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DUNS SCOTUS FACING REALITY: BETWEEN ABSOLUTE CONTINGENCY AND UNQUESTIONABLE CONSISTENCY
Author(s) -
PERRIER EMMANUEL
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
modern theology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.144
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1468-0025
pISSN - 0266-7177
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0025.2005.00302.x
Subject(s) - philosophy , metaphysics , certainty , contingency , epistemology , doctrine , consistency (knowledge bases) , identity (music) , absolute (philosophy) , task (project management) , theology , aesthetics , computer science , management , economics , artificial intelligence
Building on Catherine Pickstock’s paper, “Duns Scotus: His Historical and Contemporary Significance”, the aim of this essay is to highlight in Scotus’ theology the roots of the doctrine of univocity of being. To hold univocity in philosophy is indeed not so evident until one receives from a higher science the confidence that (1) knowing the origin of things and knowing what things are, are intrinsically different questions, and the certainty that (2) the real is self‐consistent, the central implication of which is that the law of identity is the primary basis of metaphysics. Duns Scotus assigned a new task to philosophy, diverting it from the questions that had occupied it since its origin: namely, the task of describing quiddities. This development led somewhat to the current post‐modern crisis in philosophy.