures and their positions. It’s a bit like immersing yourself in a language rather than trying to learn it by hearing someone talk about it or by reading a textbook. Or better, if you want to know about Indian food, you have to eat Indian food, you can’t just read a cookbook. The same is true for philosophy—you can only know it by entering into it, by feasting or, at least, tasting samples.

In what follows, I will offer you spicy samples of the kind of things that were said after the death of the High Medieval Masters—by which I refer above all to Bonaventure (1221–1274), Thomas (1225–1274), and Albertus Magnus (c. 1200-1280). The great figures of the next generation were John Duns Scotus (1265–1308) and, shortly after him, William of Ockham (ca. 1280–1349). Each of these figures was destined to found a “school” named after him. Bonaventure didn’t really, but the others did: Thomists who followed Thomas, Albertists (or Albertinists) who followed Albert the Great, Scotists who followed Scotus, and—you were about to say Ockhamists, but in fact the followers of Ockham were generally referred to as “nominalists,” although modern historians tell us that they should rather be called “conceptualists.” This is an extremely subtle point and, even though it’s partly true, we may continue to call them nominalists.

If we want to find out why the Thomistic synthesis of faith and reason crumbled, we need to spend our time with Scotus and Ockham.

Parthenius Minges writes:

Scotus seems to have changed his doctrine in the course of time, or at least not to have been uniformly precise in expressing his thought.... Many of his works are unfinished. He did not write a summa philosophica or theologica, as did Alexander of Hales and St. Thomas Aquinas, or even a compendium of his doctrine. He wrote only commentaries or treatises on disputed questions; but even these commentaries are not continuous explanations of Aristotle or Peter Lombard. Usually he cites first the text or presupposes it as already known, then he takes up various points which in that day were live issues and discusses them from all sides, at the same time presenting the opinions of others.... In the heat of controversy he often uses expressions which seem to go to extremes and even to contain heresy. His language is frequently obscure; a maze of terms, definitions, distinctions, and objections through which it is by no means easy to thread one’s way. For these reasons the study of Scotus’s works was difficult; when undertaken at all, it was not carried on with the requisite thoroughness.... Nevertheless, there is in Scotus’s teaching a rounded-out system…. a system worked out in minutest details.¹

Let’s look at some of the basic principles of his philosophical and theological teaching. I will comment on how he agrees with or differs from St. Thomas.