Here's the argument:
Quaestiones super secundum et tertium de anima, q.21 n.25 (OPh V 218):
"I prove that the concept of being is common univocally to substance and accident: because if not, we would have no concept of substance. For either we would have of substance a concept proper and quidditative and intuitive, or abstractible; not the first, as was proved; therefore a concept abstractible from substance and accident and common to each; but no concept is common to each unless the concept of being; therefore, etc. That however we are not able to know substance in the wayfaring state by a simple and first concept, is clear from this that all our cognition arises from sense; substance however is not per se sensible; and therefore we are not able to know it intuitively or by a simple concept, but by that mode: because from accidents sensible to us we abstract the concept of being, by saying that they are of being, and by inquiring further we find that it is such being which is inhering to another; it is necessary however for that being to be subsistent, and to such a subsisting one we give the name of substance. And therefore so confusedly do we know substance, by joining its subsistence to being, by saying that it is being per se subsisting; we do not however have an intuitive concept of it in the wayfaring state, by which we know it to be this being, except in the aforesaid way, as experience teaches."
Proof that we do not have a proper, quidditative and intuitive concept of substance from n.12:
"But that substance cannot be the first object [of the intellect], I prove: for it is not first according to predication, because it is not predicated essentially of all intelligibiles, because it is not predicated of accidents. Nor [is it the first object] according to power, because it does not sufficiently move the intellect to knowledge of itself and of others. Which is proved so: because this would only be according to a simple and quidditative and intuitive concept; for this to be first is impossible, because whatever our intellect is able to know intuitively through its presence, it is able to know its absence by nature; but our intellect is not able to know by nature the absence of the substance of the bread in the sacrament of the altar, but only by faith--for equally the substance of the bread is known when it is not there, just as when it is there, therefore etc. The major premise is clear by the example and authority of the Philosopher saying that sight is perceptive of light and darkness, which is the absence of light. Minor is declared. Therefore, etc. Since therefore neither God nor the true nor substance is the first object of the intellect, it follows that being is that first object."
Also, with respect to the dating, it is generally believed that in his early works Scotus uses the term "visio" rather than "intuitio", the term common in his later works.
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ReplyDeletePerhaps, you would be interested in reading the chapter Gnosiological position of Duns Scotus, from Mario Ferreira dos Santos's Teoria do Conhecimento(Theory of Knowledge), which I have recently translated into english. Here is the adress:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.daniellourenco.com/2009/05/gnosiological-position-of-duns-scotus.html.
Thank you.