The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus ed. by Thomas Williams (review)

BOOK REVIEWS The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus. Edited by THOMAS WILLIAMS. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. 424. $65.00 (cloth), $23.00 (paper). ISBN 0-521-63205-6 (cloth), 0-521-63563-2 (paper). John Duns Scotus, known to history as the Subtle Doctor, is a notoriously difficult thinker. Only recently have studies on the historical and philosophical milieu of the last quarter of the thirteenth century revealed the importance of Henry of Ghent as a significant background figure for Scotus's own philosophical positions. While traditional studies contrasted the Franciscan with Thomas Aquinas, recent work tends to focus on the texts themselves, for the most part available in critical edition, allowing for a more nuanced portrait of the thinker to emerge. Research on Scotus over the past fifty years has covered a broad spectrum of interpretive approach, ranging from studies based primarily upon a Thomistic/Scholastic or systematic reading to those that focus on the texts themselves in their historical context. In the present volume, we find articles representing both sorts of methodology. In addition, we find good basic information on several key texts along with a fine bibliography. The introductory chapter offers a basic chronology ofthe little that is known about Scotus's life in a solid and clear presentation. Of particular value is the presentation and descriptive commentary on his works and a very concise listing of'.English translations now available (xv). Peter King's "Scotus on Metaphysics" opens the volume with a systematic and comprehensive study, moving from the science ofmetaphysics and its object (being), identity and distinctness (the formal and formal modal distinctions), to the structure of reality (the transcendentals and categories), concluding with causality (the essential order and existence of God) and particulars (matter, form, and the composite). This is an excellent beginning, since the Franciscan's position on the univocity of being has received much criticism, especially of late. While several authors in this volume refer to Scotus's position on univocity, it is King alone who notes the key connection of the univocity of being to the formal modal distinction as a safeguard for divine transcendence (56-57). The dense material presented here could easily have served as the subject for several chapters of the volume. Neil Lewis's "Space and Time" is an intriguing surprise whose inclusion appears odd at first, given the introductory nature of the volume. Nevertheless, the chapter does a good job of contextualizing Scotus's thought in light of the Condemnation of 1277 and 315 316 BOOK REVIEWS offers excellent information on the historical continuity of the Franciscan's philosophical insights as part of an overall reassessment of Aristotle's physics in the final quarter of the thirteenth century. Lewis argues that Scotus confronted key Aristotelian conclusions from a perspective largely influenced by his theological commitments, affirming the possibility of an intracosmic void, time without motion, and the contingency of the present. Timothy Noone's "Universals and Individuation" also offers a very good historical and textual discussion of Scotus's position on the principle of individuation. The essay presents excellent historical information, especially related to the Franciscan influences, helping to situate Scotus within his own tradition. It concludes with a careful presentation of haeceitas, Scotus's principle of individuation, as a moderate response to the conceptualism of Henry of Ghent and simplified ontology of William of Ware. Calvin Normore's "Duns Scotus's Modal Theory" offers an innovative approach to multiple levels of Scotist thought, with the touchstone for all lying in modal logic. The essay ties significant insights of Scotus to their contemporary counterparts in modal logic and is quite successful in seeing logic, contingency, and freedom as refracted through a single prism. The approach enables him to take up the question of the freedom of the blessed in heaven (144) in terms of firmitas, rather than in terms ofthe position that is traditionally ascribed to him: namely, that, in heaven, God prevents the exercise of freedom (this position is claimed by other authors in this volume). Dominik Peder's contribution, "Duns Scotus's Philosophy of Language," is also an original piece. Perler argues that, though it is not overt, a philosophy of language...