The Singular Voice of Being

John Duns Scotus and Ultimate Difference

Andrew T. LaZella, Gyula Klima

• Publisher: Fordham University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780823284580
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Filosofía medieval y renacentista

The Singular Voice of Being reconsiders John Duns Scotus's well-studied theory of the univocity of being in light of his less explored discussions of ultimate difference. Ultimate difference is a notion introduced by Aristotle and known by the Aristotelian tradition, but one that, this book argues, Scotus radically retrofits to buttress his doctrine of univocity. Scotus broadens ultimate difference to include not only specific differences, but also intrinsic modes of being (e.g., finite/infinite) and principles of individuation (i.e., haecceitates). Furthermore, he deepens it by divorcing it from anything with categorical classification, such as substantial form. Scotus uses his revamped notion of ultimate difference as a means of dividing being, despite the longstanding Parmenidean arguments against such division. The book highlights the unique role of difference in Scotus's thought, which conceives of difference not as a fall from the perfect unity of being but rather as a perfective determination of an otherwise indifferent concept. The division of being culminates in individuation as the final degree of perfection, which constitutes indivisible (i.e., singular) degrees of being. This systematic study of ultimate difference opens new dimensions for understanding Scotus's dense thought with respect to not only univocity, but also to individuation, cognition, and acts of the will.

PART ONE

BEING AND ULTIMATE DIFFERENCE

CHAPTER ONE

BEING IS SAID IN MANY WAYS

Long known for his defense of the univocity of being (ens) with respect to God and creatures as well as to substance and accidents, Scotus developed this position over the course of time. The entire trajectory of this development from the early logical writings through the Questions on the “Metaphysics” of Aristotle to the later commentaries on the Sentences will not be charted here.¹ Suffice it to note that Scotus embraces the univocity of being only once he can adequately respond to several problems it invites. As will be argued, one of the main reasons why Scotus shifts his view stems from a recognition that the form being the same both in mente and in re does not suffice to secure the link between mind and world. Substantial essences, individuals (including individual accidents), and God do not immediately move the senses, and thus they make no direct impression upon our intellect.² To overcome Solomon’s Difficulty, the intellect must abstract a univocal concept of being around which to form complex descriptions of these otherwise unknowable things (i.e., substantial essences, individuals, and God).

Section 1.1 explains what Scotus means by the terms univocity, equivocity, and analogy. Section 1.2 looks at how they apply to being in particular, and various problems that result if being is treated as a univocal concept. These include Parmenides’s challenge as to how to divide being, and the introduction of real complexity into God’s simple essence. Section 1.3 reviews Thomas Aquinas’s and Henry of Ghent’s respective accounts of analogy. Section 1.4 explores Scotus’s reasons for defending univocity, in particular, our inability to cognize substances or God without it. Section 1.5 concludes with a discussion of how we can be certain of something as a being, and yet lack cognition of its determination or differentiation.

1.1. UNIVOCITY, EQUIVOCITY, ANALOGY

In his early Quaestiones super Praedicamenta Aristotelis, Scotus explains that things are univocally, or homologically, named when they share not only the same term (vox) or name (nomen), but also the same account (ratio).³ Things are equivocally, or homonymously, named when the name alone is the same, but their accounts differ. Analogical names require that the name signify multiple rationes, which are unified according to some order or relation.⁴ This section will explore each term in more depth in order to prepare for a discussion of the univocity of being in the following section.

1.1.1. Univocity

The defining feature of univocity is sameness of account. Aristotle calls this commonality λόγος τῆς οὐσίας, which Boethius translates into Latin as ratio substantiae.⁵ In question 5 of Super Praedicamenta, Scotus explains that the ratio substantiae is an essential understanding (essentialis intellectus).⁶ As this gloss does not clarify much, several issues need to be unpacked. First, a distinction must be made between concepts of the first intention as opposed to concepts of the second intention. Second, an explanation of what Scotus means by the term ratio is required, since he departs from the more standard practice of the time. And third, the use of the term substantiae must be clarified.

To begin, question 1 of Scotus’s commentary addresses the subject matter of Aristotle’s Categories. This takes up a long-standing debate about whether the categories are divisions found merely in language or are divisions also found in reality. Scotus responds that the object studied by the Categories is neither words as such nor things themselves. Instead, it studies the concept per se. There is, Scotus tells us, something between the sciences of real things (e.g., metaphysics, physics, biology, etc.), which study things themselves, and the sciences of language, or scientia sermocinalis (e.g., grammar, rhetoric, etc.), which study how terms signify and also study the attributes of terms qua terms.⁷ This intermediary science of logic studies the concept qua concept (scientia esse de conceptu per se). Scotus says that logic is a scientia rationalis, insofar as it studies the formation of concepts from an act of reasoning (de conceptibus formatis ab actu rationis).

Logic studies the concepts formed from acts of reasoning rather than the reality conceptualized by such acts.⁸ To use the more familiar distinction, logic concerns second intentions as opposed to the primary intentions that are the objects of real sciences such as physics or metaphysics. Briefly put, a first intention conceptualizes a thing, whereas a second intention conceptualizes a concept. Thus, logic studies the properties and attributes belonging to concepts themselves and not the things they conceive.

Although logic studies the categories as second intentions, Scotus concedes that it is not the only science which treats the categories.⁹ Following Aristotle’s claims in the Metaphysics that the categories indicate ways of being, Scotus reminds us that metaphysics also treats of the reality signified by the categorial concepts.¹⁰ However, whereas metaphysics considers the categories as first intentions, or concepts about the way things are, logic considers the attributes of such categorial concepts themselves which inhere in meaningful terms. Logic is not about the terms themselves; rather, it is about the significance of the utterance, or what makes the terms meaningful: “A concept, which is what logic is about, is immediately signified through an utterance; and because the attributes (passiones) of a concept exist in a signifying utterance—<for example> non-complex, complex, to signify true or false—as in a sign according to the nature of the significate.”¹¹ What makes terms meaningful are (at least in part) concepts.

Already in this early work, Scotus argues that the conditions governing things conceived are not identical to the conditions governing the concepts themselves. In question 3, he states that diversity in things of the first intention does not impede a more unified conception in the intellect.¹² Specifically, identical intentions can be attributed to diverse things conceived by the intellect. That is, univocally speaking, the categories are conceived as the ten highest genera, a conceptual unity forming the basis of the science of logic.¹³ The way things are need not be identically reflected by the way things are conceived. Scotus explains: “I say that a thing is not the total cause of an intention, but is only an occasion, namely insofar as it moves the intellect so that it considers in act, and the intellect is the principal cause.”¹⁴ The thing is not a complete cause of the intention, but only an occasion for the work of the intellect. The operations of the intellect principally cause such second intentions, not the actual state of things. This point will prove vital when treating Scotus’s later defense of the univocity of being.

In terms of the second point from above, ratio in this context means the concept formed about something’s essence. But, as Pini shows with respect to the historical context, this definition emerges from a deeper debate: Do univocals having the same ratio substantiae or essentialis intellectus necessarily have the same essence? Pini explains:

The interpretation of the expression “ratio substantiae” raises some problems. Scotus interprets such an expression as meaning “essential intellect,” namely the concept that our intellect forms about the essence of something. If two things can be understood by the same concept, which is in turn signified by the same name, such things are univocated under such a term, whether or not they have essences of the same kind. Scotus thinks that the expression “ratio substantiae” signifies the concept under which an essence is understood, and not the essence or the definition that corresponds to that essence. There is a great difference between these two interpretations, for if ratio substantiae is identified with the essence, it follows that all univocal things have the same essence and that consequently they belong to the same category.¹⁵

Scotus’s answer to the question of whether having the same ratio substantiae entails having the same essence is no. But this was not the majority view. For Scotus, the ratio substantiae is the concept under which an essence is conceived, not that essence itself. The ratio substantiae, he maintains, is only the concept formed by our intellect of the essence. Scotus’s fellow Franciscan Peter John Olivi had already criticized the identity between rationes and essences as found in the works of Avicenna or Aquinas. Olivi holds that there can be a multiplicity of real rationes (plures rationes reales) without a multitude of real essences.¹⁶

Although these issues will play a more prominent role below, here in the Super Praedicamenta, Scotus seems concerned with addressing the requirements for logical univocity. In particular, he seeks to show how logical univocity requires only the same ratio substantiae, not the same essence. For example, the genus animal is univocally predicated of both human and ass, even though they do not have the same essence. They seem to share the same essence generically, but they are the same essentially, Scotus argues, only when multiple things have the same proper and complete ratio.¹⁷

In question 6, Scotus explains: “I say that those of which the proper and complete account of the substance is the same are themselves the same; but of <things> univocated, there is not the same proper account, although the account of the thing univocating is the same to them, since that is proper to no univocate.”¹⁸ An incomplete ratio substantiae does not correspond to the essence in the strict sense (i.e., a complete and proper ratio). Such an incomplete ratio does suffice, however, for logical univocity. The term animal is the same with respect to a human and an ass on account of their shared ratio substantiae. Logical univocity does not require the same essence, only the same ratio substantiae.

Natural philosophers hold a stricter notion of univocity than do logicians. For natural philosophers, not only must two or more things share the same ratio, but also they must share the same ultimate form. On this point, Scotus states: “According to the logician every univocal expresses that which arrives at the intellect through one account, according to that which it is said of many; according to the natural <philosopher>, every <term> is not such, but only what is one according to the ultimate, perfecting form.”¹⁹ Real univocity of the type studied by natural philosophers requires not only the same ratio substantiae but also the same completing ultimate form. This means that the term cat is univocal with respect to Albert and Felix because both cats have the same ultimate completing form. That is, both individuals have specifically the same type of substantial form, namely, cat.

On account of this substantial form, both of these individuals fall under the species cat. This substantial form provides each individual with what Aristotle calls the “ultimate difference of form,” or that final difference providing something with its most specific species.²⁰ Insofar as this ultimate difference contains all the higher, less specific ones—lest the definition correspond to a real multiplicity—there is a greater univocity at the level of the specific categorical essence. The substantial form actualizes all previous potentialities of matter. Thus, the concept animal is less univocal than cat. The genus living thing is even less univocal than animal and so on until we reach the highest genera that admit of no univocal predicates (only, as we have seen, “most general” as univocally predicated of these diverse categories). Only with the most concrete “completing” substantial form, on account of which there is ultimate (read: final) differentiation, do we find true univocity.

The location of ultimate differences in this schema will play an important role in what follows. Let us begin by asking: Are they categorial items? To speak of difference as a quality—as Aristotle does in the Metaphysics—would undermine the entire categorial schema.²¹ How could something in one category—not to mention an accidental one!—differen...