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Thinker profile

John Duns Scotus

Argues for univocity of being, formal distinction, and a strong account of divine and human will.

Dates

c. 1266-1308

Tradition

Franciscan Scholastic

Core profile

Argues for univocity of being, formal distinction, and a strong account of divine and human will.

Concepts to watch

Univocitywillformal distinction

How to study this thinker

  1. 1Start with the basic problem this thinker is trying to solve.
  2. 2Name the concepts Aquinas receives, corrects, or resists.
  3. 3Return to Aquinas and ask how the borrowed insight is reordered.

Aquinas connection

Later challenge

Scotus worries that Aquinas’s analogy of being cannot secure demonstrative knowledge about God.

Possible Thomistic defense

The Thomist answer is that analogy protects both knowledge and transcendence: God is knowable from creatures without being classified inside a shared genus.

Adjacent profiles

Previous thinkerThomas AquinasSynthesizes classical philosophy and Christian theology through act and potency, participation, analogy, natural law, and sacred doctrine.Next thinkerWilliam of OckhamQuestions real universals and limits metaphysical necessity through a sharper appeal to divine freedom.