John Duns Scotus (1266-1308)
Reading: Ordinatio II d.3, part 1, qq.1-6

We know very little about John Duns Scotus. Really his name is John of Duns the Scot, so you should look for him under "J" in the encyclopedia, but he is normally listed under "D". He was Scotish, he studied and lectured in Oxford, and he was a Master of Theology in Paris. This is very significant because in 1277 was the famous condemnation various Aristotelian doctrines. Bishop Stephen Tempier was behind the condemnation, and it did affect many theologians at the time, and for a long time after. There were three specific things condemned that are relevant to the problem of universals, especially as it occurs in Scotus and Ockham. The following claims were condemned.

Article 81: That God is not able to make a plurality of species of intelligence because it does not have matter.
Article 96: That God is not able to multiply individuals under one species without matter.
Article 191: That form does not receive division except through matter.

This was intended to liberate theology from relying too much upon Aristotle. A very important text that theologians relied upon was this one from Aristotle's Metaphysics (vii.8.1034a3-8):

Evidently, then, there is no need to set up a form as a paradeigma. For if we sought such forms anywhere, it would be in natural generation, since natural things are substances most of all; but in fact the generator is sufficient to produce the thing and to be the cause of the form in the matter. And the whole - this sort of form in this flesh and bones - is Callias or Socrates; and they differ because of matter, since their matter is different, but they are the same in form, since the form is indivisible.

This seems to violate all three of the above articles. This is a problem, since many theologians relied on this passage in their theology. For example, here is St. Thomas Aquinas' answer to the question of whether the angels differ in species.

Summa Theologiae Ia q.50a.4
I answer that, Some have said that all spiritual substances, even souls, are of the one species. Others, again, that all the angels are of the one species, but not souls; while others allege that all the angels of one hierarchy, or even of one order, are of the one species.
But this is impossible. For such things as agree in species but differ in number, agree in form, but are distinguished materially. If, therefore, the angels be not composed of matter and form, as was said above (a.2), it follows that it is impossible for two angels to be of one species; just as it would be impossible for there to be several whitenesses apart, or several humanities, since whitenesses are not several, except in so far as they are in several substances. And if the angels had matter, not even then could there be several angels of one species. For it would be necessary for matter to be the principle of distinction of one from the other, not, indeed according to the division of quantity, since they are incorporeal, but according to the diversity of their powers; and such diversity of matter causes diversity not merely of species, but of genus.

Here Aquinas argues that each angel must be its own separate and distinct species. What individuates different members of the same species is their matter, and since angels don't have matter, they cannot be individuated by matter. That would mean that either there is only one angel, or else angels are individuated by their form, rather than their matter. But a distinction in form makes a distinction in species. Hence, each angel is a separate and distinct species. Or, in other words, God is not able to make many angels of the same species, since angels have no matter. Aquinas' view seems to rely on 96 & 191.

This condemnation sends theologians scurrying around to find another way to individuate angels. Scotus finds a way. Scotus distinguishes a thing's quiddity from its haecceity, its "what-ness" from its "this-ness." Neither are material; and so this theory will account for the many individual humans of the same species, and it will also account for the many individual angels of the same species. In the Ordinatio, the 6 questions we have all lead up to question 7 which is the question of whether or not there can be many immaterial angels who are members of the same species.

Scotus builds this up by a process of elimination. He begins by rejecting nominalism, and then he continues by rejecting various realist proposals which narrow in on his own proposal. Here is the progress he makes.

Q1: Not all things are individuals (some universals exist), hence there is something that makes an individual the individual that it is (i.e. there is a principle of individuation).
Q2: The principle of individuation cannot be purely negative, so it must be something positive.
Q3: The principle of individuation cannot be mere positive existence, so it must be something more.
Q4: The principle of individuation cannot be positive existence as a quantity, so it must be something more.
Q5: The principle of individuation cannot be positive existence as a quantity of matter, so it must be something else.
Q6: The principle of individuation is positive existence as the numerically one thing which one happens to be.

Scotus' answer appeals to haecceity. Unfortunately it is not exactly clear what my haecceity is. We'll have to see what clues we get as we go through 5 questions which are supposed to lead us to haecceity.

This section is a bit complicated, primarily because it has a back-and-forth structure. Here is a brief outline.

Defense of Nominalism (5-6)
Argument against Nominalism (7-10)
Argument in favor of Realism (11-28)
Scotus' Answer to the Main Question (29-34)
Objections to Scotus' Answer (35-36)
Scotus' Replies to the Objections (37-40)

After all this, Scotus summarizes his answer to the main question. I will skip Scotus' answer to the main question (i.e. (29-34)).

First, let's look at the nominalism that is given as the reply to the first question. The "previous theory" in (5) says that we don't need to look

for any other cause of singularity than the cause of nature, as if a nature is a nature before it is singular, and only then is contracted by something added on to it so that it becomes singular.

This is very much like the nominalism that Abelard accepted. The idea is that everything is already an individual, a particular, so there is no need to look for some explanation for particularity: everything is a particular, there are no universals that somehow (e.g. by become a form/matter compound) become particular. That is why, in (6), the proponent of this "previous theory" says that

universality does not belong to a thing except according to its being in a certain respect - namely, in the soul - whereas singularity belongs to a thing according to its true being, and so belongs to it from itself and absolutely.

The only thing in need of explaining is universality, and that must appeal to something in the soul: all universals are mind-dependent, i.e. unreal. So they have to be words, or concepts or resemblances that the soul notices, and so on.

Basically, Scotus sees two problems with nominalism. The first problem is in (7) and the second problem is in (8-10). The first problem begins with the claim that "an object, insofar as it is an object, is naturally prior to the act itself." Let's take this in two steps.

First, what is an object qua object. The glossary helps here (p.233). "Object" does not mean "thing," as in "the movers had to lift several very heavy objects." However, the idea is related. Etymologically, the word "object" comes from Latin "obicere" meaning "to place before." Literally, and "object" is something placed before your attention, e.g. your sight. Think of it this way: your eyes all work, they are capable of seeing, but they can actually see only if there is something there to be seen. If there were literally nothing before your eyes, you would see literally nothing, i.e. you wouldn't be seeing anything, you wouldn't be seeing at all. A visible thing is the "object" of sight; a hear-able thing is the "object" of hearing, and so on. Your senses all have the potentiality to be sensing, but they cannot actualize those potentialities unless and until there is some sensible "object" placed in their range. This is what Scotus is saying in the sentence I quoted.

So the crucial question now is this: what exactly do you see, when you see an object? When you actualize your capacity for seeing, when your potentiality for seeing achieves its "objective," what precisely is it that you see? Actually, Scotus here focuses not on any particular sense modality, but on the act of understanding, especially scientific understanding, or knowledge. When you know an object, what do you know? Answer: you don't just know a thing, you know a "this" or what Aristotle sometimes calls a "this-such." If you are to know Fafnir, you have to know him as a cat, qua cat, where the word "cat" names the universal felinity.

Why? Imagine a case where you see a cat, but you don't see it qua cat. You are walking a night through a suburban neighborhood, and you see some small, dark thing moving across the street. It could be a cat, it could be a small dog, it could be a big rat, or a small racoon, or a skunk, or an opossum, or a capybara. You don't understand or know it if you don't know which of these things it is. This makes a huge difference because if it turns out to be a skunk, then you will have to behave in one way towards it which wouldn't be necessary if it is only a cat.

This is a familiar point to the medievals because it comes out right in the first chapter of the first book of Aristotle's Metaphysics (i.1 981a5-30).

A craft arises when many thoughts that arise from experience result in one universal view about similar things. For the view that in this illness this treatment benefitted Callias, Socrates, and others, in many particular cases, is characteristic of experience, but the view that it benefitted everyone of a certain sort (marked out by a single kind) suffering from a certain disease (for instance, phlegmatic or bilious people when burning with fever) is characteristic of craft...

Nevertheless, we attribute knowing and comprehending to craft more than to experience, and we suppose that craftsmen are wiser than experienced people, on the assumption that in every case knowledge, rather than experience, implies wisdom. This is because craftsmen know the cause, but [merely] experienced people do not; for [merely] experienced people know the fact that something is so but not the reason why it is so, whereas craftsmen know the reason why, i.e. the cause.

Aristotle contrasts people who have experienced this drug healing Callias, then healing Socrates, then healing Plato, but can't explain why it healed them, and so on, with people who actually know why this drug will heal any person suffering from a certain kind of condition, e.g. biliousness. The person with knowledge is wiser than the person with experience, even if the person with knowledge has never actually witnessed the cure work on any particular individual. Now, don't get confused here, he is not talking about some arm-chair theorist who is just full of hot air, who has some crackpot theory about how to cure people. He is talking about a real, genuine medical doctor who really does know his stuff.

Now back to Scotus' argument. If knowing something requires knowing it qua the sort of thing it is, and if nominalism were actually true, then when you know something, you would be knowing it as something it is not, i.e. as an instantiation of a real universal. Hence all knowledge would be false. Nominalism destroys the possibility of knowledge.

The second problem with nominalism comes quickly in (8). Very simply put, if nominalism were true, then realism would be false, but realism is true, hence nominalism is false. Obviously this argument is stupid, if it just hangs here by itself. Of course Scotus doesn't just let it sit here by itself, he defends it at length, and well look at some of the arguments now. But I pause here to point out one important point. Scotus talks about a "unity less than numerical unity." This is one way to describe real universals, but let me explain why he chooses it.

Numerical identity is simply being one as opposed to being more than one. Suppose Socrates is both the soldier who saved Alcibiades' life, and he is also the philosopher who taught Plato. We can say that the soldier who saved Alcibiades' life is numerically identical to the philosopher who taught Plato, and by that we mean that the soldier and the philosopher are one and the same. The primary thing with which numerical identity is incompatible is multiplicity.

But there is a kind of unity that is not entirely incompatible with multiplicity. Think of a bunch of coins. All the pennies share a kind of unity that they don't share with the nickels: all the pennies were all stamped out of the same material with the same pattern. The sort of unity all the pennies have is less opposed to being multiplied than the sort of unity that the philosopher who taught Plato shares with the soldier who saved Alcibiades' life.

Resistance to multiplicity comes in degrees. Pennies resist multiplicity less than Socrates resists multiplicity; but coins in general resist multiplicity even less than pennies in particular resist multiplicity. The multiplicity of coins in general is greater than the multiplicity of pennies in particular. And so on. So by looking for a "unity less than numerical unity," Scotus is looking for real universals. But now he has to argue for their existence, and that's what he does next.

The first argument Scotus gives in favor of real universals is extremely important, and it affects his entire discussion of the problem of universals. He begins (11) with a quote from Aristotle (Metaphysics x.1.1052b18): "In every genus there is something one and primary that is the metric and measure of all that are in that genus." In slogan form, the argument is this: unity requires universality.

Think of this argument as an ad hominem argument against the nominalist. [Or you might think of it as a transcendental argument from our experience of individuals to the necessity of universals]. The nominalist claims that all that exists are particulars. Hence, the nominalist is committed to the view that there exist singular unities, there are things that count as being just one. The first question the realist asks is, "One what?" If there is one thing there, the realist wants to know what it is, "Quid est?" in Latin. The realist immediately asks for the quiddity of the thing.

The nominalist says that she doesn't have to answer that question. A thing's quiddity is logically posterior to its unity, its singularity, its particularity. But then, the realist asks, how do you know that you have just one? If you can't answer the "One what?" question, then you can't answer the "How many?" question. It might be actually two, or it might actually be ½.

As a first example, look at this table. It is just one particular. But how do I know that? Couldn't you be underestimating the number of things you have here? Couldn't it actually be not just one particular, couldn't it actually be five, i.e. the top is one thing, and each of the four legs are separate things. When you see this table and say that it is one particular, you can identify it as one only by appealing to the universal table, or the "concept" of a table.

Alternatively, if you see the top as being only ½ of the one thing, you might be overestimating the number of things you have here. If you think that the top and the legs are one thing, why can't the true one thing be the table plus the floor it sits on, especially if it is a table that is bolted to the floor. The one thing turns out to be much larger than we thought.

In order for things to be numerically unified, they have to be numerically unified as something. Universals are like cookie-cutters: if the dough weren't chopped up by the cookie-cutters, all you'd have would be just mush; but we don't see just mush in the world, so things must be chopped up by the cookie-cutters of real universals.

But the examples I have been giving so far are examples Scotus would not like. Look at (28), where Scotus gives the sort of example he has in mind. He says that "even if no intellect existed, fire would still generate fire and destroy water." Go back to Aristotle's Metaphysics (vii.8.1034a3-8):

the generator is sufficient to produce the thing and to be the cause of the form in the matter. And the whole - this sort of form in this flesh and bones - is Callias or Socrates; and they differ because of matter, since their matter is different, but they are the same in form, since the form is indivisible.

When two human beings reproduce, what they reproduce is another human being. When two frogs reproduce, what they reproduce is another frog. Even if no human being is there to see it, frogs reproduce other frogs. In the very nature of things, there are processes for stamping out duplicates, like coins from a mint. The offspring are not frogs because we classify them as frogs, rather, we classify them as frogs because that's what they are. It didn't have to be this way, but in fact that is just how the world works. In fact, in the 5^th century in Athens, Empedocles actually believed that at one time the world didn't work this way. He says that "many creatures came to be with faces and breasts on both sided, man-faced ox-progeny, and ox-faced man-progeny, creatures which were part male and part female." In another place he says, "In one place sprang up faces without necks, arms wandered about without shoulders, completely unattached, eyes rolled about without any forehead." In such a world, there truly would be no real universals. The important thing to notice is that our world isn't that world. Our world is one with real cookie-cutters that stamp out multiple individuals of the same sort.

Notice that this addresses one of Abelard's objections to realism. According to Abelard, particulars are prior to universals, but Scotus has just argued that universals are prior to particulars. We don't have to wait around until Adam and Eve arrive and start naming things in order to have universals (either words or concepts). Even before there were people who named things, or who had concepts of things, there were real groupings, because even before people existed, frogs gave birth to frogs, cats to cats and so on. A biological species, identified by the ability to reproduce, is genuine unity in genuine multiplicity, it is a kind of unity which is not entirely opposed to replication, to multiplicity, i.e. it is a unity which is less than numerical unity.

The next argument I want to look at has to do with the flip side of unity, i.e. diversity. Scotus gives this argument in a very tidy way as follows.

If every diversity is numerical diversity, then all things would be equally diverse.
Not all things are equally diverse.
Not every diversity is numerical diversity.
If every unity is numerical unity, then every diversity is numerical diversity.
Not every unity is numerical unity.

This argument is perfectly valid (1-3 MT, 3-5 MT), and premises 1 and 4 seem unassailable, and in fact they seem to be things important to a nominalist. The crucial premise, then is 2. Scotus defends it by comparing Socrates with Plato, on the one hand, and with a line, on the other hand. This is a bit extreme, so let me give somewhat less extreme examples. Start with a chimpanzee. Here is Lana, a chimpanzee whom these scientists are teaching to talk using a set of symbols. Over there is Sherman, another chimpanzee whom the scientists are also working with. And finally, way over there is Kanzi, a bonobo whom the scientists are also working with. Sherman and Lana are diverse from one another, but they are both chimpanzees. Lana is also diverse from Kanzi, but even more diverse, because while Lana is a chimpanzee, Kanzi is a bonobo, a separate species. Lana is also diverse from Gifford the gibbon, but even more diverse because gibbons are a different family. Lana is also diverse from Roger the rat, Tweetie the bird, Flanders the fly and Rosey the rose in ever increasing degrees of diversity. Only a very small amount of what you know about Rosey is applicable to Lana; a bit more of what you know about Flanders is applicable to Lana, and so on.

Think of this medically. Suppose you are suffering from some disease, and doctors want to try a new drug on you. You ask if it is safe and they reply that they tried it out on 100 flies, and none of them died. That might reassure you, but you'd probably be a lot more reassured if they said they had tried it out on 100 human beings and none of them died. In fact, you might even be more reassured if they said they tried it out on 100 chimpanzees, bonobos or orangutans than if they just tried it out on some flies. Other primates are simply less diverse from us than are flies.

Just to underscore this, look at the last sentence of (23). These degrees of diversity are objective, or mind-independent. They are discovered by the mind, not invented by the mind. It is true in the nature of things that all chimpanzees are more diverse from all bonobos than they are from all orangutans. If this is true, then nominalism has to be false.

So far Scotus has defended the reality of the Porphyrian tree. Next he moves on to develop one of the things for which his philosophy is most distinctive, one of his important contributions to metaphysics: haecceity. To begin, look at how he couches the issue in (48). In the second and third paragraphs he talks about "something indivisible into subjective parts." Unfortunately your glossary isn't much help to you on this concept. "Subjective" parts are distinguished from "integral" parts. This table has integral parts because it has components that together go into making up the table. I have integral parts because I have hands, feet, lungs, and so on. However, neither I nor the table has "subjective" parts. "Subjective" parts are parts that are all "subjects" in the Aristotelian sense: they are underlying substances, or ontologically basic entities. If I had subjective parts, that would mean that you could divide me up into several me's. But that's crazy. Chop me up and you just get pieces of meat.

The only things that have "subjective" parts are universals. You can't chop me up and get diverse subjects, but you can chop up the universal Human and get diverse subjects. Well, "chop" isn't the right words. Universals aren't the sorts of things that can be chopped. However, universals can exist in more than one distinct total location at the same time, and when they do, it is because they are "said of" diverse particulars. The universal Human is wholly in me and wholly in you simultaneously, i.e. it is divided into distinct subjects, and so it has subjective parts. All universals are necessarily like this.

Take it from the top. Animal has subjective parts, e.g. Chordate and Arthropod. Chordate has subjective parts, e.g. Mammal and Bird. Mammal has subjective parts, e.g. Primate and Rodent. Primate has subjective parts, e.g. Pongidae and Hylobatidae. Pongidae has subjective parts, e.g. Pan and Pongo. Pan has subjective parts, e.g. troglodytes and paniscus. But that's where it stops. Go down to the subjective parts of Pan troglodytes and you find, e.g. Lana and Sherman. They cannot be further subdivided into subjective parts. This leads to the big question: why not? What is it about Sherman and Lana that suddenly stops this process? What is so special or unique about them as opposed to all the other things we just went through? This is what Scotus is searching for in the rest of the reading.

Scotus identifies four things that won't work in answering the question, and by seeing why they don't work, that will help us to see what he thinks does work, and why. The first answer (Question 2, (44)), given by Henry of Ghent, is to say that what makes Lana incapable of subdivision into further subjects is a twofold negation. First, Lana lacks internal division; second, Lana lacks numerical identity with another chimpanzee.

The second negation makes more initial sense than the first. If Lana and Sherman counted as numerically one chimpanzee, then we could separate the two and we would have two chimpanzees instead of one. But of course this is just crazy. Lana and Sherman are two numerically distinct chimpanzees to begin with, so the idea of them making one chimp makes no real sense.

The first negation makes even less sense. Lana has internal division in the sense that she has integral or component parts, but you can't separate them and make more Lanas, the way you can separate troglodytes and make separate chimps. The kind of division that Lana lacks is subjective division. But this makes it clear that this theory is vacuous. This is basically what Scotus says in (55). The theory "seems entirely superfluous and seems not to answer the question." Lana has no subjective parts because she lacks internal division, i.e. she lacks the ability to be divided into subjective parts. That's no answer at all.

This is why Scotus doesn't spend much time on this theory. However, he makes one more point, which is fairly important. In a way, this is the lesson of the failure of this theory. In (46) he points out that according to Aristotle, both generation and operation are per se. This is one half of an important Latin distinction taken over from Aristotle.

To say that your generation and your operation are both per se is to say that you are generated, and you operate non-coincidentally. In other words, when your mother gave birth to you, what she gave birth to wasn't you coincidentally, and when you act, it is not coincidentally you that acts. Mothers don't give birth just to generic humans, they give birth to specific, particular individuals. When you act, you act not simply as a generic human being, you act as the specific particular person you are. You may be just another pathetic sheep following the herd, but you are still a specific, particular individual, and all of your actions always come down to you qua you. This is really the heart of haecceity, and it is what Scotus is trying to clarify.

One final comment. In (46), Scotus mentions that per se generation and operation belong to "first substance through what first substance adds over and above second substance." He is taking this from Aristotle. For Aristotle, the individuals under a species are "first substance" and the species, genera and so on above the "first substances" are the "second substances." This is important because it admits that universals are "substances." They have a kind of real existence. This is important in Question 3.

The second suggestion is that actual existence is what makes you incapable of division into subjective parts. This clearly won't do, if only because he has already argued for realism. Universals have a kind of existence, and yet they are capable of division into subjective parts, so mere existence won't account for the inability of Lana and Sherman to be divided into subjective parts. To use the Aristotelian terminology I just introduced, the question here is what is added to the existence of first substances that the existence of second substances lacks?

The mere fact that you exist cannot be that in virtue of which you are an ultimately separate and distinct individual as opposed to being a generic thing capable of further subjective subdivision. In (62) he pursues this line of thought by pointing out that existence cannot explain this because existence presupposes it. Lana's existence cannot explain why she is incapable of subdivision into subjective parts, because her existence presupposes that she is already the sort of thing that is incapable of such subdivision: existence is always existence as a distinct and determinate thing. If Lana is the sort of thing that has no subjective parts, then her existence is existence as such a thing. So the existence by itself can't be what is doing the explaining here.

All these answers are actually building on each other. Negation won't do the trick, so something positive about the particulars must be doing it. The minimal positive thing we could say about a particular is that it exists, but that won't do the trick because existence is always existence as, and it is the "as what?" that will have to answer the question. With quantity we finally have an answer that really seems to be getting to the heart of the matter.

The fact that Lana has quantity, i.e. 1, might seem to be what makes her incapable of subdivision into subjective parts. Integers greater than 1 can always be broken down into several smaller integers, but once you've finally gotten down to 1, you can't go any further. 0 comes after 1. This is the basic idea behind what Giles of Rome and Godfrey of Fontaines say (as Scotus represents them) in (71-74). In (73), for example, they say, "this fire does not differ from that fire except because the one form differs from the other form." It is because when we count them, we count beyond 1, that they together are not an individual, and are capable of subdivision into subjective parts. How far we count will tell us how many individuals we have.

Scotus gives the heart of his response to this view very quickly in (70) where he reminds us of the fact that things both operate and are generated per se. In (76) he links this with what he said in response to Henry of Ghent's negation theory in Question 2, where he first raised this point about generation and operation per se (in (46)). He spends so much time on this theory, in spite of the fact that he has basically refuted it in one short paragraph, partly because it was a theory championed by two important philosophers, but also because it gives him the opportunity to explain in much more detail the idea that existence is always existence as.

Compare the first (76) and second (82) of Scotus' arguments against this theory. In the first he begins by saying that he will clarify "individuation," " numerical unity" and "singularity." His clarification is that these terms do not signify the "indeterminate unity" of simply being one in number, or "countably one." What is so indeterminate about being precisely 1? Isn't being precisely 1 just about as determinate as you can get? No, because you have to ask the question, "One what?" Again, in order to say that this thing here is one, I have to tell you that I mean it is one table; if I were talking about pieces of wood, I might have to say that it is not one but five (four legs plus the top). The crucial question when you are quantifying is to determine exactly what it is you are quantifying, you need a determinate "this" as he says, or a determinate "this-such" as Aristotle tends to say. Quantity is dependent upon individuation as the sort of thing you happen to be, and so it can't be by quantity that you are incapable of further subdivision into subjective parts.

Basically the same point is made in the second objection at (82). Substance is naturally prior to any accident, but since quantity is an accident, it cannot be naturally prior, and so is ontologically dependent upon the substance category. Here he has the Aristotelian 10 categories in mind, as follows.

"Substance" is the first category because it answers the "What is it?" question about the primary, basic subjects. All the other categories identify the sorts of things that are ontologically dependent upon the individuals in the category of "Substance." In other words, all the other categories are dependent upon the primary substances, which have priority. So if we are going to account for the inability of some things to be further subdivided into subjective parts, we are going to have to look in the category of "Substance."

He states this in another way in (115): "the unity of matter naturally precedes any notion of quantity at all." He goes on to clarify this in what follows, but look especially at (119):

For to be the agent that affects the patient in its aspect as patient seems to be nothing else than to induce in the patient the act by which it is perfected. Now a particular agent induces the substantial form by which matter insofar as it is matter is perfected - not matter insofar as it is quantified...

What gives matter the unity that it has, i.e. what "perfects" matter, is "form" not quantity. Here you might misunderstand what Scotus is saying, because when you see the word "perfect" you probably think of some ideal being attained (couldn't be better). In a way that is right, but in a way that is a misleading idea to have. The word "perfect" comes from the Latin perfectus, which means "to do completely" or "to bring to completion." If I am a sculptor chipping away at a chunk of marble, I am making something, e.g. a statue of Apollo. If I stop before I am finished, then I have not "perfected" the statue. It is only "perfect" when it is finished, even if it is not "perfect" in the sense of being really good. Even if I am a bad sculptor, who makes bad sculptures, when I have finished it off, it is "perfected" in the literal sense. The ideal sense is derived from the literal sense: if you haven't done a very good job, then in a sense you aren't done; you need to go back and keep working until it is really good. But the literal sense is what Scotus is using here. What "perfects" the statue is the finished form, what "perfects" the shapeless clay is the form of the pot which I make it into and then fire to completion or "perfection."

The same thing applies to you. "I was doing philosophy when you were just a candy bar in your father's back pocket!" Think of all the various matter that went into making up your body. All that shapeless, "amorphous" matter doesn't become "perfected" in the literal sense, until it is formed and shaped into you, i.e. the particular human being that is you. Now here is where people have a serious dispute, because some people say that process has reached "perfection" at conception, while others say it occurs later.

The point is that even though you may not be "perfect" in the ideal sense of "perfect," you don't exist at all until some matter has been formed or shaped into you. To put the same point another way, all this disparate matter that goes into making you doesn't get truly quantified until it coalesces into you, then and only then does the matter become quantified as one, i.e. one you. It is like cookie dough and the cookie cutter. How many cookies are in the lump of dough? There is no answer until the cookies are actually cut out. Quantity follows substance, not the other way around.

This is the core of Scotus' view, but there is one more important thing to cover in this section. He has a couple of very odd thought experiments (in (81) and (100)), which help to bring us one step closer to what he has in mind by "haecceity." To begin, look at (81). Imagine that we have a quantity of bread here, one wafer. Through the blessing, the wafer is transubstantiated, i.e. the substance of the bread is changed into the substance of the body of Christ, although all the qualities of the bread remain, so that you don't gag and puke because you are really, literally eating human flesh. This is like the old trick of pulling the table cloth out from under the dishes without disturbing the dishes on top; or better, it is like pulling out the entire table and putting a new one under the tablecloth and dishes. The bread-substance has been destroyed and no longer exists, instead we have the body of Christ where the bread used to be.

But now suppose there is some accident, and the priest drops the wafer and it is going to be eaten by rats. It would be a horrible offense for the body of Christ to be eaten by rats, and so God re-transubstantiates the wafer, taking out the body of Christ and putting bread in its place. Scotus then, in effect, says the following: although the same numerical quantity remains throughout these two changes, the bread we end up with is not really the same bread we started with. The second bread may be like a clone of the first bread, but it is not really the first bread all over again, because it was destroyed.

That's a supernatural example. He gives a natural example in (100). He relies on the Empedoclean view that there are four elements: earth, air, fire and water, and that each can be transmuted into the others. But we can do the same thought-experiment with modern chemistry. Since water is H2O, imagine some chemical process of breaking the bonds between the hydrogen atoms and the oxygen atoms. In the bottom beaker we have the water, in the top beaker we have the gas. Slowly but surely all the water is changed into gas. Then later we reverse the process, turning the gas into water. According to Scotus, "numerically the same individual does not recur by any natural action." What do your intuitions say about the matter? The numerical quantity has been preserved (1 beaker of water 1 beaker of gas 1 beaker of water), but the individual has not been preserved.

My intuitions are not so clear in this case, or in the bread case. So imagine that it is not water, but a human being. In the movie The Fly, a scientist discovers a way of disassembling matter in one chamber, sending it through the air to a different chamber, and reassembling it. Do we really have the same individual coming out of the second chamber as went into the first? Imagine you are about to step into the first chamber, and you want to be assured that the dismantling process won't kill you. Here is what the scientist tells you: "Well, one human being will be going in, the chamber will preserve your quantity, it is just that your quantity will no longer be you, it will just be a quantity of basic mass-energy (e.g. undifferentiated protons and electrons, or perhaps even just quarks), then that one quantity is assembled in the other chamber as one human being. The quantity is always the same, so it must be you because it is by quantity that you are the individual that you are." You might not find this very comforting. Just because one goes in here and one comes out there, it doesn't follow that the one coming out is you. Suppose he assures you that the assembling process will make sure that the human that comes out over there looks very much like you, although it could be male or female. Would that reassure you? What if it would make sure that the assembled body was the same gender as you? Think of what it would take to assure you that this disassembly-reassembly process is really transportation of you, as opposed to killing you and replacing you with someone who looks just like you. You don't simply want a clone of yours surviving, you want you to survive. That is the concern Scotus has with haecceity.

There is one last theory to try, and this is by far the most reasonable of all the theories Scotus has considered. It is also the theory defended by St. Thomas Aquinas (in the quote we've already seen). In fact, Scotus doesn't spend much time on this theory because he has set things up so well. Each question builds on the other. Look at (141). He brings up the whole water example again, because he thinks that matter fails the haecceity test for exactly the same reason that quantity fails the haecceity test. The reason is in (137) and (138). In (137) he says that "by 'this' he [i.e. Aristotle] does not mean uniform matter and singular matter, but determinate matter." In (138) he says the following about Aristotle [commenting on Metaphysics xii.5.1071a27-29]

Therefore, he grants the distinction of form in the particular, just as of matter. And he grants the unity of matter in general, just as of form. Hence one must still ask what it is by which matter is a 'this.'

Existence must be existence as; quantity must be quantity as, and matter must be matter as. To understand this, go back to Heraclitus.

According to Heraclitus, you can't step into the same river twice because the second time you try to step into it, new water has flowed in. According to this view, the Nile no longer exists, and it hasn't existed for a very long time. It existed only for a split second, and then was replaced by a numerically distinct river that looked just like it. There are an innumerable number of Nile-clones, but they are all numerically distinct, because they don't contain exactly the same bits of matter.

Notice that this applies equally to you. Every time you breath in or out, you gain or lose matter, and so you basically kill yourself, and replace yourself with a clone.

It was in large part to fight Heracliteanism that Plato developed his theory of forms. The basic idea is simple: as long as the river Nile retains its form, it is still the river Nile. Or, to use a more classical example, consider the ship that Theseus used to sail to Crete, kill the Minotaur, rescue Ariadne and then sail back to Athens to unify Attica. Theseus was so important a figure to Athens, a sort of George Washington figure, that the Athenians allegedly preserved his ship, cleaning it and replacing planks when they deteriorated. So here is the philosophical question: after every single piece of wood has been replaced, is it still numerically identical to the ship that Theseus sailed, or is it merely qualitatively identical, a numerically distinct clone?

Just like the transubstantiated wafer and the water changed to gas and back to water, my intuitions in this case aren't very clear. However, when it comes to my own identity, my intuitions get pretty sharp: my matter doesn't matter to me. Even if all of my matter is eventually replaced by new matter, as long as my form is retained, I still exist. What matters to me about me is not my matter, it is something else. Matter doesn't matter, form matters.

Finally, Scotus comes directly to haecceity. Actually, he has organized his material so well that he doesn't really have too much to do. To begin, look at Scotus' own theory, starting at (168). In (170) he points to something that we saw Abelard say. At the end of (41) Abelard is wondering about the distinction between individuals. I used the example of Socrates and Browny. They both have the same form, i.e. Animal, and so why aren't they identical? Answer: they have "advening forms." Socrates is Human and Browny is a Donkey. But this just pushes back the question. The forms of Human and Donkey are both Animal forms, so why aren't they identical? Answer: they have "advening forms." Human is Rational and Donkey is Non-Rational. But again, this just pushes the question back again. The forms of Rational and Non-Rational are both Animal forms, so why aren't they identical? Answer: they have "advening forms." And off we go on an infinite regress. This is a vicious regress because it amounts to delaying explanation; this kind of regress never answers any question, it never explains why any form differs from any other form. It fails as an explanation, which is the whole point of a theory of universals to begin with.

Abelard draws exactly the right moral from this story: at some point we must reach forms that are "diverse from one another in themselves." That is why he says that what makes Socrates Socrates must be Socrates. Scotus has studied Abelard, and has learned this lesson. In a way he agrees, but in a way he disagrees that what makes Socrates Socrates is Socrates. In (170), Scotus in effect runs the same regress argument that Abelard just ran, but instead of using individuals from different species, he uses individuals in the same species. Socrates and Callias are both human beings. As Aristotle himself said, in a passage from the Metaphysics that we've already looked at (vii.8.1034a3-8): Callias and Socrates "are the same in form, since the form is indivisible." But if their form is the same, then why aren't they identical; or at the very least, why don't they look exactly the same? Things with the same form ought to at least look the same, as all the pennies that are stamped out of the same mint. You might be tempted to say that there are "advening forms," i.e. the "immanent characters" of humanity in Socrates and Callias. Boethius seems to have gone down this path, but as Abelard showed, that leads you into an insuperable difficulty. Abelard was right: what makes Socrates Socrates has to be Socrates.

That is precisely what haecceity is supposed to do. Socrates' haecceity is what makes Socrates Socrates. Just so that haecceity doesn't seem too mysterious, I'll give you another name for it, in the case of human beings, but since the other name for it is a familiar word, try not to jump to the conclusion that just because you have another name for each person's haecceity you actually understand it. Look at (136). This is a central Aristotelian text which governs Scotus' answer to both Questions 5 and 6. According to Aristotle, Metaphysics vii.11.1037a5-10, your primary substance is your soul, in other words, your haecceity is your soul, you are your soul.

There are a number of textual and philosophical complications here, but the basic point is something we have already seen, and Scotus reminds us of it in (137) where he points out that when Aristotle speaks of a "this," "he does not mean uniform and singular matter, but determinate matter. Go back to the question about whether this table is one or five. When you count, you must be presupposing some principle for counting, i.e. you must answer the question "What are you counting?" It is no accident that the Latin for "What?" is "Quid?" The answer to the question will mention a quiddity, a species or a genus. But here in (137) Scotus is supposing someone is giving a nominalist response: we can count without relying upon quiddities, since we can identify "uniform and singular matter." Just look at the outline, and you know you have one thing; later you can try to figure out what word to label it, if you want to stick a label on it, but prior to putting that label on it, we can easily count it simply because of its outline.

The response comes in the phrase "determinate matter." To see what this means, look at (140) and (141). Think about my body before and after I die. How many things to we have? One or two? Scotus reminds us of the question about fire changing into water and back into water. We might also think of the re-transubstantiated wafer, or of Theseus' ship, or Heraclitus' river. If we keep replacing the planks of Theseus' ship with new planks, does there come a point where the ship we are left with is no longer numerically identical to Theseus' ship? What if at some point we do successively poorer and poor jobs replacing planks, and the ship is no longer seaworthy, and can't even sail? What if it rots? It is no longer really a ship, and so finally it is no longer numerically identical to Theseus' ship. Well, at least that's one way to tell the story.

Reasonable people can disagree about the example with Theseus' ship, but it is very different when we are talking about a human being. Suppose I metabolize food properly for 90 years, but then develop more and more health problems, I rot from the inside. One day I die. This difference is a difference that really matters. This is not really open to debate. I'm dead, and this change is really significant. If anything really matters, this does. So as far as I am concerned, we have two things here: we have my body, while I am still alive; and then we have my corpse, when I am dead. The two are different entities: one is me, the other is not. When someone is gone, they are gone. He rejects the view of Empedocles, who said that

When the four roots [i.e. earth, air, fire, water] are mixed into the form of a man, or a bird or any other animal, then people say, "This comes to be;" and when the four roots are separated out again they say, "This dies." But they do not speak correctly; I speak this way too, but only to comply with custom.

If you are counting things by their spatial outlines, then you have to say that the living person, and the dead corpse, are really just one thing. But that seems just wrong: the difference between a living human being and a corpse is, at least from a scientific viewpoint, extremely important. What we had before death was a living person, a soul, all we have left afterwards is a heap of matter. Remember we saw above with Heraclitus' claim that you can't step into the same river twice: my matter doesn't matter. The me that matters ceases to exist when my body changes from being a living human body to being a corpse.

Now one more point and we've got the heart of Scotus' view. My matter doesn't matter, but in that claim, what do I mean by "matter?" After all, my hand is made of matter, and my hand really matters to me a lot. Can you think of a way of saying that in one sense, my matter matters to me, but in a different sense, my matter doesn't matter? Aristotle's way of putting it is to distinguish between my "proximate matter" and my "remote matter." Since Aristotle accepted that the basic elements were earth, air, fire and water, he would accept that my "remote matter" is just the heap of earth, air, fire and water that I currently happen to be made of. However, this heap is constantly changing, e.g. as I breath in and out. What is not constantly changing is my "proximate matter," i.e. my human form. If we don't just talk about my matter as being earth, air, fire and water, but instead talk about it as being my flesh and bones, or even better, as my hands, feet, legs, heart, lungs and so on, then my matter does matter to me.

Now think about another of Aristotle's claims: he says that a severed hand is no longer really a hand. If my hand is cut off, and no longer can function as a hand, then it is reduced from being proximate matter to being remote matter. In Meteorology (iv.12), Aristotle says it is clear that

a dead man is a man only in name. And so the hand of a dead man, too, will in the same way be a hand in name only, just as stone flutes might still be called flutes; for these too, seem to be instruments of a kind. ... What a thing is is always determined by its function: a thing really is itself when it can perform its function; an eye, for instance, when it can see. When a thing cannot do so it is that thing only in name, like a dead eye or one made of stone, just as a wooden saw is no more a saw than one in a picture.

Aristotle claims that a dead human hand is not a hand at all. By losing its functional role in my body, the only properties it now has are the properties of earth, air, fire and water.

This is what explains the central question of haecceity that has driven Scotus' discussion. What is it about me that makes me incapable of further subdivision into subjective parts, answer: all of my parts are functionally described proximate matter, none of which can exist separately from my living human body. In other words, the only parts you can break me down into are functional parts which are ontologically dependent upon the form as a whole, i.e. me. So the reason why the division into subjective parts fails with me is that I am a functional human body, I am a living human body, I am a human soul.

I have just been focusing on the obviously physical characteristics. Because of my form, my proximate matter is able to do many other things that my remote matter can't do. Not only can my proximate matter pick up a pencil and move it from one place to another, my proximate matter can write a philosophy lecture, it can commit acts of courage, temperance, friendship and so on. In other words, a very large part of what it means to have a soul, is that I have a personality and a character. I can have virtuous or vicious character traits. Again, those are components of my form which cannot be further subdivided into subjective parts because they are functional components which are ontologically dependent upon my form as a whole.

A point of clarification are necessary here. How does this view differ from the view of St. Thomas? According to St. Thomas, if x and y are of the same species, then they may differ only because of their matter. In other words, if their forms are the same, they must differ in their matter. In still other words, there can be no formal distinction between members of the same species. A modern counter-example would be the gorillas. According to modern biologists, there is only one genus of living gorillas, i.e. Gorilla. In this one genus there is one living species, i.e. gorilla. So the scientific name of all living gorillas is Gorilla gorilla. However, in this one species, there are two varieties, or "sub-species:" the lowland gorillas and the mountain gorillas. The mountain gorillas are given the sub-species name beringei, so their full scientific name is Gorilla gorilla beringei. The lowland gorillas are given the sub-species name gorilla, so their full scientific name is Gorilla gorilla gorilla.

The point is that you can have different forms in the same species. Not every qualitative difference marks a real universal. Real universals are "really distinct" because they are real things, in Latin res. Species differences identify essential properties of things which are repeatable, but the unique features of individual members of species are logically not repeatable in the way we just went through: my parts cannot survive in separation from me, because they are ontologically dependent upon my living, functioning human body as a whole, i.e. they are ontologically dependent upon my soul. My personality is qualitatively different from yours, but not in a way that makes it repeatable.

So go back to the passage from Aristotle that we started with, "And the whole - this sort of form in this flesh and bones - is Callias or Socrates; and they differ because of matter, since their matter is different, but they are the same in form, since the form is indivisible." Aquinas interprets this as saying that your what individuates Callias is his matter. In Scotus' view that is wrong, what individuates Callias, what makes him the individual that he is, is his soul. His matter may be a necessary condition for this difference, (compare the sine qua non of quantity at 115), but it is his form that makes him the individual that he is. In slogan form, what Scotus is arguing here is that form individuates, matter differentiates. It is my form or soul that makes me the individual I am; the fact that your soul is enmattered in that matter, but mine is enmattered in this matter, accounts for why we are qualitatively so different. For example, sex difference is caused by matter. That is why males and females are members of the same species in spite of their significant structural differences.

At this point, Abelard should be wondering, "Isn't all that basically what I said over 200 years ago? Abelard said that what makes Socrates Socrates is Socrates; Scotus says that what makes Socrates Socrates is Socrates' soul. Is there any difference? According to Scotus, there is, and he addresses it beginning in (185). He says that although nothing "primarily diverse" can be abstracted from the particular individuals under a species, it doesn't follow, as Abelard thought it did, that "what are constituted out of them are primarily diverse and not of some one kind." Even though Socrates and Callias are distinct individuals, "the distinguished [e.g. Socrates and Callias] not only include their distinguishers [i.e. their respective haecceities, i.e. their respective souls] but also something else, so to speak potential with respect to the distinguishers." These extra things that are "potential with respect to the distinguishers" are the real universals over them, their species, genus and so on. He is relying here on his argument in favor of real universals.

In other words, it is wrong to say that what makes Socrates Socrates is Socrates. First, it is wrong because it might be simplistic. If you want to know what makes Socrates Socrates, and you are told that it is Socrates that makes Socrates Socrates, you aren't being informative. Obviously what makes Socrates Socrates is Socrates, but what does that mean?

Abelard takes it to mean that what makes Socrates Socrates is something that cannot be further explained by any universal principles of individuation. All the groups or classes you might want to put Socrates in are logically posterior to Socrates' being what & who he is. According to Scotus, that is wrong. Socrates is really more diverse from Lana the chimpanzee than he is from Callias the human being. Similarity and diversity come in degrees, and that is what makes it wrong to say that what makes Socrates Socrates is Socrates. What makes Socrates Socrates is his soul, but what makes his soul his soul involves, among other things, all the structural, or "formal," i.e. functional, features that gives him more in common with Callias than with Lana, but more in common with Lana than with Gifford, and so on.

But Scotus does not accept Platonic, transcendent, universals. The structural, functional, or "formal" features which identify the degrees of similarity and diversity Socrates bears with members of other species don't exist separately from the individuals that instantiate them. In other words, universals are not distinct "real things," using the Latin word res. Only Aristotelian "primary substances" like Socrates and Callias are res (plural of res). So universals are not "really distinct," in the sense of being distinct res; they are "formally distinct." This is one of the doctrines Scotus is most known for in later philosophy; it is called "the formal distinction." It is also what Ockham focuses his objection to Scotus on.

whew!