The Problem of Individuation for Scotus: A Principle of Indivisibility or a Principle of Distinction?

THE PROBLEM OF INDIVIDUATION FOR SCOTUS: A PRINCIPLE OF INDIVISIBILITY OR A PRINCIPLE OF DISTINCTION? The aim of this article is modest. Its purpose is to answer the following question: What was the problem of individuation for Duns Scotus? For many this question might seem strange since Scotus's haecceitas theory is one of the most well-known, if not one of the most influential, theories of individuation. How could a theory be well known and influential if the problem it was meant to solve were in doubt? Let me explain how such a situation may have emerged with respect to individuation. Often, we assume that there is only one problem of individuation. In extreme cases, that problem is simply equated with the problem of identifying the principle of numerical difference of two individuals of the same specific kind. But this leads us astray, because different authors discuss totally different problems under the general rubric of individuation while we assume that they are all talking about the same problem. Thanks to the last three decades' work, however, now we know—as some scholastics did—that there are several problems frequently subsumed under the expression the "problem of individuation." It is for this reason that, in order to understand Scotus's theory of individuation , we must begin first by identifying the problem he was addressing . I shall claim that for Scotus the problem of individuation was primarily the problem of identifying the principle of indivisibility of an individual into subjectlike parts. My strategy will be as follows. In section A, I shall indicate the context in which Scotus dealt with the problem of individuation. In section B, it will be made clear that Scotus understood individuality as indivisibility. Finally, in section C, I shall confront the main issue of this article, i.e., the problem of individuation for Scotus, by answering the following two questions: (i) How did Scotus understand the relationship between the principle of indivisibility and the principle of distinction? ??6WOOSUK PARK and (2) Was Suarez right in his interpetation of Scotus's problem as that of the ontological status of individuality and not as the problem of individuation properly speaking? A. THE PROBLEM'S CONTEXT At the beginning of his Oxford Lectures, Book II, distinction 3,1 where Scotus deals with the problem of the personality of the angels, he makes it clear that he intends to tackle the problem of the principle of individuation before he deals with angelology. It is a well-known fact that angelology was one of the most heated battlefields for late medieval thinkers.2 Also, we are well informed that the problem of individuation was much discussed in the context of angelology.3 For example, Bonaventure and Aquinas discussed the problem of how to distinguish angels that are pure forms.4 As is also well-known, the problem of individuation was by no means discovered by late 1 John Duns Scotus, Lectura in ltbrum secundum Sententiarum, Opera omnia, edited by Balic, (Rome: 1954-1982). In the preparation of this article, I have used the following unpublished translation: John Duns Scotus, Six Questions on Individuation from the Oxford Lectures, Book II, Distinction 3, translated by Allan B. Wolter, O.F.M. from a transcription of Duns Scoti Lectura II, dist. 3, qq. 1-6, Vienna manuscript, cod. lat. 1449 (National Bibliothek), (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1981). According to Joseph Owens, CSs.R., Scotus treats extensively of "the nature taken just in itself" in the three parallel places where he is concerned with the problem of individuation. They are Opus Oxoniense, II, 3, 1-6, ed. Quaracchi, 2: 223-276; Reportata Parisiensia, II, 12, 3-8, ed. Vives, Vol. 23: 20-41, [ed. Wadding, Vol. 11.1: 323-333]; Quaestiones subtillissimae in Metaphysicam Aristotelis, ed. Vives, Vol. 7: 13, 402-426, fed. Wadding, Vol. 4: 697-710]. See J. Owens, "Common Nature: A Point of Comparison between Thomistic and Scotistic Metaphysics," in J. F. Ross, (ed.), Inquiries into Medieval Philosophy (Westport: Greenwood Publishing Co., 1971) 185-209. 2 See Jorge J. E. Gracia, Introduction to the Problem of Individuation in the Early Middle Ages, 2nd rev. ed. (München and...