Existential Import in the Philosophy of Duns Scotus

EXISTENTIAL IMPORT IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF DUNS SCOTUS I PROLEGOMENA 1. The Norm of Wisdom ^ff HE PHILOSOPHIA Perennis is, humanly speaking, the ^l norm of wisdom. Any system of thought that typifies it, must therefore answer the fundamental ontological needs of integral humanism. Unfortunately, in order to assure with greater efficiency the sovereignty of reason, too many philosophers have confined philosophy to the realm of abstractions, thus debarring themselves from the thrills of vital human experience. The mind has been drilled to ideological acrobatics, where true wisdom might have been contacted. "The greatest reproach one may cast upon most traditional philosophies", says Gustave Thibon, "is the fact that they keep aloft concrete reality, aloft the individual of flesh and soul, which lives, which struggles and which suffers hie et nunc".1 Not so Duns Scotus. The existential import of his philosophical works is on the scale of man. This means, as we shall see, that it fulfills the exigencies of the individual by adjusting him to his true situation and meaning in this world and beyond. Of course, Duns Scotus posits a philosophy; that is to say: an objective-scientific system or method, in which Aristotle's influence is clearly noticeable. Nevertheless his whole work, as it is permeated by an Augustinian influx and inspired by that other existential, Il P overello, focuses on being as the clue to all existential values. Under1 . Gustave Thibon, "L'Existentialisme de Gabriel Marcel," in L'Existentialisme Revue de Philosophie, (Paris, 1947, 2e édition), p. 144. 274 BERAUD DE SAINT MAURICE275 stood in this sense, his philosophy proves to be "a way of life," as Helmut Kuhn would put it, based as it is upon "ontological affirmation."2 Thus, Duns Scotus favors the concrete individual singular, because it alone is true being: "Solum verum ens", he goes in quest of real transcendency, since alone it discloses ontological communion of beings with the Infinite Being; he finally exalts free will because it can most perfectly join the destinies of that "God-loving-being" man is, to the Being Who is God-loving man, because He is Love. 2. Some Notions About Existence, Existential, Existentialism A. Existence Existence, like experience its derivative, cannot properly be defined. It is aphasie. "To treat of existence", Kierkegaard exclaims, "is to abolish it!" As we live existence, feel it, re-create it, it steals away. At the most, one may attempt to describe it. But considering it is the propeller of our substratum through concrete individuation, we do detect the present moment of its unceasing rythmical throb. De ente actualiter existente, it is Duns Scotus who asserts this, tale enim est verum solum ens. According to Duns Scotus, from the metaphysical point of view, to exist is to be posited outside of nothing and exterior to one's causes, by a free creative act of the First Cause. Existence, therefore, is no appendage to some pre-existing essence; it has the full value of a being's intrinsic time or duration. Duns Scotus conceives this duration or intrinsic time as "the intrinsic identity of every something" with its duration, so that there are as many facts of intrinsic time 2.Helmut Kuhn, "Existentialism and Metaphysics," in The Review of Metaphysics , December, 1947, vol. I, n. 2, p. 53. 3."Individuum est verissime ens et unum...". Duns Scotus, Quaest. Metaph., I, 7, q. 13, n. 17, torn. 7, 417b. See also Minges, Duns Scoti Doctrina Philosophica et Theologica, (Ad Claras Aquas, 1930), torn. I, p. 91. 4.Scotus, loc. cit.; Minges, ibid. 276EXISTENTIAL IMPORT or existence as there are existing individual beings. In other words, each existent exists solely by its own existence, because the nature of the facts of existing or being, is determined by the nature of the existents themselves".5 "Quia nonnisi res existens vere est ens, reapse autem non quidditates rerum, non universalia genera et species, etc.... existunt nonnisi Individuum seu singulare ens verum, ens verissimum, maxime ens."6 On psychological grounds, Duns Scotus conceives existence as life; implying the self-subsistent vital force of rational free conscious being that exerts its autocreation or personal display. Vivere viventibus est esse. Due to his metaphysical thesis on...