Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle

Title Page, Copyright

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Contents

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pp. v-xii

Editor's Preface

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p. xiv-xiv

Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle by John Duns Scotus is an English translation in two volumes of the Latin critical edition of B. Ioannis Duns Scoti: Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis, Libri I-IX, volumes III and IV of Scotus’s Opera Philosophica...

Translator's Introduction

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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 and fourteenth centuries. With indubitable justification he came to be known as the Subtle...

Abbreviations

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p. xix-xix

Book Six

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pp. 1-2

Question One

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pp. 3-31

Text of Aristotle: “There must, then, be three theoretical philosophies, mathematics, physics, and what we may call theology.” (Metaphysics VI, ch. 1, 1026a 18-19)...

Appendix II

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pp. 32-40

Question Two

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pp. 41-58

Text of Aristotle: “We must say first regarding the accidental, that there can be no scientific treatment of it. This is confirmed by the fact,” etc. (Metaphysics IV, ch. 2, 1026b 2-4)
“That there is no science of the accidental is obvious, for all science is either of that which is always or of that which is for the most part.” (ibid. ch. 2, 1027a 19-21)...

Question Three

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pp. 59-80

Text of Aristotle: “But since the combination and the separation are in thought and not in the things, and that which is in this sense is a different sort of being from the things that are in the full sense...that which is in the sense of being true must be dismissed.” (Metaphysics VI, ch. 4, 1027b 29-34)...

Question Four

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pp. 81-83

Text of Aristotle: “And because it is first it would be the task of this science to investigate being qua being and the attributes that belong to it qua being.” (Metaphysics IV, ch. 1, 1026a 31-32).
“Let us consider the causes and principles of being itself qua being.” (Ibid., ch. 4, 1028a 3-4)...

Book Seven

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p. 85-85

Question One

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pp. 87-96

Texts of Aristotle: “Other things are called ‘being’ because they are ‘of being’,” etc. (Metaphysics VII, ch. 1, 1028a 18-19). “For not one of these is, or in itself is suited to be, self-subsistent, or able to be separated from substance, but rather, [if anything it is that which walks or sits or is healthy that is an existing thing.”]...

Question Two

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pp. 97-106

Is substance of all beings first in the order of time?

Question Three

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pp. 107-110

Text of Aristotle: “But substance is first of all in the order of knowledge.” (Metaphysics VII, ch. 1 1028a 31-33)...

Question Four

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pp. 111-118

Is substance the first of all beings in definition?

Question Five

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pp. 119-126

Text of Aristotle: “I say that matter, which in itself is nothing in particular, is neither quantity nor any of the other categories by which being is determined. For it is something of which each of these is predicated, whose being is different from that of each of the categorical predicates.” (Metaphysics VII, ch. 3, 1029a 19-22)...

Question Six

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pp. 127-130

Text of Aristotle: “If the species [i.e. the form] is prior to matter and more real, it will be prior also to the compound of both for the same reason.” (Metaphysics VII, ch. 3, 1029a 5-6). “And so form and the compound of form and matter would be thought to be substance rather than matter.” (Ibid., ch. 3, 1029a 19-21)...

Question Seven

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pp. 131-138

Text of Aristotle: “For each single thing does not seem to be other than its substance, and the quiddity is said to be substance of each.” (Metaphysics VII, ch. 6, 1031a 15-16).
Is the quiddity the same thing as the subject that has it?

Questions Eight - Ten

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pp. 139-158

Text of Aristotle: “Of things that come to be, some come to be by nature, some by art, some spontaneously. Now everything that comes to be comes to be by the agency of something and from something and comes to be something. And the something it comes to be may be found in any category; it may come to be either...

Question Eleven

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pp. 159-169

Is the Philosopher’s argument against the ideas of Plato valid?

Question Twelve

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pp. 170-187

Text of Aristotle: “The question might be raised why some things are produced spontaneously as well as by art, e.g. health, while others are not, e.g. a house. The reason is that in some cases the matter which governs the production in the making and producing of any work of art and in which a part of the product is present...

Question Thirteen

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pp. 188-242

Is the stone nature of itself a ‘this’ or is it such only by something extrinsic"

Question Fourteen

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pp. 243-252

Texts of Aristotle: “When we have the whole, such and such a form in this flesh and these bones, this is Callias or Socrates; and they are different in virtue of their matter, for that is different, but the same in form; for the form is indivisible or atomic.” (Metaphysics VII, ch. 8, 1034a 5-7)...

Question Fifteen

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pp. 253-266

Text of Aristotle: “The truth has indeed now been stated, but still let us state it yet more clearly, taking up the question again. The parts of the formula, into which the formula is divided, are prior to it, either all or some of them.” (Metaphysics VII, ch. 10, 1035b 3-6)...

Question Sixteen

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pp. 267-280

In material things is matter a part of the quiddity of the thing?

Question Seventeen

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pp. 281-288

Text of Aristotle: “Also, of an animal having feet, it is necessary to know the difference qua having feet. Therefore we must not say, if we are to speak rightly, that that which is endowed with feet one part has feathers and one part is featherless (if we do this we do it through incapacity); we must divide it only into cloven-footed...

Question Eighteen

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pp. 289-308

Is the universal something in things?¹

Question Nineteen

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pp. 309-328

Is the concept of the genus other than the concept of the difference?

Question Twenty

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pp. 329-340

Text of Aristotle: “It is evident also from the following consideration: a substance cannot consist of substances present in it in complete reality; for things that are thus in complete reality two are never in complete reality one, though if they are potentially two, they can be one...

Book Eight

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p. 341-341

Question One

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pp. 343-356

Text of Aristotle: “Nor does matter belong to those things which exist by nature but are not substances; their substrate is the substance. E.g. what is the cause of eclipse? What is the matter? There is none; the moon is that which suffers eclipse. What is the moving cause that extinguished the light? The earth.”...

Question Two

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pp. 357-436

Texts of Aristotle: “It is also obvious that, if substances are in a sense numbers, they are so in this sense and not, as some say, as numbers of units. For a definition is a sort of number.” (Metaphysics VIII, ch. 3, 1043b 32-35)...

Question Four

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pp. 437-452

Text of Aristotle: “To return to the difficulty which has been stated with respect both to definitions and to number, what is the cause of their unity? In the case of all things which have several parts and in which the totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts, there is a cause.”...

Book Nine

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p. 453-453

Question One

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pp. 455-478

Are act and potency mutually opposed?...

Question Three

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pp. 479-502

Is the Philosopher’s division of potency as a principle adequate?

Question Five

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pp. 503-516

Does active or passive potency as naturally prior to the principatum include some relationship essentially?

Question Six

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pp. 517-522

Is active potency a characteristic of every being whatsoever?
Regarding the foundation and term of an active and passive potency, I ask first: “Is active potency a characteristic of every being whatsoever and can it be a terminus of any being whatsoever?” This question includes six questions...

Question Seven

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pp. 523-528

Is the relation of active potency rooted immediately in substance?
Secondly, it is asked whether a relation of active potency is rooted immediately in some substantial form...

Question Eight

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pp. 529-532

Can a quality of the first species be an active potency?
Thirdly, it is asked whether a quality of the first species can be an active potency?

Question Nine

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pp. 533-535

Could anything whatsoever be the term of an active potency?
Fourth, it is asked: “Could anything whatsoever be the term of an active potency?”...

Question Ten

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pp. 536-540

Is passive potency present in everything?
Fifth, it is asked: Is passive potency present in everything?...

Question Eleven

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pp. 541-548

Can passive potency refer to any caused being whatsoever?
Sixth, it is asked: Can passive potency refer to any caused being whatsoever?...

Question Twelve

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pp. 549-556

Is passive potency divided into natural and obediential?
Is passive potency divided into natural and obediential (or supernatural) and violent?...

Question Thirteen

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pp. 557-562

Is passive potency divided into ex qua and in qua?
Is passive potency divided into de qua (or ex qua) and in qua?...

Question Fourteen

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pp. 563-602

Could something be moved by itself?
Since the Philosopher says in the first chapter of Bk. IX:¹ “Insofar as a thing is an organic unity, it cannot be acted upon by itself, for it is one and not two different things,” therefore the question can be raised whether anything can be moved by itself...

Question Fifteen

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pp. 603-639

Is the difference Aristotle assigns between the rational and irrational potencies appropriate?
Is the difference Aristotle¹ assigns between the rational and irrational potencies appropriate, namely, that the former are capable of contrary effects but the latter produce but one effect²...