Scotus on the Relation of Metaphysics and Various Branches of Logic.

Fun times with the Doctor subtilis. From the QQ. super librum Elenchorum, q.1 (Opera Philosophica II, 271-3):

To the question it should be said that logic is of common things as is first philosophy, but in different ways. For first philosophy considers being insofar as it is being, whence it considers a thing according to its quiddity. And because the quiddity of a thing is per se the entity of a thing, therefore first philosophy considers a thing according to its entity. And because it considers a thing according to its quiddity, and many things follow upon a thing according to its quiddity, therefore the first philosopher can consdier the attribute of a subject and about whatever other. For although by understanding being insofar as it is understood in common and inasmuch as it comprehends under itself being of this kind, something cannot be shown, nevetheless many things can be shown about being according to its quiddity; for many things follow a thing according to quiddity, as to be perfect and imperfect, and many others.

Likewise, logic is about common being, or it considers it. But being is double, namely of nature and of reason. Being of nature, insofar as it is such, is the being which does not depend on the soul. But being of reason is said of certain intentions which reason finds in things themselves, such as genus, species, definition, and others of this kind. Being however said in that second way is equated according to its community to being said in the first way. For there is not some being of nature that cannot fall under being of reason, that some intention can be founded over it, as genus or species or property or individual, or at least of cause and caused. Because therefore lgoic is of intentions of this kind, which are applicable to all thihngs, therefore logic is said to proceed from common things.

Further it must be understood that although logic as far as its doctrine is from common things, nevertheless the doctrine handed down in dialectics and demonstration is a diverse use. For dialectic is from common things and in particular sciences argues from common elements to proper conclusions. For it shows that love and hate are receivable in the same thing, not by considering the property of love or hate but this medium that "contraries are made around the same". Whence from common things it does not argue to common, but from common things it argues to proper conclusions. That part of logic which is demonstrative, even if the docrine is handed down from comon things, as for example of a syllogism, nevertheless in special it argues by its proper medium. For the geometer uses the demonstrative art, and thence he receives the first causes of a conclusion, and per a proper medium he argues to a proper conclusion. But one arguing dialectically can show another and another conclusion in another and other science by the same medium. Whence in natural philosophy and medicine there can be shown a diverse conclusion by the same medium.

First Principles

Last weekend I met up with an old college friend to play Go and hang out. We ended up playing less than planned and instead arguing philosophy for five hours or so. In the ten years I've known him his opinions and lifestyle have undergone a radical shift: he's gone from being a Washington State conservative creationist evangelical to an enthusiastic but temporary Episcopalian to a Washington D.C. liberal materialist atheist. This particular night the discussion began when he casually mentioned that he wished it had been made clear in our undergraduate program that pretty much all of pre-20th century philosophy had been decisively refuted by modern science. After this a lot of conversation was spent with him simply delineating his new positions and with me trying to find some first principles we could agree on which could constitute a starting-point for a real debate. In the end I couldn't find any.

This was rather disturbing and I had a very odd feeling throughout the conversation. Here was an old and close friend telling me that he couldn't admit it as true in any strong sense that there was a tree outside the window, or that the conventional notion of a 'tree' had any extramental correlate, since what we called a tree was simply an arbitrary bundling together of those aspects of sensible phenomena which happened to interest us at a given moment; that there was no unity in the object itself, since there was no object itself, since all self-identity was an illusion; that there was no true identity of any kind, and that every single aspect of the world was simply in constant flux, and so we couldn't identify the unity of an object by the unity or continuity of its operations, since these were also illusory; that therefore the continuity of motion and the unity or identity of any act also had to be abandoned; and, finally, that he knew all this beyond any doubt because it had been established by "Science".

I tried to suggest that if all this were true then the foundations of science would themselves be undermined, and with them all his confidence in what "Science" supposedly teaches, but he didn't bite. Sure, science is just a series of useful stories we tell ourselves in order to render the world more functional - so what? They're the best stories we have, and they work just fine. I suggested that his picture of the world reduced literally everything to absurdity, including the meaningfulness of calling something an illusion when there is no "me" from moment to moment to have the illusion and no definite and intelligible reality for me to have illusion about: nowhere to see through the illusion to. He was unfazed. Yes, that's the way things are. Since what we call "thought" is simply an algorithm executed by our brains for maximum consciousness-efficiency, why should we expect it to have some correspondence to reality?

So I have to admit that I'm not a good enough Socrates to get anywhere beyond this. What do you do when your interlocutor doesn't mind if his position is, by any reasonable standard, absurd? After hours of argument I couldn't find a single thing we could both agree was true. Not even "I am thinking this thought" or "The people having this conversation now are the same people who were having it an hour ago." I'm tempted to say that at this point there is simply a philosophical breakdown, that there is nowhere to go from here.

Theoremata Scoti, Pars IV

The fourth part of Scotus' Theoremata contains little worthy of comment. It consists of a (largely scattered and unconnected) series of notes on some of the questions in books VIII and IX of Scotus' QQ in Metaphysicam. The notes are mostly about the construction of a composite substance, the causes of its constituents and of the whole, and of the causation effected by each. There are no settled conclusions and no immediately discernible order in the notes, and so I'm going to omit any translation from the text.

Part IV supports what I've been suspecting about the nature of the Theoremata, namely that it seems to be a set of--not drafts, exactly--but of preliminary studies on questions that interest Scotus and which he discusses at much more length elsewhere. He's working out in a systematic way the consequences of various approaches to the problems set out in the various parts. Because of this none of it should be taken as Scotus' final word on anything without confirmation from one of the more authoritative works.

This sketch of an interpretation is particularly relevant for how to approach part V, which contains much of interest and which is very disconcerting at first. We'll see tomorrow how plausible it is.

Science and Theology

Ha! Here you thought this would be a post relevent to the world of Today and not about Scotus. Too bad. While researching Scotus's views on the nature of theology and how it is a science in Reportatio I-A, I came across the f0llowing question (and a particularly interesting quotation I shall share below): Utrum veritates per se scibiles de Deo sub ratione deitatis possint sciri ab intellectu viatoris (As Wolter translates it, "Can truths that are knowable per se of God as deity be kown by the intellect of the pilgrim?"). Scotus begins the question with a discussion of Thomas' view that our theology is subalternated to the theology of the blessed in the beatific vision. The principles of the science of theology are not known in the science itself, but are had by the blessed; in this life, they are only believed, not known. Scotus makes five or six arguments against this position which I won't go into here, though they are interesting. Scotus also runs through the debate between Henry of Ghent and Godfrey of Fontaines about Henry's view that theologians have a certain lumen medium by which they know theological truths. As Godfrey (according to Scotus) had used one argument of Averroes against the Christians against Henry's list of saints, Scotus says he ought to be more derided than Henry, even though Henry's position is a bit crazy too. So, Scotus thinks they're both wrong.

His own view is that many truths knowable per se by the wayfarer can be known, not only a posteriori but also a priori, "under the aspect of deity by a form of cognition that is superior and more noble than any knowledge by faith". He proves one part of this by saying that an intellect able to understand a subject under the aspect of a subject [ie the subject of a science] can understand a principle virtually included in the subject, and further conclusions contained in a principle, because as the term of the subject is the cause of the principle so is the principle the cause of a conclusion. The object of the science of theolgy Scotus thinks can be known by means of abstractive cognition (as distinguished against intuitive).

The second part of his position, that the cognition the wayfarer has of God under the aspect of deity is more perfect and more certain than all cognition of faith, Scotus supports with the claim that whatever God can do by means of a second cause, he can do per se efficiently without it. But God by the mediation of some object can cause certain knowledge and certain assent so that the will is not able to dissent. Therefore God can do this per se without a medium (Scotus is thinking of the prophets here, who couldn't dissent from what was revealed to them. apparently).

Now comes the interesting part, and our quote for the evening:

"From this I infer two conclusions. The first is that in the cognition of God there are five grades. The first is to know truths intuitively, truths which are knowable about God and knowable distinctly by the notion of the subject known intuitively and distinctly, and that grade is not commonly possible to the wayfarer. The second grade is to know something certitudinally in something representatively distinctly known, and that grade is possible for a wayfarer. The third grade is to know something with certitude so that its certitude is not subject ot an actof the will, and that grade was in the prophets. The fourth grade is to know explicitly those things which are contained in the Scriptures by which brings pious aid and defends agains the impious by knowing how the solve the doubts of others and to fortify them with good arguments, and that grade is of the great ones in the church ['maiorum':Wolter translates this as elders]. The fifth grade is to know those things which are necessary for salvation, which is of the simple ones, because they are not able to search through all things contained in scripture."

The second conclusion he derives is that the light Henry talks about is not something that comes with extended study, but is there by a supernatural infusion who possesses it as a free gift to the intellect. Which is about as much as I've seen Scotus ever grant to the notion of divine illumination.