Kenny Anthony. Medieval Philosophy: A New History of Western Philosophy. Volume 2
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‘Necessary’ is not a term that applies to every being: but the disjunction
‘necessary or contingent’ does apply, right across the board (Ord. 3. 207).
Not only did Scotus lay a new emphasis on the necessary–contingent
disjunction, he introduced a fundamentally new notion of contingency.
It was generally believed by scholastics that many matters of fact were
contingent. It is contingent that I am sitting down, because it is possible for
me to stand up—a possibility that I can exemplify by standing up at the
very next moment. Scotus, like other scholastics, accept ed such a possibil-
ity: but he went further and claimed that at the very moment when I am
sitting down there exists a possibility of my standing up at that same
moment. This involves a new, more radical, form of contingency, which
has been aptly named ‘synchronic contingency’ (Lect. 17. 496–7).
Of course, Scotus is not claiming that at one and the same moment I can
be both sitting down and standing up. But he makes a distinction between
‘moments of time’ and ‘moments of nature’. At a single moment of time
there can be more than one moment of nature. At this moment of time
I am sitting down: but at this same moment of time there is another
moment of nature in which I am standing up. Moments of nature are
synchronic possibilities.
Scotus is not talking about mere logical possibility: an instant of nature is
a real possibility that is distinct from mere logical coherence. It is some-
thing that could be possible while the nature of the physical world remains
the same. Synchronic possibilities need not be compatible with each other,
as in the case just discussed; they are possible, a modern philosopher might
say, in diVerent possible worlds, not in the same possible world.
Scotus’ instants of nature are indeed the ancestor of the contemporary
philosophical concept of a possible world. His own account of the origin of
the world sees God as choosing to actualize one among an inWnite number
of possible universes. Later philosophers separated the notion of possible
worlds from the notion of creation, and began to take the word ‘world’ in a
more abstract way, so that any totality of compossible situations constitutes
a possible world. This abstract notion then came to be used as a means of
explicating every kind of power and possibility. Credit for the introduction
of the notion is often given to Leibniz, but, for better or worse, it belongs to
Scotus.
The introduction of the notion of synchronic contingency involves a
radical refashioning of the Aristotelian concepts of potentiality and actual-
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ity. For Scotus, unlike Aristotle or Aquinas, but like Avicenna, non-existent
items can possess a potentiality to exist: a potentiality that Scotus calls
objective potentiality, to contrast it with the Aristotelian potentiality, which
he calls subjective potentiality.
There are two ways in which something can be called a being in potentiality. In
one way it is the terminus of a power, that to which the power is directed—and
this is called being in potentiality objectively. Thus Antichrist is now said to be in
potentiality, and other things can be said to be in potentiality such as a whiteness
that is to be brought into existence. In the other way something is said to be in
potentiality as the subject of the power, or that in which the power inheres. In that
way something is said to be in potentiality subjectively, because it is in potentiality
to something but is not yet perfected by it (like a surface that is about to be
whitened). (Lect. 19. 80)
Non-existent items, Scotus explains, are individuated by their objective
potentiality: non-existent A diVers from non-existent B because if and
when they do exist A and B diVer from each other.
Other terms of the Aristotelian metaphysical arsenal are likewise re-
interpreted. The relationship between matter and form, for instance, is
expounded by Scotus in a novel way. For Aristotle, matter was a funda-
mental item in the analysis of substantial change. Substantial change is
the kind of change exempliWed when one element changes into another—
e.g. water into steam (air)—or a living being comes into or goes out of
existence—e.g. when a dog dies and its corpse decays. When a substance
of one kind changes into one or more substances of another kind, there
is, for Aristotle, a form that det ermines the nature of the substance
that precedes the change, and a diVerent form or forms determining the
nature of the substance(s) subsequent to the change. The element that
remains constant throughout the change is matter: matter, as such, is
not one kind of substance rather than another, and has, as such, no
properties. While form determines what kind of thing a substance is, it is
matter that determines which thing of that kind a substance is. Matter is the
principle of individuation, and form, we might say, is the principle of
speciWcation.
Scotus rejects both the notion of matter lacking properties and the
thesis that matter is the principle of individuation. Matter, according to
him, has properties such as quantity, and further, prior to such properties,
it has an essence of its own, even if it is virtually impossible for human
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beings to know what this essence is (Lect. 19. 101). Matter, indeed, can exist
without any form at all. Matter and form are really distinct, and it is well
within the power of God to create and conserve both immaterial form and
formless matter, each of them individuated in their own right.
Actual material substances are composed of both matter and form: here
Scotus agrees with Aristotle and Aquinas. Socrates, for instance, is a human
individual, composed of individual matter and an individual form of
humanity. Scotus gives a novel account, however, of the way in which
the individual substance and its matter and form are themselves individu-
ated. For Aquinas, the form of humanity is an individual form because it is
the human form of Socrates, and Socrates is individuated by his matter,
which in turn is individuated by being designated, or marked oV as a
particular parcel of matter (materia signata). For Scotus, on the other hand,
the form is an individual in its own right, independently of the matter of
Socrates and the substance Socrates (Ord. 7. 483).
What individuates Socrates is neither his matter nor his form but a third
thing, which is sometimes called his haecceitas, or thisness. In each thing,
Scotus tells us, there is an entitas individualis. ‘This entity is neither matter nor
form nor the composite thing, in so far as any of these is a nature; but it is
the ultimate reality of the being which is matter or form or a composite
thing’ (Ord. 7. 393).
According to Aristotelian orthodoxy, forms themselves neither come
into existence nor go out of existence: it is substances, not forms, that are
the subjects of generation and corruption. Strictly speaking we should say
not that the wisdom of Socrates comes into existence: that is only a
complicated way of saying that Socrates becomes wise. With regard to
the independently individuated substantial forms, in Scotus’ system, by
contrast, one can raise the question how they come into existence, and
whether they come out of nothing. Are they created, or do they evolve
from something pre-existing? Scotus rejects both these options. Forms do
not evolve from embryonic forms, or rationes seminales, as Augusti ne,
followed by Bonaventure, had thought. Postulating such entities does
not answer the question of the origin of forms, since the question would
simply rearise concerning whatever is the new element that distinguishes a
fully Xedged form from an e mbryonic one. On the other hand, we do not
want to say that forms are created; but we can avoid saying that if we
redeWne ‘creation’ not as bringing something into existence out of nothing,
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but as bringing something into existence in the absence of any precondition
(Lect. 19. 174).
Aquinas had maintained that in all material substances, including
human beings, there was only a single substantial form. Scotus denied
this: and in this denial he had, for once, the majority of medieval scholas-
tics on his side. He agreed with Aquinas that non-living entities had only a
single substantial form: a chemical compound did not retain the forms of
the elements of which they were composed. But living bodies—plants,
animals, and humans—possessed, in addition to the speciWc forms
belonging to their kinds, a common form of corporeality that made
them all bodies. He argued for this on the basis that a human body
immediately after death is the same body as it was immediately before
death, even though it is no longer an ensouled human being. Similar
considerations hold with regard to animals and plants.
Though Scotus held that the so ul is not the only substantial form of
humans, he did not, like some of his predecessors, believe that there were
three diVerent souls coexisting in each human being, an intellectual,
sensitive, and vegetative soul. If there were any forms in human beings
other than the soul and the form of corporeality, they were forms of
individual human organs—a possibility that Scotus once considered.7 But
in addition to the matter and the forms in a substance there is another item
which is neither matter nor form, the haecceity that makes it the individ-
ual it is. For the individuality of the matter and the individuality of the
form are between them not suYcient to individuate the composite sub-
stance (Lect. 17. 500).
How do all these items—matter, forms, haecceity—Wt together in the
concrete material substance? It is wrong to think of a material substance as
being an aggregate of which all these items are parts; for the parts could, on
Scotus’ account, all exist separately. Moreover, the whole substance has
properties that are diVerent from any of the properties of the parts listed:
for instance, the property of being a uniWed whole. In addition to those
parts, Scotus believed, we had to add an extra item: the relationship
between them—something which he is prepared to look on as yet another
part. But even after we have added this, we have to say that an individual
7 See R. Cross, The Physics of Duns Scotus: The ScientiWc Context of a Theological Vision (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1998), 68.
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material substance is an independent entity distinct from its matter, forms,
and relations (or any pair or triple of these items) (Oxon. 3. 2. 2 n. 8).
How are these diVerent entities—the whole and its several parts—
distinguished from each other? Scotus maintains that there is a real
distinction between the substance and its matter and form and the rela-
tionship between them. By saying that these items are really distinct he
means that it is at least logically possible for any of them to exist without
any of the others. He adds, for good measure, that if we say that the essence
or quiddity of a substance equals its matter plus its form, we must say that
the essence, no less than the substance itself, is really distinct from its
components.
What is the relation, we may ask, between the essence and the haecce-
ity—are these, too, really distinct from each other? In an individual such as
Socrates we have, according to Scotus, both a common human nature and
an individuating principle. The human nature is a real thing that is
common to both Socrates and Plato; if it were not real, Socrates would
not be any more like Plato than he is like a line scratched on a blackboard.
Equally, the individuating principle must be a real thing, otherwise Socra-
tes and Plato would be identical. The nature and the individuating
principle must be united to each other, and neither can exist in reality
apart from each other: we cannot encounter in the world a human nature
that is not anyone’s nature, nor can we meet an individual that is not an
individual of some kind or other. Yet we cannot identify the nature with
the haecceitas: if the nature of donkey were identical with the thisness of
the donkey Brownie, then every donkey would be Brownie.
To solve this enigma, Scotus introduces a new complication. Any
created essence, he says, has two features: replicability and individuality.
My essence as a human being is replicable: there can be, and are, other
human beings, essentially the same as myself. But it is also individual: it is
my essence, because it includes an individuating haecceity. The distinction
(Ord. 2. 345–6) between the essence and the haecceity is not a real distinc-
tion, but it is not a mere Wction or creation of the mind. It is, Scotus says, a
special kind of formal distinction, a distinctio formalis a parte rei, a formal
distinction ‘on the side of reality’. The essence and the haecceity are not
really distinct, in the way in which Socrates and Plato are distinct, or in the
way in which my two hands are distinct. Nor are they merely distinct in
thought, as Socrates and the teacher of Plato are. Prior to any thought
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about them, they are, he says, formally distinct: they are two distinct
formalities in the same thing. It is not clear to me, as it was not to many
of Scotus’ successors, how the introduction of this terminology clariWes the
problem it was meant to solve. One of the problems about understanding
exactly how Scotus meant his distinction to be understood is that the
illustrations he gives of its meaning, and the contexts in which he applies it,
are all themselves drawn from areas of great obscurity: the relationships
between the diVerent divine attributes, and the distinction between the
vegetative, sensitive, and rational souls in human beings.
Ockham’s Reductive Programme
William Ockham was one of the Wrst to reject Scotus’ formal distinction on
the side of reality. He arg ued.
Where there is a distinction or non-identity, there must be some contradictories
true of the items in question. But it is impossible that contradictories can be true of
any items unless they—or the items for which they supposit—are distinct things,
or distinct concepts, or distinct entia rationis , or a thing and a concept. But if the
distinction is from the nature of things, then they are not distinct concepts, nor a
pair of a thing plus a concept: therefore they are distinct things. (OTh. 2. 14)
But this assumes that the only candidates for being the terms of a distinc-
tion are (a) things, (b) entia rationis,(c) concepts. This begs the question
against Scotus, who accepted a much less restricted ontology. But the
move is characteristic of Ockham’s reductionist drive.
‘Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem’—‘Entities are not
to be multiplied beyond necessity.’ This is the famous ‘Ockham’s razor’,
designed to shave oV philosophers’ superXuous woolliness. The remark is
not, in fact, to be found in his survivin g writings.8 He did say similar things
such as ‘it is futile to do with many what can be done with few’ and
‘plurality is not to be assumed without necessity’, but he was not the Wrst
person to make such remarks. However, the slogan does sum up his
reductionist attitude towards the technical philosophical developments
of his predecessors.
8 It seems to have been attributed to him Wrst in a footnote to the Wadding edition of Scotus
in 1639.
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One of the Wrst superXuous entities to be subjected to the razor are
Scotus’ haecceities, or individuating principles. Scotus had argued that in
addition to the human nature of Socrates there must be something to
make it this nature; because if his human nature were itself this, then every
human nature would be this, that is to say would be the nature of Socrates.
Ockham believed neither in the common nature nor in the individuating
principle. All that exists in reality are individuals, and they just are
individual—they need no extra principle to individuate them. It is not
individuality, but universality, that needs explaining—indeed, explaining
away.
But Ockham’s nominalism is only part of his programme of metaphys-
ical deXation. In addition to universals, Ockham wanted to shave oV large
classes of individuals. For his medieval predecessors there were individuals
in every category—not only individual substances like Socrates and
Brownie the donkey, but individual accidents of many kinds, such as
Brownie’s whereabouts and Socrates’ relationship to Plato. Ockham re-
duced the ten Aristotelian categories to two. Only substances and qualities
were real.
Belief in individuals of ot her kinds, Ockham maintained, was due to a
naive assumption that to every word there corresponded an entity in the
world (OTh. 9. 565). This was what led people to invent ‘when-nesses’ and
‘wherenesses’—they might as well, he says, have invented also ‘andnesses’
and ‘butnesses’. Medieval philosophers did not, in fact, have a great deal
invested in some of the later categories of the Aristotelian catalogue. What
was serious in Ockham’s innovation was the denial of the reality of the
categories of quantity and of relation.
Ockham was not denying the distinction between the diVerent categor-
ies: what he was denying was that the distinction was more than a
conceptual one.
Substance, quality and quantity are distinct categories, even though they do not
signify an absolute reality distinct from substance and quality, because they are
distinct concepts and words signifying the same things but in a di Verent manner.
They are not synonymous names, because ‘substance’ signiWes all the things it
signiWes in one manner of signifying, namely directly; ‘quantity’ signiWes the same
things but in a diVerent manner of signifying, signifying substance directly and its
parts obliquely; for it signiWes a whole substance and connotes that it has parts
distant from other parts. (OTh. 9. 436)
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Ockham’s principal philosophical argument against the reality of quan-
tity is derived from the phenomena of expansion and contraction, rarefac-
tion and condensation. If a piece of metal is heated and expands from being
80 cm long to being 90 cm long, then, on the theory he is attacking, it
changes from possessing an accident of 80-cm-longhood to possessing
another accident of 90-cm-longhood. Ockham argues that it is diYcult
to give a convincing account of where the second accident has come from,
and what has become of the Wrst accident. Moreover, if the change is a
continuous one, so that the metal has expanded through lengths of 81 cm
to 82 cm and so on, then there will be an inWnite number of Xeeting
accidents coming into and going out of existence. This, Ockham claims,
strains our credulity. The local motion by which one part moves away
from another part is quite suYcient to explain such phenomena. Accord-
ingly, real accidents of quanti ty are quite superXuous, and should be
eliminated from philosophical consideration.
One might think that similar considerations might be used to show that
qualities, too, were not real accidents. Aristotle had listed four kinds of
quality: (a) dispositions like virtue and health, (b) inborn capacities, (c)
sensory properties like colour, taste, heat, (d) shapes. Ockham was willing
to eliminate some of the qualities in the Wrst class, like health and beauty,
and he applied his razor very explicitly to qualities in the fourth class.
When a proposition is true of reality, if one thing is suYcient to make it true, it is
superXuous to posit two. But propositions like ‘this substance is square’ ‘this
substance is round’ are true of reality; and a substance disposed in such and
such a way is quite suYcient for its truth. If the parts of a substance are laid out
along straight lines and are not moved locally and do not grow or shrink, then it is
contradictory that it should be Wrst square and then round. So squareness and
roundness add nothing to a substance and its parts. (OTh. 9. 707)
But he maintained that other qualities, notably colour, were diVerent.
It is impossible for something to pass from one contradictory to another without
gaining or losing something real, in cases where this is not accounted for by the
passage of time or by change of place. But a man is Wrst non-white, and afterwards
white, and this change is not accounted for by change of place or the passage of
time. Therefore, the whiteness is really distinct from the man. (OTh. 9. 706)
One might think, however, that a gradual change of colour was quite
parallel to a gradual change of size: the implausibility of an inWnite series of
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Xeeting accidents can be urged in this case too. What makes the diVerence
between the two cases, for Ockham, seems to be simply whether local
motion can be called in to explain the change to be explained.
Ockham’s arguments on the topic of relations are more powerful than
his arguments against real quantity. If a relation were a real entity distinct
from the terms of the relation, it would be capable of existing even if the
terms were not. Suppose Socrates is the father of Plato, and Plato is the son
of Socrates. Then there is a relation of paternity between Socrates and Plato.
It is absurd to say either that this relation could exist without Socrates ever
having begotten Plato, or that, Socrates having begotten Plato, God could
remove from Socrates the relation of paternity (OTh. 4. 368).
After the heyday of scholasticism, Augustine’s inXuence revived in the later middle
ages. Here in a fresco in the upper church in Assisi he is shown dictating to a
Dominican friar.
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The relation of likeness is an important one for Ockham, because of its
connection with real qualities: everything that has a certain real quality P is
like everything else that has that quality. A white wall is like every other
white wall. A painter who paints a wall white in Rome makes it like each of
the white walls in London. But if the relation of likeness was a real thing,
then the painter in Rome would be bringing into existence numerous
entities in London. Indeed if God made a thousand worlds and an agent
produced whiteness in one of them, he would produce likenesses in each
one of them (OTh. 1. 291, 9. 614). What is true of likeness is true of position.
If I move my Wnger, its position is changed in relation to everything else in
the world. If relations of position are real things, then by moving my Wnger
I create a gigantic number of converse relations throughout the universe.
Ockham is not saying that a relation is identical with its foundation. ‘I do
not say that a relation is really the same as its foundation ; but I say that a
relation is not the foundation but only an intention or concept in the soul,
signifying several absolute things’ (Ord. 1. 301). Relative terms signify the
absolute things that are the bearers of the relation, but they are connota-
tive terms that signify one term of the relation, connote the other, and
connote the way in which the two exist. Thus, when we say that A is next
to B, we are not talking about a real entity of ‘nextness’; we are signifying A,
connoting B, and saying that there is nothing getting in the way between
them (OTh. 4. 285, 312).
This, Ockham says, is what natural reason teaches: that there are no
such entities as relations. But, rather ignominiously, he is prepared to
accept the existence of such relations in certain cases because he believes
that certain Christian doct rines—the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Euchar-
ist—demand the existence of such relations. This naturally led to the
suspicion that he was a proponent of a double truth: that something
could be true in theology that was false in philosophy.
Wyclif and Determi nism
In the generation after Ockham, as we have seen, there was a reaction
against his nominalism and his general reductive programme. In Oxford
this took the form of a revival of Augustinianism, which in turn led to a
renewed interest in problems of predestination and determinism. John
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