Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle

Title Page, Copyright

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Contents to Volume 1

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pp. v-x

Editor's Preface

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pp. xiv-

Introduction to the English Translation of Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle bu John Duns Scotus

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pp. xv-xviii

John Duns Scotus’s Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle do not lend themselves to casual reading. Always the metaphysician and theologian, this Scottish Franciscan thought, taught, and wrote during the two decades that spanned the thirteenth...

Abbreviations Employed in this Translation

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pp. xix-

Book One

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pp. 2-165

Prologue: The Nobility and Causes of the Science of Metaphysics

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pp. 3-12

At the beginning of the Metaphysics which we have in our hands, the Philosopher sets forth this proposition indicating the dignity and nobility of this science, as will become clear as we proceed. To see this...

Question One: Is the subject of metaphysics being or God?

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pp. 13-59

Concerning the object of this science, it has been shown above that this science deals with transcendentals. However, it has likewise been shown that it deals with the highest causes. There are various opinions...

Question Two

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pp. 61-73

Text of Aristotle: “All men desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight. For not only with a view to action...

Question Three

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pp. 75-81

Text of Aristotle: “From sensation memory comes into being in some animals but not in others. Because of this animals which can remember are more prudent or more apt at learning than animals which cannot...

Question Four

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pp. 83-111

Does experience produce art as the Philosopher seems to say in the text...

Question Five

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pp. 113-118

Text of Aristotle: “With a view to action experience seems in no respect inferior to art, and men of experience succeed even better than those who have theory without experience. The reason is that experience...

Question Six

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pp. 119-132

Text of Aristotle: “Actions and productions are all concerned with the...

Question Seven

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pp. 133-140

Text of Aristotle: “This must be a science that investigates the first principles and causes; for the good or final cause is one of the causes. That it is not a science of production is clear even from the history of those...

Question Eight

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pp. 141-142

Text of Aristotle: “And the science which knows to the reason why particular things must be done is the most authoritative of the science and more authoritative than...

Question Nine

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pp. 143-155

Text of Aristotle: “We suppose first, then, that the wise man knows all things as far as fitting, although he has no knowledge of each particular in...

Question Ten

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pp. 157-165

Text of Aristotle: “And these things, the most universal, are on the whole the hardest for men to know; for they are farthest from the...

Book Two

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pp. 168-244

Question One

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pp. 169-172

Text of Aristotle: “Therefore, the truth seems to be like the proverbial door which no one can fail...

Question 2

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pp. 173-174

Text of Aristotle: “Perhaps, however, as the difficulties are of two kinds, the cause of the present difficulty is not in the facts but in us...

Question 3

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pp. 174-202

Text of Aristotle: “As the eye of the bat is to the blaze of day, so is the intellect of our soul to those things which are most evident of all...

Question Four

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pp. 203-204

In this connection the question is raised: Is it necessary to assume a status in every kind of...

Question Five

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pp. 204-205

Any difference among any sort of thing has another opposite difference that codivides that class of things. But the finite in act represents a difference in quantity. Therefore, it has the infinite as its opposite difference...

Question 6

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pp. 205-244

Text of Aristotle: “But there is no understanding, unless one comes to a halt...But if the kinds of causes had been infinite in number, then knowledge would have been...

Book Three

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pp. 246-251

The Only Question

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pp. 247-251

Text of Aristotle: “But it is not possible for the genus taken apart from its species (any more than for the species of the genus) to be predicated of its proper...

Book Four

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pp. 254-339

Question One

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pp. 255-275

Text of Aristotle: “There is a science that investigates being as being...

Question Two

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pp. 277-315

Text of Aristotle: “If then being and unity are the same and one nature, in the sense that they are implied in one another as principle and cause are, not that they are...

Question Three

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pp. 317-326

Text of Aristotle: “The most certain principle of all is that regarding which it is impossible to be mistaken.” (ch. 3, 1005b 11- 12) “The same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject...

Question Four

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pp. 327-338

Text of Aristotle: “But on the other hand there cannot be an intermediate between contradictories, but of one subject we must either affirm or deny any one...

Question Five

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pp. 339-

That it cannot: If it could, then a part could be predicated of the whole, because to predicate is common to supposition...

Book Five

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pp. 342-

Question One

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pp. 343-358

Is the end a principle and a cause, and is it a cause for the agent and is it a cause most of all...

Question Two

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pp. 359-370

Is it necessary that an individual particular cause and its individual effect exist simultaneously and simultaneously cease to exist. And it is the opposite order characteristic of a cause in potency and an effect...

Question Three

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pp. 371-377

Text of Aristotle: "Now some things owe their necessity to something other than themselves; others do not, but are themselves the source of necessity in other...

Question Four

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pp. 379-387

Text of Aristotle: “Some things are one in number, others in species, others in genus, others by analogy...

Question Five

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pp. 389-394

Text of Aristotle: “The kinds of essential being are precisely those that are indicated by the figures of predication; for the senses of ‘being’ are just as many as...

Question Six

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pp. 395-436

Quantity is “essentially divisible into those things which are in it, [of which each is a ‘one’ and a ‘this.’]29 But such is a corporeal substance without any further essential addition. Proof: a subject qua subject is naturally...

Question Seven

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pp. 437-470

Text of Aristotle: “And those things which are different within the same substance, are of opposite species...

Question Eight

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pp. 471-474

Text of Aristotle: “The words ‘prior’ and ‘posterior’ are applied to something on the assumption that there is a first, (i.e. a beginning, in each class) because they are nearer some specified...

Question Nine

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pp. 475-507

Text of Aristotle: “‘Quantum’ means that which is divisible into two or more constituent parts of which each is by nature a ‘one’ and a...

Question Ten

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pp. 509-517

Text of Aristotle: “Some are quanta in the way that movement and time are so; for these also are called quanta of a sort and continuous because the things of which these are attributes are divisible mean not that which...

Question Eleven

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pp. 519-558

Text of Aristotle: “Things are said to be essentially ‘relative’ as double to half...

Appendix I, Book Five, Question Eleven

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pp. 559-560

The following interpolated text is attached to paragraph 132 in three manuscripts...

Question Twelve

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pp. 561-564

Text of Aristotle: “One type¹ of relative is as double to half, and treble to a third, and in general that which contains something else many times to that which is contained many times in something else and that which...

Question Thirteen

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pp. 564-

In this [third] mode sense perception and the sensible is posited. But the sense and the sensible are referred according to active and passive potency, according to the Philosopher...

Question Fourteen

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pp. 565-586

The same container is related to the many contents, [just as the same number can contain many numbers]. 18 Similarly, one and the same...