Conference on the Absolute Primacy of Christ

 There is a conference planned for July on the absolute primacy of Christ, information here.

From their description:

Join us at Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Catholic Retreat Center from July 14th-16th, 2023, for a grace-filled weekend of conferences on the Absolute Primacy of Jesus Christ. In Medieval times all of the great scholastics, including Saints like Anselm, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure and Bl. John Duns Scotus, grappled with the question of God's primary motive in bringing about the Incarnation. Was it because of sin - no sin, no Incarnation? Or was Emmanuel God's original plan - sin or no sin, always the Incarnation? The objective of this Symposium is to create an opportunity for scholars to present theological arguments in favor of the absolute primacy of Christ and to create a resource - a handbook, as it were - for theologians and faithful alike who want to learn more about the beauty and intricacies of this Christocentric perspective of creation and salvation history.

New Book: Cognitive Issues in the Long Scotist Tradition

 A book has appeared, edited by Heider and Andersen. Available here.

The blurb:

The late-scholastic school of Scotism (after John Duns Scotus, † 1308) left considerable room for disagreement. This volume innovatively demonstrates just how vividly Scotist philosophers and theologians discussed cognitive matters from the 14th until the 17th century. It further shows how the Scotist ideas were received in Protestant and Reformed milieus.

News

 Hi all, been busy this year, sorry. But here is some recent news of interest to the Scotist community.

Tobias Hoffmann has updated his Bibliography of Duns Scotus, find it here.

Claus Andersen has tracked down volumes of the Vatican edition of Scotus' works on Archive.org and published the links, here.

Finally, I appeared on the "Dogs with Torches Podcast" to discuss Scotus, univocity, and their modern critics, here.

Scotist News

 Hello dear readers, here are a few items worthy of note that have recently appeared.

1. A digital edition of the debate between Duns Scotus and Guillelmus Petri Godinus is now available on the website of the Scotus Archiv (Bonn), here. Website still under construction, but the text and manuscript photos are up now. The debate is about the principle of individuation, and is one of the only, if not the only, place that Scotus directly confronts the Thomist theory.

2. A journal issue dedicated to Antonius Andreae has appeared, here.

3. And, finally, the long-awaited book edited by Giorgio Pini, called Interpreting Duns Scotus, has now appeared.

A veritable end of year feast for all!

Latin Help from Robert Pasnau

 Bob Pasnau reviews a book aimed at helping people move from reading classical Latin to Medieval Latin, and adds some helpful discussion of his own, here.

New Book on the Analogia entis

 Several Italian scholars have put together an anthology of texts, available for free here. It has the original language plus Italian translations and introductions to the texts. but they are all important, from Aristotle, the Greek commentators on Aristotle, Avicenna and Averroes, Aquinas, Scotus, Eckhart and Cajetan. The volum jumpts from Eckhart to Cajetan, omitting the author who wrote the most about analogy, in the middle ages, at least, Petrus Thomae. An odd omission, since there was a section in the companion volume on Peter Thomae by Porro. Also, Alexander of Alexandria has a fair bit on analogy in his commentary on the Metaphysics. But enjoy what we have.

New Scotus essay

 Scotus seems to be in danger of becoming more mainstream. I came across the announcement of a forthcoming article in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly today, abstract is below.

Yul Kim

Why Does the Wood Not Ignite Itself? Duns Scotus’s Defense of the Will’s Self-Motion
The goal of this paper is to analyze the response of John Duns Scotus to Godfrey of Fontaines’s argument against Henry of Ghent’s theory of the will’s self-motion. Godfrey’s argument is that, if the object is assumed to be causa sine qua non and the efficient causality is totally attributed to the will in the act of volition, it would also follow that not only the will’s motion but every motion in nature, such as, for example, the igniting of wood, is a self-motion. In this paper, I will explain that Scotus’s refutation of this argument in Reportatio II, d. 25 is based on his reflection upon the general possibility of self-motion as well as upon the indeterminacy of the will’s act. In doing so, I will show that the development of Scotus’s theory of the will’s motion is closely related to his universalized theory of self-motion.

Reading Proclus open-access

 Two volumes of a projected three on Proclus edited by Dragos Calma (Dublin) are now available:

Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes: vol. 1, vol. 2.

Here is the description from the publisher's website:

Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes, published in three volumes, is a fresh, comprehensive understanding of the history of Neoplatonism from the 9th to the 16th century. The impact of the Elements of Theology and the Book of Causes is reconsidered on the basis of newly discovered manuscripts and evidences. This second volume revises widely accepted hypotheses about the reception of the Proclus’ text in Byzantium and the Caucasus, and about the context that made possible the composition of the Book of Causes and its translations into Latin and Hebrew. The contributions offer a unique, comparative perspective on the various ways a pagan author was acculturated to the Abrahamic traditions.

Conference on Scotus' Quodlibet

 It's a Zoom conference, so anyone from any continent can attend!

Scotus Quodlibet Translation

For a limited time, Allan Wolter's translation is available for free from Project Muse!

Have you Tried Scotus?

A great discussion of Scotus in a mainline catholic journal, written by that indefatigable translator of the Ordinatio, Peter Simpson.

A taste:

Indeed if, as seems true, there was something deficient about pre–Vatican II theological training, even in Rome, the deficiency will not be made up by a return to an exclusivist Thomism, much less to the old Thomistic manuals. A return to Thomas read and studied in the original texts would doubtless help. But such a return would not have helped the young Kenny with his question. For the theologian who had a good answer, Duns Scotus, is barely studied, if studied at all. His very name raises hackles or eyebrows or both. The man is accused by some of causing the theological decline of the West. It is said that he precipitated the destruction of a magnificent and glorious edifice with his falsely subtle distinctions, his flattening metaphysics of univocity, his skeptical undermining of rational proofs for the faith, his tortuous Latin.

On the Horizon

Update: there is now a Website for the Archiv!

Tales of Interest

Various items of interest are going on about the internet or in real life.

1. There is a conference in Bonn, Germany, from April 4-5 on Scotus' Interlocutors at Paris.  Information is here.

2. On the internet, there have been some fascinating discussions of analogy and  univocity, that may be of interest to some.

A. John Sylvest.
B. Al Kimel.

Sadly I don't have time to comment at the moment, but they are well worth reading.

I am currently working on a nice question on univocity by Mayronis that could combat much of the extreme apophaticism prevalent in theology today, if I could ever finish editing it, perhaps adding a translation and commentary...

3. There is also an upcoming conference in march on analogy in Aristotle. See here for information.

New Volume of Studies on Scotus' Reportatio Published

A volume of studies on Scotus' Parisian Reportatio and its reception in Scotism is now available, as a part of the Recherches journal.  Available here.

Here is the table of contents:

John Duns Scotus's Reportatio Parisiensis

369 - 376: Introduction
GORIS, Wouter, HONNEFELDER, Ludger


377 - 438: "John Duns Scotus's Reportatio Parisiensis Examinata A Mystery Solved" 

DUMONT, Stephen D.


439 - 469: "Scotus in Paris. On Univocity and the Portions of the Soul"

GORIS, Wouter


471-492:" Problemfall Univokation. Die Univokation von ens reale und ens rationis im Kontext der Reportatio Parisiensis I-A"

MANDRELLA, Isabelle

"John Duns Scotus's Reportatio Parisiensis and the Origin of the Supertranscendentals" 

SMITH, Garrett R.


539 - 560: "Die Willenslehre des Duns Scotus im Spiegel seiner Schriften und im Lichte seiner Schüler" 

MÖHLE, Hannes

Conference on Peter Thomae's De ente

For those in Europe, there is an upcoming conference dedicated to the recently published Quaestiones de ente by Petrus Thomae:

Interesting Thoughts around the 'NET

There have been a number of interesting posts today, or at least I first noticed them today.

First is Robert Pasnau, with some reflections on how to form a canon of medieval philosophy. He points out that there isn't a narrative for the period 500-1500 like there is for other periods in the history of philosophy. He does not mention the narrative that arose simultaneously with the modern study of medieval philosophy, that is the Thomist one.

Pasnau links to Martin Lenz, who points out that such narratives have ideological origins and uses, and change when the dominating ideologies change.

Finally, Derrick Peterson posted a paper on his blog about "deleting theology", the narratives surrounding secularism. He provides a fascinating quote from Ian Hunter the gist of which is that the various accounts from religious thinkers or anti-religious ones are not themselves historical accounts or based on empirical histories, but are rather ideologies. Now while I may be sympathetic to this, I can't help but wonder if something like "empirical history" is itself free of "cultural-political agendas", as if there is some historical viewpoint that is free from theological or philosophical conditioning.

In any case, there are many interesting thoughts to be had today.

New Book By Antonie Vos: The Theology of Scotus

Antonie Vos' long promised book is finally out from Brill.

There has been a dearth of new books published on Scotus lately, though not in ancient outdated studies republished by the reprint services, and Vos' volume makes a welcome addition. Thus far, I think the field of research in Scotus' theology has been dominated by Richard Cross, at least in English.

Here's the publisher's blurb, which gives a rough overview of the contents.

In this volume, Antonie Vos offers a comprehensive analysis of the philosophy and theological thought of John Duns Scotus. First, a summary is given of the life and times of John Duns Scotus: his background and years in Oxford (12-80-1301), his time in Paris and Cologne (1308-1309) and his year in exile in Oxford and Cambridge (1303-1304). From there on, Scotus' Trinitarian theology and Christology are introduced. Duns not only embraced the doctrine of the Trinity, he also proved that God must be Trinitarian by connecting the first Person with knowledge to the second One with will. Further insights of Scotus' are discussed, such as the theory of Creation, ethics, justification and predestination, and the sacraments. The volume concludes with an overview of historical dilemmas in Scotus' theological thought.

Pini's Edition of Scotus' Metaphysics

Giorgio Pini has published a critical edition from two manuscripts of a lost commentary on the Metaphysics by John Duns Scotus. I have not seen the text, so it has hard to tell from the publisher's blurb what it is like. But it sounds like a series of notes. It seems to correspond to cross references in Scotus' Quaestiones super Metaphysicam to a literal commentary. Anyway, here is the link to the publisher, and I have pasted the info below:

Corpus Christianorum

Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis (CCCM 287)

Ioannes Duns Scotus
Notabilia super Metaphysicam 

G. Pini (ed.)

LXXII+256 p., 155 x 245 mm, 2017
ISBN: 978-2-503-57785-2
Languages: Latin, English
Hardback
The publication is available.
Retail price: EUR 190,00 excl. tax    

John Duns Scotus’s Notabilia super Metaphysicam comprises a series of remarks on Bks. II–X and XII of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. The extant evidence points to their originally being either marginal notes on Duns Scotus’s own copy of the Metaphysics or scrapbook entries linked to the relevant portions of Aristotle’s text by caption letters. It appears that Duns Scotus kept adding to those notes in the course of his career.

The Notabilia offers a unique perspective on Duns Scotus’s interpretation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. It also contains several original insights on key philosophical issues.

This work disappeared from circulation at Duns Scotus’s death and was consequently thought to have been lost. Several cross-references to and from other writings by Duns Scotus demonstrate both that the Notabilia here edited for the first time is a genuine work by Duns Scotus and that it is his allegedly lost commentary on the Metaphysics.
The current edition is based on the two extant witnesses, manuscript M (Milano, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, C 62 Sup., f. 51ra-98rb), which contains the text in its entirety, and manuscript V (Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 2182, f. 58vb-60ra), which contains Bks. II–IV in what is probably an older stage of the text.

Giorgio Pini (PhD, 1997) is professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, NY. He studied at the Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa, Italy) and was a visiting fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (Toronto), Katholieke Universities Leuven, and All Souls College (Oxford). He has published extensively on later medieval metaphysics and theory of cognition, with a particular focus on the thought of John Duns Scotus.

Scotism Conference, Anyone?

Scotists in the News

Here's a bit of news: a Scotist landed a job! Perhaps we can dare hope that the Scotus edition will be finished one day?