The Metaphysics of John Duns Scotus :: Philosophy Philosophical Papers

The Metaphysics of John Duns Scotus The ecclesiastical condemnation of Aristoteleanism and Arabian doctrine in 1277, which included some of the theses of Thomas Aquinas, had a profound find on the subsequent development of medieval philosophy. Of course, opposition to Greco-Arabian philosophy was zippo new in the 13th century. Its opening decades had seen the newly translated work of Aristotle and ibn-Roshd forbidden yet their vogue spread, and in the years that followed a propitiation was attempted, with varied success, between Christian dogma and the new learning. The heresy of Latin Averroism as the terminus of the century only confirmed the suspicion of the traditionalist theologians that any Christian who accepted the credentials of Aristoteleanism must arrive at conclusions contrary to faith. The commodious condemnation of 1277 expressed their renewed reaction to Aristotle and left an even deeper event on subsequent scholars of the inadequacy of philosophy and pure human reason, in the name of theology. If, as had been claimed, the 14th century is a period of criticism, it is in a higher place all, a period of criticism, in the name of theology, of philosophy and the pretensions of pure reason. The post of Duns Scotus (1266-1308) of the Franciscan Order, towards Aristotle and philosophy in general is seen in his Object of benevolent Knowledge. According to Aristotle, the human cause is naturally turned towards sensible things from the stylus is must draw all its knowledge by centering of sensory faculty and abstraction. As a consequence, the proper object of knowledge is the essence of a material thing. Now, Duns Scotus was willing to agree that Aristotle correctly described our present way of knowing, entirely he did contest that he had said the last script on the subject and that he had sufficiently explained what is in full proper(ip) the object of our knowledge. Ignorant of Revelation, Aristotle did not realise that Man is now in a fal len state and that he was describing the knowledge, not of an integral Man, but one whose mode of knowing was radically altered by accredited sin. Ignorance of this fact is understandable in Aristotle, but it must have seemed unwarrantable in a Christian theologian like Thomas Aquinas. The Christian, Scotus argues, cannot comprise Mans state as his natural one, nor, as a consequence, the present servitude of his intellect to the senses and sensible things as natural to him. We know from Revelation that Man is ordain to see God face-to-face.