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Scotus on Doing Metaphysics in statu isto

Giorgio Pini Scotus makes the interesting claim that those who think that being is

not univocal destroy philosophy. In his Oxford Lectura, we read: “I say that [by positing being as univocal] I do not destroy philosophy, but those who posit the contrary [i.e. that being is not univocal] necessarily destroy philosophy”.1 How should we interpret this claim? It is easy to understand that Scotus is willing to attach great importance to a doctrine that struck his contemporaries as novel and created considerable controversy. All the same, to state that to deny univocity is to destroy philosophy sounds as exaggerated. For one thing, one may regard Scotus’s claim as bizarre. Before Scotus, a large amount of philosophy had already been done, but no one had ever thought of arguing systematically for the univocity of the concept of being. Furthermore, even somebody looking at Scotus’s innovation with sympathy may seriously doubt whether this doctrine plays such a fundamental role in philosophy. As is well known, the gist of Scotus’s doctrine is that when we think of God as a being or of a creature as a being, as well as when we think of a substance as a being or of an accident as a being, we are making use of one and the same concept of being.2 So why should we suppose that this doctrine plays such a fundamental role in philosophy?

When Scotus makes his claim about the role of univocity in philosophy he is specifically thinking of the univocity of being with regard to substances and accidents. Let us follow Scotus and leave out the part of his doctrine that concerns God and creatures. The claim that substances and accidents are thought of as beings in the same sense of the word ‘being’ is

                                                                                                               1 Lect. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1-2 (Vat. XVI, 265): “Dico quod non destruo philosophiam, sed

ponentes contrarium necessario destruunt philosophiam.” 2 See Lect. I, d. 3, pars 1, qq. 1–2, nn. 21–34 (Vat. XVI, 232–37); Lect. I, d. 8, p. 1, q. 3,

nn. 60–88 (Vat. XVII, 20–30); Ord. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 3, nn. 131–166 (Vat. III, 81–103); Ord. I, d. 8, p. 1, q. 3, nn. 44–89 (Vat. IV, 171–195). The literature on Scotus’s doctrine of univocity is vast. See S.D. Dumont, “Scotus’s Doctrine of Univocity and the Medieval Tradition of Metaphysics,” in Was ist Philosophie im Mittelalter? Miscellanea Mediaevalia 25, eds. J.A. Aertsen and A. Speer (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1998), 193–212. On the context of Scotus’s doctrine, see S. Donati, “La discussione sull’unità del concetto di ente nella tradizione di commento della “Fisica”: commenti parigini degli anni 1270-1315 ca.,” in Die Logik des Transzendentale. Festschrift für Jan A. Aertsen zum 65. Geburstag, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 30, ed. M. Pickavé (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2003), 60–139; G. Pini, “Univocity in Scotus’s Questions on the Metaphysics: The Solution to a Riddle,” Medioevo 30 (2005): 69-110.

 

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controversial enough. For this claim seems to be in stark opposition with one of the central tenets of Aristotle’s metaphysics. Being, according to Aristotle, is said in many ways. This is usually taken to entail that ‘to be’, for a substance, means to be a substance; by contrast, ‘to be’, for a quality, means to be a quality, and so on for any of the Aristotelian category. ‘Being’ is an ambiguous term to which no single concept corresponds.3 Since the claim that being is said in many ways seems to be at the basis of any attempt to do philosophy in a sober Aristotelian way, it is not surprising the first criticism Scotus has to face is that to posit being as univocal destroys all philosophy.4 It is against this criticism that Scotus retorts that it is not he the one who destroys philosophy; quite the opposite, it is those who deny that being is univocal who make philosophy impossible.

Before dismissing Scotus’s claim as a rhetorical exaggeration, I think that we should give it serious consideration from a philosophical point of view. My point in this paper is to illustrate in some detail the argument that lies behind Scotus’s claim. Specifically, I will do five things. First, I will consider Scotus’s claim that those who deny that being is univocal cannot account for our cognition of substances. Second, I will show why the question of how we cognize substantial essences was such an important issue for Scotus and his predecessors and contemporaries—an issue that lay at the very foundation of philosophy. Third, I will consider in some detail Scotus’s treatment of this topic and his evolution as it can be traced through his Questions on the Metaphysics to his Lectura and Ordinatio. Fourth, I will consider Scotus’s explanation of why we do not have direct cognition of substances and consequently why the univocal concept of being is so important for us. Fifth and finally, I will turn to some unexpected consequences of Scotus’s position and his attempts to relocate Aristotle’s metaphysics in the light of these consequences.

I

Let us start focusing on Scotus’s claim that those who deny that being is univocal destroy philosophy. This claim is particularly interesting for two reasons. First, it sheds some light on the way Scotus himself considers his doctrine of univocity. He does not regard it as a daring innovation on Aristotle’s metaphysics. Quite the contrary, he considers it as a necessary

                                                                                                               3 Aristotle, Meta. VII, 1, 1028a10–13. The interpretation of Aristotle’s notion of focal

meaning or multivocity is in itself controversial. See C. Shields, Order in Multiplicity. Homonymy in the Philosophy of Aristotle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999).

4 Lect. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1-2, nn. 105-109 (Vat. XVI, 264–5).

 

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move to rescue Aristotle from the inconsistencies that has plagued his commentators’ and followers’ works so far. According to Scotus, at the basis of any good way of doing philosophy there is the assumption—no matter whether explicitly or implicitly made—that being is univocal. Scotus’s intention is not to create a new metaphysical system, but to make that assumption explicit and to provide a defensible version of Aristotelianism at last free from contradictions. Accordingly, he regards his metaphysics as a vindication of good philosophy, that is to say, in his opinion, of Aristotelianism. Second and more specifically, Scotus’s claim is interesting because of the argument he gives in its support. For he goes on to say:

For if being did not have a common concept, it would be impossible

for us to have the concept of substance, because substance does not have a proper species in the possible intellect. But [we] only [have] the concept of being obtained by way of abstraction from the species of accidents. Therefore, if the concept of being were not one, we would have no concept of substance, neither of substance in general nor of a substance in particular.5 (Trans. mine)

Thus, the main reason why we should posit that being is a univocal

concept is that, if it were not, we could not account for our knowledge of substances. Scotus specifies that, without a univocal concept of being, we could have neither a concept of substance in general—i.e. our concept of what underlies accidents—nor of specific substances, such as dogs, cats, and human beings. Obviously, however, we do have both a concept of substance in general and concepts of specific substances. It follows that our concept of being is univocal.

The crucial step in this argument is clearly the major premise, i.e. that we could not have the concept of substance if being were not a univocal concept. Scotus’s demonstration of this premise will be the focus of the second part of this paper. But before turning to this part of Scotus’s argument, I would like to notice that Scotus’s main philosophical reason to posit that being is a univocal concept does not have to do with the topic of the subject matter of metaphysics (whether God or being) or with the object of our intellect (whether material substances or being). Both these issues will be of

                                                                                                               5 Lect. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1-2, n. 110 (Vat. XVI, 265): “… quia si ens non importaret

conceptum communem, impossibile esset quod haberemus conceptum substantiae, quia substantia non habet propriam speciem in intellectu possibili, sed tantum conceptum entis abstrahendo a speciebus accidentium. Si ergo ens non haberet unum conceptum, nullum conceptum—nec in communi nec in particulari—haberemus de substantia.” See also Ord. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1–2, nn. 139, 140, 145 and 146 (Vat. III, 86, 88, 89, 90).

 

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course relevant to our discussion. I should also add that the attention of Scotus’s scholars have been attracted almost exclusively to these issues. The issue of our knowledge of substances, however, has been relatively neglected. But it is this issue that Scotus indicates as the main philosophical motivation behind the adoption of doctrine of the univocity of being.

The question that Scotus is concerned with is the problem of how we cognize substances, both the concept of substance in general and the concepts of specific substances. I think that here we should take Scotus as referring to our concepts of specific essences or natures, i.e. our concepts of what a dog is, what a cat is, what a human being is, and so on. In what follows, we should consider three questions. First, why is this a problem at all for Scotus? Second, why does he think that the solution to this problem is so central to philosophy? Third, why does he think that we can solve this problem only if we posit that being is univocal?

This is one of the cases in which a chronological consideration of Scotus’s works sheds some light on their philosophical value. Virtually absent in his logical commentaries, the question of how we cognize substantial essences makes its appearance in the first draft of a question on the Metaphysics. Afterwards, we can closely follow Scotus’s attempt to come to grips with this issue in several long and tortured passages added to his Questions on the Metaphysics. In the Lectura and the Ordinatio we finally find Scotus’s solution. But it is only in a handful of passages in the Ordinatio and in some probably late additions to the Questions on the Metaphysics that we find Scotus’s attempt to draw all the consequences of his solution. Unfortunately, these late elaborations do not result in a fully worked-out view. They are sufficiently clear, however, to indicate what Scotus thinks of the nature and method of metaphysics in his maturity. In any case, a careful consideration of his writings shows that Scotus comes to deny that we have any cognition of what a substantial nature is (both in general and specifically for each kind of substantial nature) apart from the fact that it is something or a being.

To anticipate the main point of my argument, I think that Scotus’s remarks about our cognition of substantial essences allow us to say that possibly the driving motivation behind Scotus’s metaphysical output is to posit Aristotle’s metaphysics on firm ground while at the same time taking into full consideration the limits of our knowledge. Scotus tries to reach that goal by carefully separating two questions. On the one hand, there is the question of how things are, independently of whether and how we know them. On the other hand, there is the question of what we can know in our present condition. The former question is properly metaphysical, and Aristotle’s

 

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Metaphysics should be read with this question in mind. The latter question concerns cognitive psychology in our present condition (in statu isto). Aristotle’s De anima should be read with that question in mind. As Scotus said, when we take into account the former question, we speak metaphysically (metaphysice). By contrast, when we take into account the latter question we speak psychologically (animastice).6 Scotus thinks that these two questions should be kept separated. Many mistakes of his predecessors should be ascribed to their incapacity to keep these two questions separated,. As a result, the metaphysical treatments of many of Scotus’s predecessors were, in Scotus’s assessment, confused and plagued by contradictions. By contrast, Scotus’s intention is to take into full account the cognitive limitations that our present condition (due probably to the Fall) presents us with. Accordingly, his attempt may be described as that of giving a solid foundation to metaphysics in our present condition (in statu isto), that is to say, after the Fall and before the beatific vision. His attempt to give metaphysics autonomy from cognitive psychology may perhaps be considered cognate to his attempt to separate logic from metaphysics and with his attempt to separate some aspects of cognitive psychology, such as his explanation of intentionality, from natural philosophy more in general.7

II

Let me now turn to the second part of this paper. I will try to answer the three questions I have posed above. First, why is the way we cognize substances (i.e. substantial essences or natures) a problem at all for Scotus? Second, why does Scotus think that the solution to this problem is so central to philosophy? Third and finally, why does he come to think that we can solve that problem only if we posit that being is univocal?

Specific substantial essences or natures such as humanity (i.e. what a human being is) or horseness (i.e. what a horse is) are the basic constituents of reality in Scotus’s metaphysics. One of Scotus’s most famous claims is that

                                                                                                               6 Quaest. Metaph. VII, 15, nn. 12–32 (OPh IV, 297–306). 7 On Scotus’s separation between logic and metaphysics, see G. Pini, “How Is Scotus’s

Logic Related to His Metaphysics? A Reply to Todd Bates,” in Medieval Commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories, ed. L. Newton (Leiden and New York: Brill, 2008), 277–94. On Scotus’s cognitive psychology, see R. Pasnau, “Cognition,” in The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus, ed. T. Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 285-311; P. King, “Rethinking Representation in the Middle Ages,” in Representation and Objects of Thought in Medieval Philosophy, ed. H. Legerlund (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 83-102.

 

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these essences have a mind-independent, less-than-numerical unity.8 It is not necessary to deal with this doctrine in detail. Suffice it to say that Scotus argues that an essence such as humanity has its own unity or identity and that this unity is different from and independent of both the unity that an individual human being has and the unity that our concept of humanity has.

As I have said, Scotus considers these essences as the basic constituents of reality. Accordingly, he holds that metaphysicians, whose task is to study the structure of reality, are mostly concerned with these essences. It is these essences that metaphysicians define by their definitions. And it is these essences that are the truth-makers of the metaphysicians’ preferred type of propositions, namely true per se propositions such as “Human beings are rational animals.” As Scotus says in his Ordinatio:

… In accordance with this natural priority [namely, the priority of

the essence considered by itself over the essences as it is in the individuals and as it is cognized by way of a universal concept], the essence is the per se object of the intellect and is per se, as such, considered by the metaphysician and expressed by a definition. True propositions in the first per se mode are true by virtue of the essence so taken.9

Since accidental essences such as blackness and whiteness are in

some way dependent on substantial essences or natures such as horseness and humanity,10 it seems to be safe to assume that here Scotus is mainly referring to substantial essences or natures. The metaphysicians’ definitions are real definition of those essences. So, since these substantial essences are what metaphysicians define and what they talk about, it seems necessary to conclude that, in order for metaphysics to be possible at all, we must cognize those essences. The content of this cognition is precisely what our definitions and true per se propositions spell out. If substantial essences such as horseness

                                                                                                               8 Lect. II, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1, nn. 8–32 (Vat. XVIII, 230–7); Ord. II, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1, nn. 7–34

(Vat. VII, 394–405). 9 Ord. II, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1, n. 32, p. 403: “… secundum prioritatem naturalem est ‘quod

quid est’ per se obiectum intellectus, et per se, ut sic, consideratur a metaphysico et exprimitur per definitionem; et propositiones ‘verae primo modo’ sunt verae ratione quiditatis sic acceptae, quia nihil dicitur ‘per se primo modo’ de quiditate nisi quod includitur in ea essentialiter, in quantum ipsa abstrahitur ab omnibus istis, quae sunt posteriora naturaliter ipsa.” The translation is taken, with some little modifications, from Five Texts on the Mediaeval Problem of Universals. Porphyry, Boethius, Abelard, Duns Scotus, Ockham. Translated and edited by P. V. Spade (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1994), 63.

10 On accidents’ dependence on substances, see G. Pini, “Substance, Accident, and Inherence: Scotus and the Paris Debate on the Metaphysics of the Eucharist,” in Duns Scot à Paris 1302-2002. Actes du colloque de Paris 2-4 septembre 2002, eds. O. Boulnois et al. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 273–311.

 

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and humanity were “something I know not what”, to use Locke’s famous formula, the metaphysicians’ definitions could not certainly be counted as real definitions. They could at best be definitions of the terms we use to speak of them.

At first sight, the idea that we cognize substantial essences does not seem to pose any problem. Substances are not just cognizable; they are the first things we cognize, according to Aristotle.11

So how do we cognize substances? According to an account of cognition common in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century, we cognize something when we receive in our intellect its intellectual likeness, i.e. its so-called ‘intelligible species’. Thanks to the reception of this likeness, an extramental thing becomes present to our intellect and is the object of the intellect’s first act of cognition, the so-called act of simple apprehension. This likeness or species present in the intellect is abstracted by the agent intellect from some data present in the phantasm. The phantasm is in turn the result of imagination’s re-elaboration of the data coming from the senses in the form of sensible likenesses, the so-called ‘sensible species’.12 This is admittedly a very crude description of how cognition takes place and there are many points that need clarification. But I think that this account captures the main traits of the theory of cognition to which Scotus subscribes. The point that we should retain from this picture is that we cognize a certain thing when we receive its intelligible species.

Scotus adopted a sophisticated version of this account of cognition. He argued that, in order to cognize something by an act of abstractive cognition, we need to receive its intellectual likeness. This intellectual likeness does not come to our intellect by any form of illumination. It is just the re-elaboration carried out by our natural faculties over information coming from the senses.13

Accordingly, the answer to the question ‘how do we cognize substances?’ seems to be straightforward. Our senses receive some information from the external world by way of sensible species; our faculties elaborate on that information; finally, our agent intellect abstracts an intelligible species that contains the same information as the sensible species

                                                                                                               11 Aristotle, Metaph. VII, 1, 1028a31–b1. 12 For two treatments focused on Aquinas but useful as general introductions to these

issues, see R. Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature. A Philosophical Study of Summa theologiae Ia 75–89 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 267–329; E. Stump, Aquinas (Routledge: London, 2003), 262–76.

13 Specifically on Scotus’s defense of the intelligible species, see P. King, “Scotus on Mental Content,” in Duns Scot à Paris, 1302-2002, 65–88.

 

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does but in a generalized form. This intelligible species is stored in the possible intellect, and our cognition of substantial natures can take place. So substantial essences, which by themselves are mind-independent things, are cognized when their likeness or intelligible species becomes present in the intellect. In this way, substantial essences are both something outside our intellect and present in our intellect by way of their likeness or intelligible species.14

But there is a big problem with this account. For this account assumes that, in order to cognize something, its likeness or intelligible species must be present in the intellect. If there is no likeness or species, there is no cognition—at least, no direct cognition of anything. By inference or by analogy we can indeed get some sort of glimpse of things that we cannot sense and of which, consequently, we do not have any intelligible species. This is notoriously the case of the knowledge we have of God in this life. But the problem is that a good Aristotelian seems to be forced to concede that we cannot have any intelligible species of material substances either. The reason is clear enough. All our cognition originates from the senses. This means that all the content of our acts of cognition ultimately comes from the senses. It is true that our faculties, among which the intellect plays a prominent role, elaborate on that content. But our faculties can only re-work and elaborate on what they receive from the world, they cannot add any new content to it. It follows that we have direct cognition only of what can be sensed and of what can be abstracted from the information conveyed by the senses. Now, the crucial fact is that only accidents can be sensed—qualities such as colors, sounds, smells and the like.15 Of course, the information coming from the senses is subjected to abstraction by the intellect. The operation of abstraction, however, is an operation of generalization. As I have said, no new content can be added to the information coming from the senses. So, for example, from a particular shade of white our intellect gets the concept of white, the concept of color and the concept of quality. But it seems that neither the substance in which that shade of white inheres nor the concept of substance in general can be reached by means of this process of generalization. So if we just take into account the intellect’s first act of cognition, namely the so-called act of simple

                                                                                                               14 This was the way Aristotle’s famous claim that cognition is an identity between

knower and thing known was interpreted by the defenders of the account of cognition through intelligible species towards the end of the thirteenth century. Specifically on Aquinas, see Stump, Aquinas, 273–5.

15 Ord. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1, n. 139 (Vat. III, 87). On sensible accidents, see Aristotle, Cat. 8, 9a35-b7; De gen. et corr. II, 2, 329b19. See also Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 181.

 

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apprehension, it seems that our intellect cannot reach substantial natures. Only accidents can be cognized by abstraction and simple apprehension. Substantial natures, if they are cognized at all, must be reached in another way.

This problem is well known to Scotus and his contemporaries. It can be summed up as a contrast between the requirements of Aristotle’s cognitive psychology on the one hand and of his metaphysics and theory of science on the other hand. On the one hand, by way of intelligible species we can cognize only accidents, not substances. On the other hand, substantial natures are the object of real definitions, so we must get some cognitive access to them. This contrast can be found in Aquinas, who may have been the first to come to terms with it, even though his attempts to solve it do not seem to be completely successful. Aquinas recognizes that the only possible way to acquire cognition of substances is not by direct acquaintance, but by inference. We start from information concerning accidents, and from that information we infer that there must be a subject behind accidents, even though we do not have any direct acquaintance with that subject. So substantial natures can be cognized only as the result of a discursive act—an act of reasoning, not an act of simple apprehension and abstraction. Aquinas’s problem was that, for several reasons, he was unwilling to give up the idea that substantial natures are the object of the intellect’s act of simple apprehension. As a result, there is an inner tension in his account of how we cognize substances.16

The generation of thinkers who came after Aquinas could not avoid dealing with this problem. Several solutions were suggested. Some thinkers granted that substances do have intelligible species, even though of a very peculiar kind, i.e. arrived at by an act of gathering together information that was sometimes called ‘collatio’ and which does not seem to be clearly distinguishable from an inferential act.17 Here I will briefly mention another solution to this question, whose main elements can be found in the Franciscan

                                                                                                               16 Several times Aquinas indeed stated that we do not know the substantial differences

of things and that we use accidental differences to refer to them instead a consequence. See for example Sent. IV, d. 14, q. 1, sol. 6, ad 1; Sent. IV, d. 44, q. 2, a. 1, sol. 1, ad 1; De Ver. q. 4, a. 1, ad 8; De Ver. q. 10, a. 1, ad 6; ST I, q. 29, a. 1, ad 3; ST I, q. 77, a. 1, ad 7.

17 See Vital du Four, Quaestiones de cognitione, q. 5, in F. Delorme, “Le cardinal Vital du Four. Huit questions disputées sur le problème de la connaissance,”Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age 2 (1927): 151–337, esp. 252–72. See also J.E. Lynch, The Theory of Knowledge of Vital du Four (St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute Publications, 1972), 113–22; A. Robert, “L’universalité réduite au discours. Sur quelques théories franciscaines de l’abstraction à la fin du XIIIe siècle,” Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 18 (2007): 363-393. I also thank Timothy Noone for sharing with me the text of a still unpublished lecture he gave on this topic at the Antonianum (Rome) in the Fall 2007.

 

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Richard of Middleton, who wrote in the 1280s. According to Richard of Middleton, we simply have to give up the idea that we can have an act of simple apprehension of substances. Since there is no intelligible species of substances, they cannot be cognized by a non-discursive act of cognition. But this does not mean that substances cannot be cognized at all. They are indeed cognized, but by an act of reasoning, i.e. by inferring their existence from the existence of accidents and by inferring something about their nature from the kind of accidents that inhere in them. For example, we can infer that the substance in which color inheres is a material substance. Accordingly, we can end up knowing very much about substances. But our cognition takes place by a discursive act of reasoning and not by simple apprehension.18

But are we certain that we do not have intelligible species of substances? Maybe the premise from which this conclusion is reached should be rejected or revised. If this were the case, it would be much easier to account for our cognition of substances. Richard of Middleton, however, has several arguments in support of the view that we do not have intelligible species of substances, quite independently of the Aristotelian account of cognition that he adopts. Among those arguments, there is one that should retain our attention, as Scotus will also use it to prove that we do not have intelligible species of substances. The argument runs as follows. If we had an intelligible species of a substance, we would be able to know whether a substance is present or not. For any time a certain substance is present, we would receive its species. By contrast, any time a certain substance is absent, we would not receive its species. Now, in Transubstantiation the substance of bread is present before Consecration and absent after Consecration but the accidents of bread (its color, smell, taste, etc.) are present both before and after Consecration. So, if we indeed had an intelligible species of bread’s substance providing us with some direct, i.e. non-discursive, cognitive access to such a substance, we would be able to perceive a difference in the Host before and after Consecration, for after Consecration we would be able to know that the essence of bread is absent. But this is not the case. Our perception of the Host is the same before and after Consecration. Therefore, both Richard and Scotus conclude that we do not have any intelligible species and in general any non-discursive cognitive access to substance. We merely infer that there is a substance from the presence of the accidents.19

                                                                                                               18 Richard of Middleton, Super quatuor libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi quaestiones

subtilissimae, II, d. 24, art. 2; Tomus II (Brixiae, 1591; reprint: Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1963, 309–11.

19 Richard of Middleton, Sent. II, d. 24, art. 2, 310; Scotus, Lect. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1-2, n. 111 (Vat. XVI, 266); Ord. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1, n. 140 (Vat. III, 88). As Stephen Dumont has pointed

 

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III

So far, we have seen why the question of whether and how we cognize substances is a problem for Scotus. We have also found out why this is such an important issue for Scotus and his contemporaries. Since substantial essences are the basic constituents of reality and what most of a metaphysician’s statements are about, if we have no cognitive access to them, it is indeed not an exaggeration to say that the entire philosophical enterprise is at risk. So we have found an answer to the first and second question that we posed above. It now remains the third question: why does Scotus think that we could get some cognitive access to substantial essences only if we posit that being is univocal?

Scotus came to see that this was the case only gradually. We can trace Scotus’s evolution thanks to the study of several of his works, notably his Questions on the Metaphysics, his Lectura and his Ordinatio, as well as of several additions to his Questions on the Metaphysics. I suggest distinguishing three main stages in Scotus’s consideration of the issue. First, Scotus still defends the view that we do have direct (i.e. non-inferential) cognitive access to substantial essences, even though he admits that we cognize accidents before substances, so that substances’ priority in knowledge cannot be interpreted temporally; all the same, when substances are indeed cognized, they are most perfectly cognized. Second, Scotus comes to realize that that position cannot work and struggles to find a new solution. Third, he finds a new solution to the question of how we cognize substantial essences thanks to his doctrine of the univocity of being.

So let us start with the first stage of Scotus’s evolving position on the cognition of substantial natures. In this first stage, Scotus thinks that we do have a non-inferential grasp of substantial essences. He holds this position both in his logical commentaries and in what we should consider as the first

                                                                                                               

out to me, this argument does not take into account God’s power to create an intelligible species of the substance of bread even when no bread is present, i.e. after Transubstantiation has occurred. Scotus clearly contemplates such a possibility: see Ord. I, d. 3, p. 3, q. 2, nn. 477–9 (Vat. III, 285–6). So Richard’s and Scotus’s argument is conclusive only if we make the further assumption that God does not create in us an intelligible species of bread after Transubstantiation. The point is well taken. I think, however, that positing that that God creates in us an intelligible species of bread after Transubstantiation would force us to assume that God positively misleads us into believing that there is something that actually is not there, i.e. bread. This assumption seems to me very problematic. It seems to be preferable to posit that God has no intention to mislead us and that our incapacity to detect the presence or absence of a substance is due to some limitation of our cognitive powers.

 

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draft of his Questions on the Metaphysics. Scotus is aware that the claim that substance is prior in knowledge cannot be given a temporal interpretation. As a matter of fact, we cognize accidents before substances. For example, I first receive the impression of softness and blackness before forming the concept of a cat. All the same, Scotus still maintains that substantial essences, when they are finally grasped, are grasped by way of a simple act of apprehension. Moreover, he also thinks that substantial essences, when they are actually cognized, are cognized more perfectly than accidents. For that reason, substances are said to be prior in knowledge, even though they are not temporally prior.20 It is in the Questions on the Metaphysics that Scotus gives the clearest account of his position at this stage. He devotes a short but very clear question to this issue. When discussing Aristotle’s statement that substance is prior in knowledge, he is confronted with the problem that we have noticed above.21 How should we interpret Aristotle’s statement? Isn’t it in contrast with the view that accidents are the first things known, and as a matter of fact the only things known by an act of direct cognition, namely a non-inferential act?22

Scotus first considers several answers to this question but he is not satisfied with any of them.23 His personal solution is that we should distinguish between two meanings of the expression ‘more perfect object of cognition’ (perfectius cognoscibile). In the first sense, ‘more perfect’ qualifies the object that is cognized. In the second sense, ‘more perfect’ qualifies the relationship to its cognoscibility, namely how much of that object can be cognized. In this second sense, the expression perfectius cognoscibile could probably be

                                                                                                               20 Quaest. super Praed., 4, n. 53 (OPh I, 290): “… primum obiectum intellectus potest

unico actu intelligendi intelligi… dico quod primum obiectum intellectus est substantia. Quia, ut dicit Aristoteles in principio VII Metaphysicae, “substantia est primum omnium entium congitione”, quod non intelligitur de prioritate temporis sed naturae, scilicet quod cognitio eius est perfectissima.” See also Quaest. super Metaph. IV, 1, nn. 86: “Ad primum pro opinione Avicennae dico quod communissima sunt primo intellecta, et decem sunt communissima. Non tamen ista omnia sunt primo intellecta, sed substantia, ad quam omnia reducuntur. Et substantia est prius non praedicatione ad novem genera, sed prius perfectione et causa; nec est dare aliquod commune decem quod primo intelligatur” (OPh III, 319); n. 87: “Ad aliud: quod maior [lege: minor, scil., quod primum obiectum intellectus est ens] est falsa; sed ilud est substantia” (OPh III, 319). I have argued elsewhere (in Pini, “Univosity”) that these passages from question IV.1 on the Metaphysics pertain to a first draft of the question.

21 Quaest. super Metaph., VII, 3, Utrum substantia sit primum omnium entium cognitione (OPh IV, 115–9).

22 Quaest. super Metaph., VII, 3, n. 1: “Quod non: ‘Omnis cognitio oritur a sensu’; sed sensibilia sunt accidentia; ergo accidentia prius cognoscuntur quam substantia.”

23 Quaest. super Metaph., VII, 3, nn. 6-15 (OPh IV, 115-118). Scotus reports three opinions. The first opinion is at nn. 6-7 (with some objections and answers at nn. 8-12); the second opinion is at n. 13 (with an objection at n. 14); the third opinion is at n. 15 (it basically admits that substance is cognized discursively and therefore is not prior in knowledge).

 

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translated as ‘more perfectly cognizable’. So for example the sun is a more perfect object of cognition than an instance of white, in the first sense of the expression ‘more perfect object of cognition’, because the sun is a better thing than an instance of white. But an instance of white is a more perfect object of cognition in the second sense of the expression ‘more perfect object of cognition’, because our vision of that instance of white tells us more about that instance of white than our vision of the sun tells us about the sun. It is a matter of how our likeness or species of the object of cognition is proportioned to that object.24

Scotus concludes that substance is an object of cognition more perfect than accidents in the first sense, because substance is more perfect than accidents, both in itself and to us. By contrast, accidents are a more perfect object of cognition in the second sense, because we understand more perfectly the things of which we have a species in the intellect—and we have species of accidents but not of substances. All the same, any time we cognize a substance, our cognition of that substance is more perfect than our cognition of accidents (in the first sense), because substance is more perfect than accidents. Here is how the passage reads in what I take to be its original draft, i.e. if we take away a few sentences that (as we shall see) appear to have been added by Scotus at a later date:

Then it must be said that substance is a perfect object of cognition,

and nevertheless something can be cognized more perfectly by us in proportion to its cognizability, because the species of some dim whiteness represents more perfectly that white of which it is the species, than does the species of the sun in proportion to the visibility which an eagle has of the sun in proportion to its visibility. And I see white better in proportion to its visibility, than an eagle sees the sun in proportion to its visibility. Then I say that “the more perfect object of cognition is that whose species is in the intellect” is true in proportion to its cognizability, and nevertheless subtances as such is cognizable more perfectly in itself and by us [here there is the added passage]. And because the cognition that we have of substance is the more perfect cognition, once it is attained, than is the cognition of an accident, then even though the accident is the first cognizable thing with respect to our intellect in the order of generation, nevertheless substance is the first in perfection and therefore is simply the first.25 (Trans. Etzkorn and Wolter’s with some modifications)

                                                                                                               24 Quaest. super Metaph., VII, 3, n. 16 (OPh IV, 118). 25 Quaest. super Metaph., VII, 3, n. 16 (OPh IV, 118-119): “Tunc dicendum quod

substantia est perfectum cognoscibile, et tamen aliquid aliud potest perfectius cognosci a nobis secundum proportionem cognoscibilitatis suae. Quia perfectius repraesentat species alicuius albi remissi ipsum album cuius est species quam species solis repraesentet oculo aquilae ipsum solem.

 

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Scotus’s solution is ingenious. He successfully manages to reconcile

two claims that seemed to contradict each other. The first claim is that there are intelligible species only of accidents and not of substances. The second claim is that substances are nevertheless cognizable—actually, they are prior in knowledge, even though Scotus does not provide here the details of how they are cognized. So, when indeed substance is cognized (cum [scil., cognitio de substantia] attingitur), substance is a more perfect object of cognition than accidents. Everything seems to be fine with Scotus’s solution if it were not for a passage added to the text. There are two reasons to maintain that this passage was added to the first draft by Scotus and that originally it was not part of Scotus’s solution. First, there is the testimony of the first editor of Scotus’s Questions on the Metaphysics, according to which the passage in question is marked as an addition in some manuscripts. Second and more importantly, two manuscripts (i.e. Oxford, merton College 292 and Paris, Bibl. Nat. lat. 16110) report this passage not in the place where we find it in the critical edition, but at the very end of the question26. This was the usual way in which Scotus’s additions as found in his cedulae were copied when the scribe could not locate the place in the original question where Scotus intended to insert his addition.27 According to the critical apparatus, the Merton manuscript also marks this passage with two reference letters (a-b). In the light of this evidence, both historical and philological, I think that we can safely conclude that the passage is indeed an addition, which was originally written by Scotus on one of the scraps (cedulae) attached to his original manuscript and then copied down in the original question or at the end of the original question by the scribes who copied Scotus’s original manuscript together with his cedulae.

At a first look, these few added words seem to be relatively innocent. But at a second look, we realize that they actually change the original meaning of Scotus’s solution. After the passage where he had stated that

                                                                                                               

Et magis video album secundum proportionem visibilitatis suae quam aquila solem secundum proportionem visibilitatis suae. Tunc dico quod ‘perfectius cognoscitur cuius species est in intellectu’ verum est secundum proportionem cognoscibilitatis suae, et tamen substantia de se est perfectius cognoscibile, et in se et a nobis [here comes the added passage]. Quia illa cognitio quam habemus de substantia est perfectior cognitio cum attingitur quam cognitio accidentis; tunc, licet accidens sit primum cognoscibile respectu intellectus nostri generatione, tamen substantia est primum perfectione, et ideo simpliciter primum.” I have modified the translation given by Etzkorn and Wolter in Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle by John Duns Scotus. Trans. G.J. Etzknor and A.B. Wolter, vol. 2 (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Publications, 1998), 109–10.

26 See the critical apparatus ad lin. 20 (OPh IV, 118). 27 On this practice, see Pini, “Univocity.”

 

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substance is a more perfect object of cognition both in itself and for us, Scotus now adds: “If we could ever attain it [namely, substance].” And he proceeds to explain that we cannot cognize substances in this life. This claim is quite unexpected. It certainly marks a change from what Scotus had said in the first version of his solution. In the first version, nothing of what Scotus had said implied that we do not cognize substances in this life. Quite the contrary, Scotus seemed to be assuming that we do cognize substances in this life, even though our cognition of substances is temporally posterior to the cognition of accidents. He had also said that, even though what we know of substances is less than what we know of accidents, substance is a more perfect object of cognition than accidents, so that all in all our cognition of substances is more perfect than our cognition of accidents. But by adding just a few words, Scotus now modifies the entire sense of his solution. He now denies that we cognize substances in this life. He also adds that Aristotle’s saying that substance is prior in knowledge must be understood as said metaphysically, not psychologically (metaphysice dictum, non animastice). To explain what these two expressions mean, Scotus refers to what he says elsewhere in the Quaestiones about the cognition of the individual difference.28 In that question, Scotus claims that the individual difference is cognizable in itself, but we cannot cognize it in this life, because of the current condition of our cognitive powers. Only in the next life, when our cognitive powers are restored to a better condition, will we be able to cognize what in you makes you different from me and any other human being. Right now, we can only know that you differ from me and any other human being. So we can just know what the individual difference does, not what it is.29 Surprisingly, Scotus now makes the same claim concerning substantial natures or essences. Not just the individuating principle, but substantial essences such as humanity and horseness are in themselves unknown to us in this life.

How should we interpret this surprising claim? And what happened between the time Scotus first drafted the solution to this question, in which he assumed that we cognize substances in this life, and the time he added the few words that changed the sense of his original answer?

                                                                                                               28 Quaest. super Metaph., VII, 3, n. 16 (OPh IV, 118.19–119.3): “… si possemus ad

illam pertingere; sed non in vita ista, ut habetur in II, 3 quaestione. Et tunc ad dictum Philosophi intelligitur metaphysice dictum, non animastice. Distinctio haec habetur in quaestione ‘De singulari’.”

29 Quaest. super Metaph., VII, 15, nn. 12-32 (OPh IV, 297-306). It should be noticed that this question is almost certainly a late question, since it is supposed to replace the previous question, VII, 14, as the editors remark (see OPh IV, 281, note 1).

 

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I think that we can find the answer to these problems if we turn to another place of Scotus’s Questions on the Metaphysics. In Bk. II, q. 2-3 Scotus considers this interesting problem: when we say that something is difficult or even impossible to know, are we talking about an intrinsic complexity of the world or about our cognitive limitations? Is there an objective difficulty due to the very nature of the thing to know or just a weakness of our senses and intellect? In other words, is it the world that is difficult to know or are our cognitive powers that are weak?30 Scotus’s question consists largely of successive layers added one after the other. This makes Scotus’s question very difficult to interpret but also extremely interesting. For in these additions we can witness Scotus’s struggle to find a solution to this question, which is indeed central to his metaphysics. It is in these additions that I identify the second stage of Scotus’s position on the cognition of substantial essences.

Scotus starts with an attentive analysis of the ways in which our cognitive powers, i.e. the senses and the intellect, cognize things. He lists four kinds of cognition31. The first kind of cognition is intuitive cognition. Here Scotus does not give a definition of intuitive cognition, but it seems that we may safely refer to his usual definition of intuitive cognition as the cognition of something present and existent as present and existent.32 Scotus here affirms that, in this life, intuitive cognition is only sensitive cognition. For example, this is the way sight cognizes color when it sees color. The second kind of cognition is cognition by way of species. Scotus says that this is the kind of cognition by which, at the sensory level, phantasia imagines color. In the absence of a certain color, say red, we may evoke a sensible image of that color. But this kind of cognition can also be found in the intellect. As we may expect, however, Scotus says that we have intellective cognition by way of

                                                                                                               30 Quaest. super Metaph. II, 2, Utrum difficultas cognoscendi sit ex parte intellectus vel

ex parte rerum cognoscibilium. Scotus answers this question together with the following question, i.e. Utrum substantiae immateriales possint intelligi a nobis pro statu isto.

31 Six in Quaest. super Metaph., II, 2-3, n. 80 (OPh III, 224), four at n. 114 (OPh IV, 232). The second passage, which leaves out the privative modes, is an addition, so it probably pertains to what should have been the second draft of the question. I follow the second passage.

32 See example Quodl., q. 13, n. 8 (Vivès XXV, p. 321): “Aliqua ergo cognitio est per se existentis, sicut quae attingit obiectum in sua propria existentia actuali. Exemplum de visione coloris, et communiter in sensatione sensus exterioris. Aliqua etiam est cognitio obiecti, non ut existentis in se, sed vel obiectum non existit, vel saltem illa cognitio non est eius, ut actualiter existentis. Exemplum, imaginatio coloris, quia contingit imaginari rem, quando non existit, sicut quando existit.” On intuitive cognition, see S. Day, Intuitive Cognition: A Key to the Later Scholastics (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Publications, 1947), 114–23; C. Bérubé, La connaissance de l’individuel au Moyen Age (Montréal-Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1964), 134–224; S.D. Dumont, “The Scientific Character of Theology and the Origin of Duns Scotus’ Distinction between Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition,” Speculum 64 (1989), 579–99.

 

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species only of sensible accidents, not of substances, because substances do not have intelligible species, as demonstrated by the argument about Transubstantiation. The third kind of cognition is the cognition that results from the composition of different species. In this way, our phantasia can compound different sensible species, say of gold and of a mountain, and form an image of something that it has not sensed, say a golden mountain. Similarly, our intellect can compound different intelligible species to produce the intellectual likeness of something that has not been grasped by any simple act of apprehension. Scotus hypothesizes that the cognition we have of separate substances is of this kind. Finally, the fourth kind of cognition is cognition per accidens. It is in this way that our senses cognize a human being when we sense his or her shape and color. A human being is not sensible per se, only shape and colors are. As far as human beings are concerned, being human applies accidentally to shape and color. Consequently, our senses cognize substances accidentally. Similarly, Scotus remarks that this is the way our intellect cognizes substantial essences, for our intellect cognizes by abstraction only accidents, and it is therefore not directly acquainted with substantial essences, which it reaches in a different way.33

So far, Scotus is just rehearsing in some detail what we already know. But then, he focuses on the way our intellect cognizes substance both in general and specifically. By working out in some detail the way our intellect cognizes substances through accidents, he now sees clearly that any time we cognize a specific substance or even the concept of substance in general, a key role is played by our concept of being. So for example—Scotus says—let us posit that we sense a quality and that we also sense a quantity, say an instance of the color black and a certain weight. From these two sensed accidents, we get by abstraction the concepts of quality and quantity. Then, we notice that these two accidents occur together, let us say in a cat, which both is black and weights 10 pounds. So we ask: what accounts for their occurring together? We reason that neither the quality nor the quantity can account for their occurring together, for other times we notice that the color black occurs without that particular weight and the other way around. Consequently, their union cannot depend on either of them, i.e. what the color black is or what weighing ten pounds is. Nothing in the nature or essence of a quality and a quantity accounts for their regularly occurring together. We conclude that there must be a third thing or being, which accounts for their union. That particular instance of black and that particular weight occur together because they both inhere in a third thing or being. This

                                                                                                               33 Quaest. super Metaph., II, 2-3, n. 115 (OPh III, 233).

 

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third thing cannot in turn be an accident, otherwise we would never stop in our search for something that justifies the common occurrence of that quality and that quantity. Also, we reason that this third thing or being must be different from other things that function as subjects of other accidents precisely because different kinds of accidents inhere in those other subjects. This third thing is what we call a substance, say a cat. In this way we arrive both at the cognition of substance in general and at the cognition of a specific kind of substance. We start from accidents and then we infer that there must be a underlying thing to account for their conjoined occurrence.34

Scotus’s detailed consideration of how we arrive at the cognition of substances allows him to notice that this account can works only if we have the concept of something or, as he says, of some being (ens). Otherwise, we could not take the crucial step in our inference, i.e. we could not posit that there must be some underlying thing or being apart from the accidents that we are acquainted with. To draw this conclusion, we must have the concept of a thing or being. But at this point, Scotus faces a formidable problem. We have seen that all concepts are just re-elaborations of information coming from the senses via sensible and then intelligible species. So how do we acquire this concept of thing or being? Perhaps there is an intelligible species of being? This possibility would clearly be problematic for Scotus. So far, all his reasoning has been based on the premise that there are intelligible species only of sensible qualities. Now being is not a sensible quality. But then, how is the concept of being acquired? At his stage, Scotus does not have a solution. So he concludes this long addition to his question with the word with which he usually concludes his most tormented passages: Stude, “Study this”. No definitive conclusion is reached and the problem is still open.35

Scotus’s problem may be summarized as follows. All the information we have comes from the senses. But only sensible accidents can be sensed. So

                                                                                                               34 Scotus describes this inferential process from accidents to substances in a different

way in Quaest. super Metaph. II, 2-3, n. 115 (OPh III, 233). The description I have given is actually based on Ord. I, d. 22, q. unica, n. 7 (Vat. V, 344–5): “Nam concipiuntur ab aliquo multa accidentia, concurrentia in eodem, puta talis quantitas et talis qualitas,—et probatur neutrum illorum esse alterum, quia utrumque illorum manet sine altero; probatur etiam utrique illorum aliquid aliud esse subiectum commune, quia utrumque illorum potest destrui altero non destructo: ergo aliquid concluditur esse subiectum utrique, ut qualitati et quantitati,—illud autem quod subest, non concipitur in conceptu quiditativo nisi entis, vel ‘huius entis’. Et cum frequenter contingat quod talis quantitas et talis qualitas coniunguntur in aliquo et alibi non coniunguntur, et hoc non est ex natura qualitatis et quantitatis, ut praeostensum est,—concluditur quod hoc est ex natura illius tertii, in quo fundantur ambo ista; non autem coniunguntur talia in isto toto, qualia in illo: ex quo enim diversimode coniunguntur in diversis, concluditur substratum istis esse diversum a substrato illis, et ex hoc concluditur hoc esse aliud ab alio tertio.”

35 Quaest. super Metaph., II, 2-3, n. 122 (OPh III, 235): “Item, quomodo intelligitur ens? Numquid per speciem propriam? Stude.”

 

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how do we get cognitive access to substances? Not by abstraction from what we get through the senses, but by inference, as we have seem. We form a complex concept or description of a substance in general—as well as of specific substances—as something or a being that underlies accidents. So it is clear that the concept of being plays a key role in our cognition of substances through accidents, for we cognize a substance as “something” or “a being” that accounts for the common occurrence of accidents. But if ‘being’ is an ambiguous term and the concept of being we use when we cognize substances as beings is different from the concept of being that we use when we cognize accidents as beings, we are still facing the same problem in different terms. Granted, we cognize substances through accidents. And to pass from accidents to substances, we need the concept of being. But this concept is different when said of substance and when said of accident. So we are back to our problem: how do we know the concept of being that is proper to substance?

Scotus can answer this question when he finally comes to think that being is a univocal concept. This is the third stage that I would like to single out in Scotus’s development on the issue of our cognition of substances. When we say that a substance is a being and an accident is a being, we use the word ‘being’ in one and the same meaning. Scotus reaches this conclusion probably for theological reasons in his Lectura. We find it first expressed in his discussion of the concept we have of God. But in the Lectura itself Scotus applies this conclusion to the issue of the cognition we have of substances. He finally realizes that, if we did not have a univocal concept of being, we could not have any cognition of substances. It is the univocal concept of being that functions as a sort of bridge between the accidents, which we cognize directly, and substances, which we reach by inference. Here is Scotus’s argument as he gives it in his Ordinatio:

What was assumed about substance, namely that it does not

produce an immediate change on the intellect so that the intellect may have an act about it, is demonstrated in this way. The intellect can naturally know that a certain thing is absent any time it is not changed by it if that thing produces a change on the intellect when it is present. This is clear from what Aristotle says in the second chapter of the De anima, namely that sight perceives darkness when light is not present, and therefore sight is not changed then [i.e., when light is not present]. Therefore, if the intellect were naturally changed by a substance in an immediate way, so that the intellect would have an act about that substance, it would follow that, any time that substance is not present, the intellect would be able to know naturally that that substance is not present. And thus, the intellect would be able to know

 

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naturally that there is no substance of bread in the consecrated Host. But this is manifestly false.36 (Translation mine)

Scotus’s mature account of how we cognize substances can be

reconstructed as follows. The only things we are directly acquainted with are accidents—more specifically, the infimae species of sensible accidents, such as a certain shade of white or a certain specific sound. These are the objects of which we have likenesses in our senses (i.e. sensible species) and in our intellect (i.e. intelligible species). These are the things that we cognize non-inferentially. These accidents, however, can be cognized in two ways. First, they are cognized in what Scotus calls ‘a confused way’ (confuse). Scotus defines the cognition of something in a confused way as the sort of cognition that we have when we can name something, i.e. when we can pick it out among other things and refer to it but we are not able to provide any description of it. In this order of cognition, the infimae species of sensible qualities are the first things cognized. Second, these same sensible qualities are cognized in what Scotus calls ‘a distinct way’ (distincte). Something is cognized in a distinct way when it is possible to provide a definition of it, i.e. a description that captures its essential features. When we cognize something in a distinct way we analyze the information that we have received from the senses and that we store in the intellect into its simple components. So for example we analyze a certain shade of white into the concept of color able to refract the light in a certain way. We can go on in our conceptual analysis until we reach a definition of the kind “something or a being such that etc.” Accordingly, the most fundamental concept in this order of cognition is the concept of being or something. This concept cannot be further analyzed into anything simpler. It is presupposed by any other, more complex concept, but in turn it does not presuppose any other concept. It is for this reason that Scotus claims that the concept of being is the first or most fundamental concept in the order of knowing something distinctly, i.e. when we carry out the task of defining things. Now, the concept of being or something that we have arrived at in our analysis of the accidents we are directly acquainted with is so simple and fundamental that it can form the core of a description of

                                                                                                               36 Ord. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1, n. 140 (Vat. III, 87-88): “Quod autem est suppositum de

substantia, quod non immutat intellectum nostrum immediate ad actum circa se, hoc probatur, quia quidquid praesens immutat intellectum, illius absentia potest naturaliter cognosci ab intellectu quando non immutatur, sicut apparet II De anima, quod visus est tenebrae perceptivus, quando scilicet lux non est praesens, et ideo tunc visus non immutatur. Igitur si intellectus naturaliter immutatur a substantia immediate ad actum circa ipsam, sequeretur quod quando substantia non esset prasens, posset naturaliter cognosci, non esse praesens—et ita naturaliter posset cognosci in hostia altaris non esse substantiam panis, quod est manifeste falsum.”

 

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something different, i.e. what underlies those accidents. So we can use the same concept of being or something that we have acquired by analyzing the accidents we are acquainted with, in order to form a description of what we infer must be underlying those accidents. In this way, we come to cognize substances—as what lies behind the accidents we are acquainted with. But we could not have formed our description either of substance in general or of specific substances if the concept of being that we have acquired by analyzing the accidents we are acquainted with had not been univocal, i.e. so simple that it could be used to describe also things belonging to a different ontological kind such as substances.37

So we can finally answer the third question that I posed above, i.e. why Scotus thinks that we can account for the way we cognize substances only if we posit that being is univocal. Only if the concept of being is the same when used to describe accidents and substances can we use it to infer that there must be something underlying the accidents we are acquainted with, in the same sense of ‘something’ in which we say that accidents are something. Since this concept is obtained through analysis of the cognitive content conveyed by the intelligible species abstracted from accidents, we can say that the concept of something or being is obtained by abstraction from accidents, as Scotus says.38 This does not mean that there is an intelligible species of being impressed in our intellect. No new species is required in addition to the species of sensible qualities. All further concepts are obtained by a process of analysis that our intellect carries out over the content conveyed by the senses. So from one and the same intelligible species of, say, a certain shade of white, we obtain several further concepts, such as the concepts of color and, more fundamentally, of being. Scotus clearly considers this process of analysis as part of the act of abstraction, even thought it should be separated from the reception of an intelligible species.39 The reception of an intelligible species is only the first stage in a complex process. Scotus regards cognition as such a complex process from knowing something in a confused way to knowing something in a distinct way. In this respect, Scotus

                                                                                                               37 Ord. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1-2, nn. 71–3, 80 (Vat. III, 50–5). See also Lect. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1-

2, nn. 70 and 75 (Vat. XVI, 252–3). 38 Lect. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1, n. 112 (Vat. XVI, 266). 39 Scotus distinguished between the abstraction of an intelligible species from a sensible

quality, which results in a specific concept, and the abstraction of a generic concept, which he calls “a bigger and more difficult abstraction” in Ord. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1-2, n. 86 (Vat. III, 58). The latter abstraction seems to be identical with what Scotus usually calls ‘resolutio’, i.e. a process of conceptual analysis.

 

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is just like Aquinas.40 But Scotus differs from Aquinas in thinking that only a univocal concept of being can allow us to pass from the cognition of accidents to the cognition of substances.

IV

At this point, Scotus’s mature position should be clear. He is aware of a problem lying at the heart of late medieval Aristotelianism. On the one hand, we obviously have cognitive access to substantial essences, if philosophy is to be taken as mapping out the real structure of the world. On the other hand, it seems that no coherent account of how we may get this access can be given within the Aristotelian framework if we do not have a univocal concept of being, i.e. if we are not able to describe both substances and accidents as beings in the very same sense of the word ‘being’. Scotus’s claim that those who deny that being is univocal are the true destroyers of philosophy seems to be, after all, justified. In other words, Scotus now realizes that the doctrine of the univocity of the concept of being—which he had probably first entertained as a theological position necessary to account for our cognition of God—is also necessary in philosophy if the Aristotelian account of how we get to know substances must be vindicated and freed from the inconsistencies that had plagued it in the hands of Scotus’s predecessors.

Also, Scotus’s evolution should be clear. First he just assumed that we do have cognitive access to substances, presumably by an act of simple apprehension. Afterwards, he came to realize that this is not compatible with the Aristotelian claim that all our cognition comes from the senses—for only sensible accidents can be sensed. Accordingly, he struggles to reconcile the Aristotelian position concerning sensible qualities with Aristotle’s own claim that substances are prior in knowledge. He finally arrives at a satisfactory solution thanks to his doctrine of the univocity of the concept of being. Our inferences from sensible qualities to substantial natures are warranted because we have a univocal concept of being, which we obtain by analyzing the cognitive content conveyed by the intelligible species abstracted from sensible qualities.

This is indeed Scotus’s mature and reasoned view. Still, we should notice that Scotus formulates it in a remarkably cautious way. Even in his

                                                                                                               40 See N. Kretzmann, “Infallibility, Error, and Ignorance,” in Aristotle and His Medieval

Interpreters (Canadian Journal of Philosophy, suppl. vol. 17), eds. R. Bosley and M. Tweedale (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1991), 159–94; Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, 324–9.

 

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Ordinatio and in the Collationes parisienses, he puts forward this position as a sort of afterthought—something that is necessarily implied by his assumptions but that he still embraces with some hesitation.41 He usually refers to our cognition of quiddities and to the presence of species in the intellect in a generic way, without specifying whether the quiddities and the intelligible species are of substances or of accidents42. Only when considering the issue more in detail does Scotus specify that the quiddities we cognize by direct acquaintance, i.e. non-inferentially, are actually the quiddities of accidents. Similarly, the species present in our intellect are actually the species of accidents. Even these clarifications, however, are always made with a note of cautiousness.

I think that there are two possible explanations for Scotus’s caution. The first explanation is that Scotus never had the chance to give a

definitive formulation of his philosophical and theological views. Even his last writings give us quite often merely a glimpse of what his considered opinion might have been. Accordingly, Scotus may have gradually come to the conclusion that a coherent defense of his opinion on how we cognize substances would have required the reformulation and re-writing of vast parts of his work in order to harmonize them with his insights concerning substances. For example, his defense of the role of the intelligible species in cognition can be retained but should be reformulated as concerning exclusively the only intelligible species we have, i.e. the intelligible species of sensible accidents. Unfortunately, Scotus died just when he realized that such an adjustment was necessary and he never managed to carry it out. So what we have right now in Scotus’s writings is a mixture of his old and new views, where Scotus has not yet drawn all the consequences deriving from his opinion on our cognition of substances. Accordingly, the details of this opinion are still formulated with some hesitation.

The second explanation for Scotus’s caution in putting forward his views concerning our cognition of substances touches on an important aspect

                                                                                                               41 See in particular Collationes parisienses, collat. 4 (cod. Oxon. Coll. Merton. 194, f.

66va), as reported in Vat. III, 225–6: “Quiditas accidentis verius ‘esse’ habet in intellectu per speciem quam quiditas substantiae, quia forte substantia non intelligitur per speciem propriam, eo quod per speciem propriam non facit in intellectu, sicut nec in sensu; similiter, quiditas substantiae materialis verius ‘esse’ habet in specie intelligibili quam quiditas substantiae immaterialis, quae non habet proprium phantasma, nec etiam phantasma accidentis.” Scotus refers to this passage in an addition to the Ordinatio where he discusses the presence of species in the intellect. See Ord. I, d. 3, p. 3, q. 1, n. 370 (Vat. III, 225): “Cuiuslibet quod per se et primo intelligitur, est propria species – Collationes.”

42 On the role of essences in metaphysics, see Ord.. II, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1, nn. 29–34 (Vat. VII, 402–5). On the role of the intelligible species in cognition, see Lect. I, d. 3, p. 3, q. 1 (Vat. XVI, 325–48); Ord. I, d. 3, p. 3, q. 1 (Vat. III, 200–44).

 

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of Scotus’s thought. Scotus’s cautious tone may be due to the fact that he thinks that our incapacity to cognize substances directly, i.e. in a non-inferential way, is a contingent fact. At the heart of Scotus’s metaphysics there lies a contrast between, on the one hand, the way we currently are and know things (in statu isto) and, on the other hand, the way we were meant to be and to know things—which is also the way we will be and will know things in the next life, when the original order between soul and body is going to be restored. According to Scotus, the current dependence of our souls on our bodies is a contingent fact. Specifically concerning cognition, it is not part of our nature of human beings that we acquire all cognitive information from the senses. What for Aquinas was an essential feature of human nature, for Scotus is a contingent situation.43 Scotus lists two possible causes of this contingent situation. The first possible cause of the current situation is the Fall. That we now acquire all information through the senses may be a punishment for the Original Sin. After our catastrophic fall, the soul was made subject to the body, and a consequence of this new subjection may have been our intellect’s current cognitive dependence on the senses. The second possible cause of the current situation is God’s willingness to harmonize our body with our soul in the present state. This harmonization, however, is contingent. As a matter of fact, it seems to be nothing else than the intellect’s subjection to the body. The intellect is currently dependent on the body for all the information it has about the extramental world. This dependence will disappear in the next life, when the original and genuine harmony between soul and body is going to be restored and consequently the intellect is not going to have access to the world exclusively through the senses.44

                                                                                                               43 Ord. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 3, n. 186 (Vat. III, 112–3): “Obiectum primum potentiae

assignatur illud quod adaequatum est potentiae ex ratione potentiae, non autem quod adaequatur potentiae in aliquo statu: quemdamodum primum obiectum visus non ponitur illud quod adaequatur visui exisistenti in medio illuminato a candela, praecise, sed quod natum est adaequari visui ex se, quantum est ex natura visus. Nunc autem ut probatum est prius – contra primam opinionem de primo obiecto intellectus, hoc est adaequato, quae ponit quiditatem rei materialis primum obiectum – nihil potest adaequari intellectui nostro ex natura potentiae in ratione primi obiecti nisi communissimum; tamen ei pro statu isto adaequatur in ratione motiva quiditas rei sensibilis, et ideo pro isto statu non naturaliter intelliget alia quae non continentur sub isto primo motivo.”

44 Ord. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 3, n. 187 (Vat. III, 113–4): “Sed quae est ratio huius status? – Respondeo. ‘Status’ non videtur esse nisi ‘stabilis permanentia’, fermata legibus sapientiae. Firmatum est autem illis legibus, quod intellectus noster non intelligat pro statu isto nisi illa quorum species relucent in phantasmate, et hoc sive propter poenam peccati originalis, sive propter naturalem concordantiam potentiarum animae in operando, secundum quod videmus quod potentia superior operatur circa idem circa quod inferior, si utraque habebit operationem perfectam. Et de facto ita est in nobis, quod quodcumque universale intelligimus, eius singulare actu phanasiamur. Ista tamen concordantia, quae est de facto pro statu isto, non est de natura intellectus unde intellectus est, - nec etiam unde in corpore, quia tunc in corpore glorioso

 

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So both explanations of the current situation stress that the intellect’s current dependence on the senses is contingent. We were originally meant to cognize substantial essences, and we will again be able to do so when our nature is restored to its original condition in the next life. Now, however, we are unable to grasp substantial essences by a non-inferential act. The intellect’s current dependence on the senses implies that the only cognition we can now have of substances is inferential and by way of description. Fortunately, we do have a univocal concept of being that, even in the current situation, enables us to reconstruct the structure of reality notwithstanding our cognitive limitations. Accordingly, Scotus’s hesitations in his formulating his views on the cognition of substances may depend on the point of view he chooses. If he speaks about what we are meant to cognize, he emphasizes the role of substances as first things known and our capacity to grasp them by a direct, i.e. non-inferential act of cognition. By contrast, any time he focuses on our current, contingent condition, Scotus stresses our incapacity to grasp substances by a non-inferential act, for we currently have intelligible species only of sensible accidents. It is also interesting to notice that Scotus’s mention of the role of the Fall to explain our current cognitive limitations is present in the Ordinatio but is absent in his previous Lectura. So it seems that only at a relatively late date did Scotus come to interpret the contrast between the perfect cognizability of substances and our incapacity to grasp them in a non-inferential way as a contrast between what we were meant to be (and hopefully will be again in the next life) and what we currently are after the Fall.

It is interesting to notice that Scotus explains what was originally a tension internal to the Aristotelian framework as a distinction between the pre- and post-lapsarian state. In the pre-lapsarian state, substances can be grasped by way of a direct act of cognition. In the post-lasparian state, this is not possible anymore and our intellect is made dependent on the species reiceved from the senses. Scotus’s explanation of this tension is ultimately dependent on his theological anthropology.

                                                                                                               

necessario haberet similem concordantiam, quod falsum est. Undecumque ergo sit iste status, sive ex mera voluntate Dei, sive ex iustitia puniente (quam causam innuit Augustinus XV De Trinitate cap. Ultimo: “Quae causa” – inquit – cur ipsam lucem acie fixa videre non possis, nisi utique infirmitas? et quis eam tibi fecit, nisi utique iniquitas?”) sive—inquam— haec sit tota causa, sive aliqua alia, saltem non est primum obiectum intellectus unde potentia est et natura, nisi aliquid commune ad omnia intelligibilis, licet primum obiectum, adaequatum sibi in movendo, pro statu isto ist quiditas rei sensibilis.”

 

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V

There is a last difficulty. Let us consider again our cognition of substantial natures. What do we know about them? We know that they are beings, in the same sense in which accidents are beings. Apart from that, all our knowledge concerning substances is actually knowledge of the accidents that inhere in substances. So, if we distinguish the cognition of what something is from the cognition of how it is qualified, we must conclude that the only cognition that we have of what substances are is that they are beings. Scotus draws explicitly this consequence in one of the passages from the Questions on the Metaphysics I have already mentioned above:

But beyond the concept of being nothing more special is known of

the quiddity of any substance, not only of a separate substance but of a material substance [as well]… to being itself we conjoin positive or privative accidents that we know from the sense, and we make from being and many such accidents a single description, the whole of which is never found except in such a species. And the concept of such a description is the more perfect concept which we have of such a species.45 (Trans. Etzkorn and Wolter)

We have complex concepts of substances, or, as Scotus says,

descriptions. These complex concepts or descriptions are made up of the concept of being and of several concepts of accidents. So what we know of substantial natures, apart from the accidents that inhere in them and that are different from them, is only that those natures are beings. Far from being the first object of our cognition, substantial natures are in themselves unknown to us. Scotus himself notices that this has a curious consequence. Suppose that God shows to your intellect a substantial essence, say the essence of a human being. Suppose also that in doing this, God does not provide you with any extra illumination; He only makes that essence present to your intellect. Suppose, finally, that this is all that God shows you. Specifically, He does not show you all the accidental features that are usually associated with that substantial essence and from which you usually get your inferential cognition of that essence. In that case, Scotus claims, you cannot know whether what God shows you is that essence, say the essence a human being, or not. For the only way you can identify a certain substantial essence is by way of the

                                                                                                               45 Quaest. super Metaph., II, 2-3, n. 115 (OPh III, 233): “Sed ultra conceptum entis nihil

specialius intelligitur de quiditate alicuius substantiae; nec separatae, nec materialis… Sed ipsi enti coniungimus accidentia positiva vel privativa, quae cognoscimus ex sensu, et facimus ex ente et multis talibus unam descriptionem, quae tota numquam invenitur nisi in tali specie. Et conceptus talis descriptionis est perfectior conceptus quem habemus de tali species.” The English translation is by Etzkorn and Wolter, vol. 1, 199.

 

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accidental features that are usually associated with it and which are the sole object of your direct cognition in this life. Once these accidental features are removed, you are not in a position to identify that substantial essence anymore, because the only thing that you know about that essence, apart from those accidental features, is that it is something or a being. But this is not enough to identify anything, since everything is something or a being. 46 Our cognition of substances amounts to ignorance:

Therefore I say that our intellect first cognizes the accidents, from

which it abstracts the concept of being—which is in turn predicated essentially of substance just as it is predicated of an accident. And this is all we know of substance in a nondiscursive way, and nothing more. As I said, this is what everybody can verify in their own experience, namely they only know about any substance that it is a being. All the rest that we know about any substance are properties and accidents pertaining to that substance. It is by way of those properties that we to know the features that are essential to a substance.47 (Trans. mine)

But if this is the case, Scotus faces a formidable objection. Quite simply, the claim that we are basically ignorant of what

substantial essences are in themselves is incompatible with metaphysics as it is commonly practiced by Aristotelians. Scotus himself maintains that metaphysicians make use of real definitions. Also, metaphysicians make use of propositions per se primo modo, such as “Human beings are rational animals”.48 But these propositions, as Scotus concedes, are true in virtue of substantial essences. So, contrary to what Scotus claims, it seems that we do know a lot about substantial essences. We can define them and we can make true statements about them.49 How can Scotus account for this?

                                                                                                               46 Lect. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1-2, n. 266 (Vat. XVI, 266): “Unde si per impossibile Deus

ostenderet intellectui tuo essentiam hominis—vel per possible—et non daret tibi aliud lumen, sed tantum eam faceret intellectui tuo esse praesentem, et non ostenderet tibi descriptiones accidentium quae intelligis vel quibus cognoscis substantiam, nescires utrum esse essentia hominis vel non.”

47 Lect. I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1-2, n. 112 (Vat. XVI, 266): “Unde dico quod intellectus noster primo cognoscit accidentia, a quibus abstrahit intentionem entis, quod praedicat essentiam substantiae sicut accidentis; et tantum intuitive cognoscimus de substantia, et non plus. Hoc, sicut dixi, experitur quilibet in se, quod non cognoscit plus de natura substantiae nisi quod sit ens. Totum autem aliud quod conoscimus de substantia, sunt proprietates et accidentia propria tali substantiae, per quas proprietates intuemur ea quae sunt essentialia substantiae.” In this passage, the term ‘intuitive’ is clearly not to be contrasted with ‘abstractive’; rather, it should be taken as meaning ‘nondiscursive’, as is commonly the case in Henry of Ghent.

48 Ord. II, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1, n. 32 (Vat. VII, 403), quoted above, note 9. 49 Quaest. super Metaph., II, 2-3, n. 117 (OPh III, 234): “Sed contra praedicta arguitur

quod substantia a nobis per se intelligitur, quia ita definimus substantias sicut accidentia, per genera et differentias proprias.”

 

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Interestingly, Scotus does not recoil from this objection. In order to answer it, he advances one of his most enigmatic views. He says that we have what he calls a habitus vocalis of substances—which we may translate as a ‘naming disposition’.50 It is not immediately clear what this means. But some light may be gained from what Scotus says in the Ordinatio about our capacity to name substantial essences. The only concept that we have of a substantial essence is that of being. All the same, Scotus holds that our names of substances refer to those substances with precision, because we can name things more distinctly than we can conceive them.51 So we lack a distinct concept of what a substance is (both in general and in particular), but we have a distinct name for it. For example, we lack a distinct concept of what a horse is and of what a human being is. All the same, we can name those essences with sufficient precision. So our names latch onto substantial essences whereas our concepts do not. The same should be said of our definitions. The parts of a definition latch onto real entities of which we do not have any proper concept. For example ‘rationality’ and ‘animality’ refer to some features in reality (the so-called ‘formalities’) even though we do not have any distinct concept of what these features are. We can only name them; we cannot think of them in any distinct way. Scotus makes a striking comparison to capture the way we do metaphysics in statu isto. We only have names and no proper concept of substances, just as a born blind person has only names of colors but no corresponding sensation.

What is the cause of this curious mismatch between our cognitive capacity and the way things are? As we have seen, Scotus does not give a definite answer. Our cognitive limitation may be due to God’s decision to harmonize in some way soul and body in the current life. Or it may just be a consequence of the Fall. In any case, this is a contingent situation, something that is not part of our very nature of human beings but that characterizes the current situation in this world.

What is perhaps most remarkable about Scotus’s position is that, all things considered, our cognitive limitations do not prevent us from doing good metaphysics and from speaking with surprising precision about the world. For Scotus’s comparison between what we know (or better, what we do not know)

                                                                                                               50 Quaest. super Metaph., II, 2-3, n. 119 (OPh III, 234): “Ad primum horum dicendum

quod de substantiis habemus habitum vocalem, sicut caecus natus syllogizat de coloribus, quia nec ipsa genera intellligimus, nisi ens.” The example of the born blind person who makes deductions about colors comes from Aristotle, Phys. II, 1, 193a6-8. See also Aquinas’s commentary, In octo libros de Physico audito sive Physicorum Aristotelis Commentaria, eds. F. Angeli and M. Pirotta (Neaples: M. D’Auria, 1953), II, lect. 1, n. 306.

51 Ord. I, d. 22, q. unica, nn.4–5 (Vat. V, 343–4).

 

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about substances and what a born blind person knows about colors has also a positive side. Admittedly, the blind person knows neither what color in general is nor what any specific color is, just as we do not know what a substantial essence is in general or what any specific substantial essences is in itself. All the same, a born blind person is able to make valid deductions about the colors (caecus natus syllogizat de coloribus). So just as the blind person’s deductions can be valid even though she is ignorant of what she is talking about, in the same way a metaphysician’s arguments can be valid even though she does not know what the substantial essences she is talking about are in themselves. As to the vagueness of our concepts, it seems that the precision with which we can name essences puts some sort of remedy to it. Our names of substances function as signposts for things that we are ignorant of, even though we know what they do. Accordingly, we can describe those essences thanks to their external features and we can place them in a larger framework thanks to those descriptions.

So it seems that our ignorance of substantial essences is not fatal to the success of our metaphysical enquiry. Take for example Scotus’s famous doctrine of the mind-independent, less than numerical unity of essences. It seems that nothing of what Scotus says about that unity depends on whether we actually cognize substantial natures in themselves or not. We may concede that, strictly speaking, we only know that substantial essences are beings. Nevertheless, we can still argue that those essences have a mind-independent, less than numerical unity. Stressing our ignorance of substantial essences does not mean that metaphysics may be less daring in its exploration of the structure of reality.

Admittedly, it may be difficult to hide some uneasiness when considering this aspect of Scotus’s thought. The picture that emerges is in stark contrast with the traditional view of Scotus as a metaphysician who detailed every single aspect of reality down to the last formality. Nevertheless, Scotus’s remarks about our cognition of substances occupy a central place in his metaphysics, even though the overall picture may be rather sketchy. (For example, Scotus’s reference to habitus vocalis is little more than a hint.) But the philosophical interest of Scotus’s attempt is clear. He boldly tried to give a solid foundation to metaphysics while taking full account of the current limitations of our cognitive powers.