Foreword to the Second Edition Vii
FOREWORD TO THE SECOND EDITION
In 1977-78, the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at UCLA offered to bring an expert on medieval philosophy to our department for a quarter. My first choice was Allan B. Wolter, the scholar who has done more than anyone else writing in English to render the philosophy of John Duns Scotus accessible and intelligible. Wolter's published research on Scotus is characterized by a rare balance of insight, philosophical penetration, and clarity of presentation. The body of his interpretive work is not only the place any new Scotusscholar must start; it is an achievement that will be difficult to surpass.
However fine the secondary literature, responsible teaching of history of philosophy always introduces the students to the primary sources. And where medieval philosophy is concerned, this requires translations in most American schools and universities. Apart from medievalists, few philosophy faculty and only a tiny minority of students are proficient in Latin. And even those who made their way through Caesar in high school will find Scotus' Latin a challenge!
Wolter began applying his natural flair for translation to this problem in the mid 1950s. Assigned to teach scholastic philosophy to M.A. candidates in the New York
Province, Wolter found there were no readings with which to work. Worse than that, the Vatican (modern critical) edition of Scotus' Ordinatio had just begun to appear. So Wolter turned to the Assisi manuscript (Codex
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Assisii, bibliotheca communalis 137) for his Latin text, correcting obvious errors against other manuscripts. (Itis interesting to note that the Vatican edition, which has since become available, differs very little from Wolter's version, except that Wolter includes while Vatican footnotes interpolations obviously intended by Scotus.) Editing, translating, and making judicious selections as he went, Wolter produced the present anthology for his course. The decision to publish, first taken in 1958, resulted in the 1962 issue of an English-Latin version in The Nelson Philosophical Texts series, edited by Raymond Klibansky. An English-only paperback was published by Bobbs-Merrill in the Library of Liberal Arts series in 1964. In reverting to the original English-Latin format, the present re-publication of Duns Scotus: Philosophical Writings wins three advantages: (i) Scotus' philosophy is rendered into clear English; (ii) Wolter's original
Latin text is preserved for contrast with the Vatican edition; and (iii) students and faculty are provided with a wonderful tool for learning to read Scotus' Latin.
In subject matter, the present volume constitutes an introduction to Scotus' metaphysics and epistemology.
The first selection sets forth Scotus' vision of God as the goal of any rational metaphysics whose subject is being qua being. The second is a defense of his subtle position on the possibility of univocal predication between God and creatures. The third and fourth contain perhaps the most elaborate and ingenious version of the cosmological argument in the history of philosophy. The fifth contains Scotus' rejection of scepticism and sets forth his own version of Aristotelian reliabilism in epistemology.
The final selection includes Scotus' critique of Aquinasstyle proofs of the soul's incorporeality and immortality along with Scotus' own, more guarded conclusions.
Wolter's subsequent translations combine with this volume to fill out several advanced syllabi on Scotus'
FOREWORD ix philosophy. In 1966, Wolter rendered into English Scotus' elegant but difficult De Primo Principio, A Treatise on God as First Principle, which re-appeared in a second edition with Wolter's extensive and penetrating commentary in 1983 (Franciscan Herald Press, Chicago, IIlinois).
In collaboration with Felix Alluntis, Wolter published John Duns Scotus: God and Creatures, The Quodlibetal Questions (Princeton University Press, 1975; reprinted by Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C.,
1981). Most recently, in Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality (Catholic University of America Press, Washington,
D.C. 1986), Wolter has opened up Scotus' action theory, moral psychology, and ethics with a substantial and wideranging selection of texts and comprehensive philosophical analysis.
Thanks to Wolter's contributions, both in research and translation, it is now possible to teach the full range of Scotus' thought to philosophy students at the graduate and undergraduate level. I applaud Hackett's decision to bring the present volume, the obvious staple for any course on later medieval philosophy, back into print.
University of California, MariLyN McCorp ADAMS Los Angeles October 1986
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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
In a volume of the present size, a compiler can give a broader if somewhat piecemeal view of a man's philosophy by limiting the length of the selections, or he may sacrifice comprehensiveness of subject matter in the interests of revealing his thinker at work. I have chosen the latter alternative, building the present selection around five key questions concerned with God and the human soul, the two philosophical topics of greatest interest to an ex professo theologian like Duns Scotus.
Following the Avicennian interpretation of Aristotelian metaphysics, like Albertus Magnus, Siger of Brabant,
Aquinas and most scholastics of his day, Scotus envisioned God as the goal of any rational metaphysic whose subject is being qua being. The two selections dealing with the existence and unicity of God, then, form the core of his "first philosophy." They are introduced by a few short sections in which Scotus describes this "'transcendental science" and the type of conclusion it purports to establish, followed by a question wherein the Subtle Doctor analyzes his philosophical concept of God in terms of his controversial thesis regarding the univocity of being.
Of the two questions about the human soul, one touches on its spirituality and immortality, the other concerns its ability to attain certain knowledge.
Taken from Scotus' most important work, his Ordinatio (called more frequently, if less accurately, his Oxford Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard), the key questions are presented in their entirety, except for certain minor xi
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marginal notes in the manuscript text and—where Scotus has combined several questions into one—those portions not germane to the question selected. The manuscript (Codex Assisii, bibliotheca communalis 137) from which the Latin text is taken, represents an early fourteenth-century attempt at a critical edition of this work and is the basis of the Vatican edition now in progress. Where the text is obviously at fault, however, I have not hesitated to adopt a better manuscript reading for the translation.
The short bibliography makes no attempt to do justice to the flood of recent Scotistic literature, especially in foreign languages, but is limited to larger English monographs on specific aspects of Scotus' philosophy or to works like those of Father Copleston or Miss Sharp, wherein a fairly brief but comprehensive account of Scotus' general philosophical positions can be found.
May I take this occasion to express my indebtedness to the late Father Philotheus Boehner, 0.F.M., and to Father
Gaudens Mohan, 0.FM., of the Franciscan Institute, for help in preparing and checking the Latin text. I am deeply grateful also to Professor Raymond Klibansky for his part in bringing this volume to fruition, though I have not been able to accept all his suggestions. I take full responsibility both for the constitution of the text and for the translation.
The Franciscan Institute,
ALLAN B. WOLTER
St Bonaventure, N.Y.