Read the next paragraph on p.577, beginning "In a third way". Some comments: "it can be replied to the first argument"--to refute it not as a proof of what it was offered to prove, but as a purported proof that being is predicable as part of the definition of the ultimate differences and transcendentals. This third reply is pretty obscure: I'm not sure what it means. But here is an attempt to explain. "Determinable" or "denominable" means, in effect, being capable of being qualified by something as an adjective. Thus a surface is denominable as white, because a surface can be white--"white" is an adjective capable of applying to anything with a surface. "Determining" or "denominating" means applying as an adjective. Consider the noun "being" and the adjective "rational". What Scotus seems to be saying here is that there is a sense in which being is predicable of rational, in the same sense as it has in other predications, without being predicated of it as part of its definition, namely the sense in which the denominable is predicable of the denominating. But this is a strange thing to say, since it seems to mean that "body" is predicable of "white". In Latin this may not sound so strange, since "white" and "the white" are the same (album), and it is possible to say that "the white is a body"; but then album, "the white", is not an adjective but a noun. I leave the puzzle unresolved.
Read the next paragraph ("From these it appears"), which sums up the solution that began on p.575. In the Scholatic "question" in 14th century a solution was often followed by doubts and answers to doubts. So on p.578, beside the first new paragraph beginning "These having been seen", write "Doubt". On p.579, just over half way down, at the paragraph beginning "But one doubt remains", write "Doubt".
Next paragraph, "Again..."; "whatever is inferior to being" again refers to the genera and species that come under being in Porphyry's tree. Note that an attribute is a kind of accident, namely a proper accident, or property: i.e. an accident found in all instances of what it is an attribute of and only in such instances--in all, and only in. If it is in all, why is it an accident? Because it is not part of the definition but an implication or effect of the characteristics that belong to the definition. For example, an equilateral triangle is by definition a triangle with equal sides. Having three equal angles is a property of equilateral triangles--all and only equilateral triangles have three equal angles. The equality of angles is not part of the definition but something implied by the definition (together with other premisses of geometry). Similarly, according to Scotus, transcendentals such as truth are not of the essence of being but are proper accidents of being.
Read the next paragraph, "I reply to the opposing arguments". Comment: This is the answer to the plausible suggestion near the top of this page (in the paragraph that begins "First") that the intellect and the will have the true and the good as their respective first objects. Notice that Scotus here in a sense subordinates will to intellect--you can only will something that you know.
Read the next 5 paragraphs, to the paragraph that begins "It is thus obvious". Some comments: "The view which is accepted in the argument" etc. refers to the inference in the paragraph beginning "first" that intellect and will are distinct powers, therefore the have distinct formal objects. Scotus distinguishes possible relations between powers.
If the things attained by both powers are the same, then the powers may have the same primary object under the same formal characteristic; and yet they are distinct powers, because one does not act except in relation to things that the other has already actually attained. So in effect Scotus says that powers can be distinct because one is subordinate to the others even though they have the same objects. Go back to the paragraph near the top of p.578; "First"; in effect Scotus rejects the premiss that if will and intellect are distinct they must have distinct formal objects.
Read the rest of the extract. Comment. Thomas Aquinas says that the first object of the human intellect even in the next life is material quiddity--the "light of glory" has to be added in heaven to make the intellect adequate to know God. Scotus says that even in this life the power of the intellect extends, in principle, to all being, but in this life its natural power is for some reason impeded or restricted. Scotus and Thomas agree about what the human intellect can attain in this life, but they disagree over whether this is the full scope of the natural power.
The passage on p.581 is Scotus's contribution to the theory of distinctions. To be distinct is not to be one and the same, so a theory of distinctions is also a theory of unities, and that is how Scotus presents it here. The question is whether there is a certain distinction in God between the persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which are distinct from one another, and the divine essence, which they all share. A warning here against being misled by the word "real". Latin realis comes from res meaning a thing. A real distinction means a distinction between different things, in which we distinguish two things--either actual things or objects that could (at least by the power of God) exist as two things. In English "real distinction" means something broader: two objects are really distinct if they are truly distinct. Scotus will say that A and B are formally distinct, and truly distinct, though they are not really distinct--i.e. A and B are not two different things, and could not be two different things even by divine power. Objects that are formally, truly, but not really distinct, Soctus calls realities or formalities, not things. Keep your eye now on the text of the first paragraph on p.581. Is this distinction real? No, he says. There is not thing and thing, res and res, so no real distinction. Is it then a distinction of reason? Not if this means that there is no distinction apart from, in advance of, the workings of the human intellect. If reason (ratio) is taken for the quiddity as object of the intellect it can be called "of reason" (in Latin ratio did sometimes mean the thing as understood). He is saying that the distinction is not real, meaning not a distinction between two res, yet it is not produced by the human mind, it is already there somehow in the divine essence, waiting for the human mind to discover it. (We might say it is there really, in the English sense of really, though it is not a distinction between thing and thing.) It is in the divine essence, but is not real i.e. between thing and thing: it is, he says, there virtually or eminently, meaning as if between thing and thing. Notice the word reality, which Scotus uses when he wishes to suggest something thing-like but without the independent existence of a thing. "For to each reality as it is in that res, there belongs that property which is in such a reality as if it were a distinct res" (p. 581, line 11).
"Or, to speak more carefully, [he says] we can discover several degress of unity"--six in fact. Re-read the list. A collection is like a heap of sand; a unity of order is a collection directed, either by one of its members or from outside, to some purpose, for example an army or a bureaucracy. The third is an accidental unity, when parts that are capable of independent existence are not just juxtaposed or ordered but somehow fused into a composite being, a substance with some quality or other characteristic. The fourth is the unity of a material substance, whose matter and form are not the same reality but are so united that they could not exist separately. The fifth is the unity of simplicity, where there are no parts. And beyond these, he says, is formal identity. This is a unity greater than simplicity: not only are there no parts, but there are no distinguishable aspects, there is no possibility of applying a plurality of concepts. God was held to be simple, but, Scotus claims, there are formal distinctions or "formal non-identity" in God. He can be said to be wise, just, merciful. In God these are the same reality--his wisdom is his justice etc.--but these terms even as applied to God are not synonyms; thus there are distinguishable aspects of the divinity, a possibility of applying a plurality of concepts. Formal identity (sameness) would rule out such a plurality of concepts.
"I call identity formal" he says, "where that which is said to be the same includes that with which it is the same in its formal characteristic, and this per se in the first way", i.e. as part of its definition, if it has a definition. "But in the proposed position the [divine] essence", common to the three divine persons, "does not include the property of a subject", i.e. does not include what is proper to, or distinctive of, the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit--the three subjects. No analysis of the concept of God will reveal that the divine nature is in three persons. So the essence and the subjects are not formally identical--even "before an act of intellect", there is some minimal difference or non-identity between essence and subjects. Re-read the last paragraph of p.581.
Read now the paragraph on p.582. This tells us that genus and difference are formally non-identical, just as if they were two things, though in fact they are two realities (or as he sometimes says "formalities") in the one thing. Real identity does not establish formal identity--i.e. the fact that there is only one thing does not prove that there are not formally non-identical realities.
There is a distinction of reason when there is no difference except what the human intellect creates. There is a real distinction when, apart from any intellectual activity, there are two things (or at least two potential things--potential parts that can in some circumstances exist as thing and thing). There is a formal distinction when there is no real distinction, but there is, even before any activity of the intellect, two realities or formalities that can be grasped (when the human mind does arrive on the scene) in two concepts neither of which is part of the definition of the other.
Scotus's theory of distinctions, and in particular his "formal distinction", had a great influence on later philosophy. It lies behind Descartes' argument for the distinction of body and mind. Ockham rejects the suggestion that there are formal distinctions to be found in creatures, but he has to admit that there are formal distinctions in the divinity.
In the next cassette we will read the extracts beginning on p.582 relating to the problem of universals (in which Scotus employs his "formal distinction"). This is the end of cassette 5.
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