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Scotus for Dunces: An Introduction to the Subtle Doctor
This book is a "simple guide" to theological and philosophical aspects of the thought of the medieval Franciscan, John Duns Scotus. Known as the Subtle Doctor, Scotus has a reputation for intricate and technical reasoning. Ingham provides an insightful and creative introduction to his thought in this book. Philosophical and theological principles are explored with clarity and demonstrated by the use of numerous practical examples. By organizing the book around themes that are both timely and urgent, Ingham invites the reader into thoughtful reflection, encourages lively discussion, and challenges Franciscans in particular to consider choosing patterns of relationships that strive for the good and beauty in all things.
240 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 16, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 9, 2019
The version I listened to from Hoopla was ‘Duns Scotus: The Subtle Doctor’. It’s like a Great Course lecture series but slightly better. This book at Goodreads was the closest title I could find that corresponded to that course.
All modern day Catholics should read Scotus. It would give them a solid foundation that is usually lacking in their understanding of their own religion. Heck, all non-Catholic Christians should read him too. In most people’s mouths ‘God is love’ is a vacuous statement. Scotus gives substance to what that means and how we are supposed to live because of that.
The lecturer, Mary Ingham, did not mention Heidegger, but the blurb on the intro did. Heidegger clearly gets his concern for ‘being’ from Scotus, at least I’ve been told he studied Scotus in the seminary as a student and was greatly influenced by him (Hannah Arendt said that in her book, ‘Life of the Mind’). After ‘Being & Time’ Heidegger changes being as care (German: sorge) to ‘will’. Clearly, that is inspired by Scotus. Heidegger is seldom about morality, but he sneaks it in through his ‘authenticity’ and the prudence (Greek: phronesis) that Scotus demands through his philosophy corresponds to Heidegger’s authenticity.
Scotus gives ‘will’ such that we demand justice and desire happiness and that ‘will’ we have comes before the intellect since the intellect just happens as when you see that dog in front of you; it is there in the intellect automatically (according to Scotus). Or in other words, ‘reason is a slave to the passions’ as Hume will say, or reason (intellect) is not the driver of the chariot, the opposite of what Plato said.
Scotus is reacting against William of Occam and St. Thomas Aquinas because he understands what their implications will lead to. Umberto Eco will not mention Scotus in his book ‘Name of The Rose’. He could have since that book takes place in 1327 and it has an English Franciscan Monk as the protagonist. There’s a reason why Eco doesn’t. I won’t tell all the connections, but the nominalism of William of Occam (and if you did not know, Eco originally wanted to make his protagonist William of Occam but settled on the fictional William of Baskerville) will open up a way for relativism (doubt as opposed to certainty) and Aquinas allows for reason before faith as the foundation of knowledge obviously giving an opening for science before religion, and Eco wants to defend the modernity of today with the roots of the past and that would be antithetical to how Scotus would see the world and Scotus would have muddled Eco’s theme.
The Franciscan tradition as espoused by Scotus is to hold everything (all ‘beings’) as sacred in and for themselves and they are special since it is God’s revealing of Himself to us. That’s Scotus’ way of thinking. Our highest good is God’s love for us and to Him (that is in direct contrast to Aristotle and Aquinas who think the ‘contemplation of the divine’ should be our ultimate good). Modernity, nominalism and the displacement of the primacy of the will with the intellect will diminish our capacity for understanding our most sacred purpose (according to Scotus) of divine love, and that our knowing of God’s love can transcend Aquinas’ limited analogical knowing.
Besides the firm foundation Scotus would give to modern day Christians who almost universally don’t read him, and the clear connections to Martin Heidegger, the most important philosopher of the 20th century when we were in the 20th century with the possible exception of Wittgenstein, there is a third reason that I would strongly suggest this succinct lecture series on Scotus, it is that he has a philosophical insight on contingency (‘thisness’) within a necessary universe allowing for free will that is still worth understanding today.
All modern day Catholics should read Scotus. It would give them a solid foundation that is usually lacking in their understanding of their own religion. Heck, all non-Catholic Christians should read him too. In most people’s mouths ‘God is love’ is a vacuous statement. Scotus gives substance to what that means and how we are supposed to live because of that.
The lecturer, Mary Ingham, did not mention Heidegger, but the blurb on the intro did. Heidegger clearly gets his concern for ‘being’ from Scotus, at least I’ve been told he studied Scotus in the seminary as a student and was greatly influenced by him (Hannah Arendt said that in her book, ‘Life of the Mind’). After ‘Being & Time’ Heidegger changes being as care (German: sorge) to ‘will’. Clearly, that is inspired by Scotus. Heidegger is seldom about morality, but he sneaks it in through his ‘authenticity’ and the prudence (Greek: phronesis) that Scotus demands through his philosophy corresponds to Heidegger’s authenticity.
Scotus gives ‘will’ such that we demand justice and desire happiness and that ‘will’ we have comes before the intellect since the intellect just happens as when you see that dog in front of you; it is there in the intellect automatically (according to Scotus). Or in other words, ‘reason is a slave to the passions’ as Hume will say, or reason (intellect) is not the driver of the chariot, the opposite of what Plato said.
Scotus is reacting against William of Occam and St. Thomas Aquinas because he understands what their implications will lead to. Umberto Eco will not mention Scotus in his book ‘Name of The Rose’. He could have since that book takes place in 1327 and it has an English Franciscan Monk as the protagonist. There’s a reason why Eco doesn’t. I won’t tell all the connections, but the nominalism of William of Occam (and if you did not know, Eco originally wanted to make his protagonist William of Occam but settled on the fictional William of Baskerville) will open up a way for relativism (doubt as opposed to certainty) and Aquinas allows for reason before faith as the foundation of knowledge obviously giving an opening for science before religion, and Eco wants to defend the modernity of today with the roots of the past and that would be antithetical to how Scotus would see the world and Scotus would have muddled Eco’s theme.
The Franciscan tradition as espoused by Scotus is to hold everything (all ‘beings’) as sacred in and for themselves and they are special since it is God’s revealing of Himself to us. That’s Scotus’ way of thinking. Our highest good is God’s love for us and to Him (that is in direct contrast to Aristotle and Aquinas who think the ‘contemplation of the divine’ should be our ultimate good). Modernity, nominalism and the displacement of the primacy of the will with the intellect will diminish our capacity for understanding our most sacred purpose (according to Scotus) of divine love, and that our knowing of God’s love can transcend Aquinas’ limited analogical knowing.
Besides the firm foundation Scotus would give to modern day Christians who almost universally don’t read him, and the clear connections to Martin Heidegger, the most important philosopher of the 20th century when we were in the 20th century with the possible exception of Wittgenstein, there is a third reason that I would strongly suggest this succinct lecture series on Scotus, it is that he has a philosophical insight on contingency (‘thisness’) within a necessary universe allowing for free will that is still worth understanding today.
April 14, 2020
Ingham writes an excellent book in this. In fact, I doubt that this is an introduction at all, except in the respect that she was able to use these notes in a graduate seminar. There is no doubt that Scotus is very complex and calling him the "subtle" doctor is a bit of a joke. Scotus creates more qualifications and exceptions that I am sure that most people probably just threw up their hands in disgust. It was not a compliment as it would seem to refer to him as the subtle doctor. Indeed, one could only say this with a smirk or one's tongue firmly in one's cheek.
This book is amazingly precise and clear, without repeating things over and over. It is also remarkably complete, at least insofar as the main tenets of his philosophy. So many people I have read seem to get Scotus wrong or set about developing theories that his thought changed a great deal. I really don't see how that would be possible, but Ingham gets it right, in my opinion. Scotus is the rock star of the thirteenth century and, for the most part, of Scholasticism in general. He is a very clear thinker who finds errors and creates solutions. Besides that, he is a realist.. and realists are almost always great.
I picked this book up when I needed some help recalling some things from over 20 years ago and I was giving a class or two on him. As stated above, the thinking of the author is so very clear and direct that one wonders why anyone writes longer books about him. More than this, Ingham is a true scholar and added details which I didn't know about him, all the while treating him with the care that Scotus deserves. I recommend this to anyone who is curious about thirteenth century philosophy. Well done!
This book is amazingly precise and clear, without repeating things over and over. It is also remarkably complete, at least insofar as the main tenets of his philosophy. So many people I have read seem to get Scotus wrong or set about developing theories that his thought changed a great deal. I really don't see how that would be possible, but Ingham gets it right, in my opinion. Scotus is the rock star of the thirteenth century and, for the most part, of Scholasticism in general. He is a very clear thinker who finds errors and creates solutions. Besides that, he is a realist.. and realists are almost always great.
I picked this book up when I needed some help recalling some things from over 20 years ago and I was giving a class or two on him. As stated above, the thinking of the author is so very clear and direct that one wonders why anyone writes longer books about him. More than this, Ingham is a true scholar and added details which I didn't know about him, all the while treating him with the care that Scotus deserves. I recommend this to anyone who is curious about thirteenth century philosophy. Well done!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 25, 2020
Most of us only know of Scotus because we know about dunces and dunce caps. Most of us are not much interested in philosophy or theology. It is remarkable that a 13th century philosopher/theologian would have so much to say to people today. Scotus is a very difficult read but Ingham has been able to make clear his core thought an d show how it is meaningful for us today - especially those of us who have not thrown away our religious/spiritual life. Ingham shows how Scotus can provide a foundation, based on reason, for living in the world we know today that will carry us to the world of the future. Scotus knows that reason and faith are not opposed but complementary aspects of human being and brings them together with deep and intricate reasoning. Others, smarter than me, are making good use of Scotus' ideas to formulate a powerful base for progressive ideas to bring humanity to the nest stage of human evolution. Check out Ilia Delio.
August 4, 2017
His is a vision that could greatly benefit our society. I am and always will be a Franciscan at heart! I first learned about Scotus in a medieval philosophy course I took in graduate school. His writing is at times impossible to understand, but I love his perspective. He addressed questions that philosophers in the West are still wrestling with today. He offered an alternative to the Augustinian-Anselmian-Thomistic model that has come to dominate Western Christianity. Even if you are not a particularly religious person I think you will appreciate Scotus' philosophy. I couldn't more highly recommend Ingham's book.
April 26, 2024
This appeared roughly fifteen years before the same author's Understanding Duns Scotus. In that later book (also reviewed by me recently), Sr. Ingham takes the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins to inspire her investigations into topics of aesthetics, cognition, volition, and the Incarnation. There's a lot of overlap between these two guides for those curious about John Duns Scotus, but the 2017 study aims at conveying JDS within and to a Franciscan audience. While this 2003 book addresses similar readers, it's slightly less philosophical (and she's co-authored another, more academic survey of that aspect).
As this cleverly titled primer seeks to frame JDS within the time and place, the fact he followed Thomas Aquinas by a generation or more, and in the wake of condemnations in 1277 of the Angelic Doctor for too freely asserting the novel theories of the writings of Aristotle, then a fresh and unsettling voice rediscovered in the Christian West Ingham early on provides valuable context. Which explains how JDS would've been schooled at Oxford and Paris, what his studies would have inculcated, how he developed in his too-brief life a formidable but incomplete body of work. These considerations are largely background in her Understanding book, so their extended treatment here is welcome.
Also, in discussing JDS' contributions to the dignity he grants humans their freedom, the respect he gives to love as the ultimate emanating force within creation, rather than the intellect that can only inform the choices we make, Ingham digs deeper into his relevance in a world distrustful of belief, language, truth-claims, and human ability to make decisions grounded in a perspective wider than self-fullfilment as the sole goal, or seeking a justice heedless of the effects it has on erring humans as we all are. JDS emerges as a pioneer in elevating human goodness, by showing how love, rather than rules, remains at the heart of salvation history, and as embodied in Trinitarian intricacies of love, too.
Finally, the appendices present readers with extended excerpts from the works now being edited and better understood by scholars today, who unlike most of their predecessors and too many of their present-day colleagues, don't fall for stereotypes of Scholastic thought which the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment have too successfully popularized and which, as Ingham shows adroitly in her final chapter, embed prejudice and caricature within modernism and postmodernism.
As this cleverly titled primer seeks to frame JDS within the time and place, the fact he followed Thomas Aquinas by a generation or more, and in the wake of condemnations in 1277 of the Angelic Doctor for too freely asserting the novel theories of the writings of Aristotle, then a fresh and unsettling voice rediscovered in the Christian West Ingham early on provides valuable context. Which explains how JDS would've been schooled at Oxford and Paris, what his studies would have inculcated, how he developed in his too-brief life a formidable but incomplete body of work. These considerations are largely background in her Understanding book, so their extended treatment here is welcome.
Also, in discussing JDS' contributions to the dignity he grants humans their freedom, the respect he gives to love as the ultimate emanating force within creation, rather than the intellect that can only inform the choices we make, Ingham digs deeper into his relevance in a world distrustful of belief, language, truth-claims, and human ability to make decisions grounded in a perspective wider than self-fullfilment as the sole goal, or seeking a justice heedless of the effects it has on erring humans as we all are. JDS emerges as a pioneer in elevating human goodness, by showing how love, rather than rules, remains at the heart of salvation history, and as embodied in Trinitarian intricacies of love, too.
Finally, the appendices present readers with extended excerpts from the works now being edited and better understood by scholars today, who unlike most of their predecessors and too many of their present-day colleagues, don't fall for stereotypes of Scholastic thought which the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment have too successfully popularized and which, as Ingham shows adroitly in her final chapter, embed prejudice and caricature within modernism and postmodernism.
December 30, 2016
A medieval thinker with some answers for today
I'm not a Christian, and I've only heard of Scotus before this in connection with the problem of aesthetics. Ingham makes Scotus quite interesting, by outlining the problems he engages with and the original solutions he offers; some of these, she suggests, might be worth reconsidering as a way out of the philosophical impasses we have reached today.
Overall, after reading this book, I was inspired to seek out some translations of Scotus's work, and some other scholarly works on "the subtle doctor." I was left wondering why the Catholic Church doesn't talk about these things today--it seems it would make the religion more engaging, and help explain why it is still relevant. I live in a predominantly Catholic town, and I asked around--and not even the most devout Catholics had ever heard of Duns Scotus (they had heard of Aquinas, but nothing more than the name).
On a critical note, I will admit that by the end of the book, certain terms become, well, a bit overused, so that we get claims along the lines of " a spiritual journey founded on recognition of divine beauty which leads to freedom and love and the desire to respond freely with love in beauty." (I'm condensing a bit, here). The terms "beauty" and "love" and "freedom" are philosophically difficult terms, that need explanation, not assumption--and especially with the term "beauty" Ingham doesn't do that explanation here. Also, she ends with some discussion of the problems of "postmodernism," but I cannot think of a single philosopher who would actually hold the "postmodern" position she describes--although maybe she is addressing more the general cultural assumptions?
Still, a very good introduction, and some good suggestions for further reading, as well as a selection of translations of Scotus's writing in the appendices.
I'm not a Christian, and I've only heard of Scotus before this in connection with the problem of aesthetics. Ingham makes Scotus quite interesting, by outlining the problems he engages with and the original solutions he offers; some of these, she suggests, might be worth reconsidering as a way out of the philosophical impasses we have reached today.
Overall, after reading this book, I was inspired to seek out some translations of Scotus's work, and some other scholarly works on "the subtle doctor." I was left wondering why the Catholic Church doesn't talk about these things today--it seems it would make the religion more engaging, and help explain why it is still relevant. I live in a predominantly Catholic town, and I asked around--and not even the most devout Catholics had ever heard of Duns Scotus (they had heard of Aquinas, but nothing more than the name).
On a critical note, I will admit that by the end of the book, certain terms become, well, a bit overused, so that we get claims along the lines of " a spiritual journey founded on recognition of divine beauty which leads to freedom and love and the desire to respond freely with love in beauty." (I'm condensing a bit, here). The terms "beauty" and "love" and "freedom" are philosophically difficult terms, that need explanation, not assumption--and especially with the term "beauty" Ingham doesn't do that explanation here. Also, she ends with some discussion of the problems of "postmodernism," but I cannot think of a single philosopher who would actually hold the "postmodern" position she describes--although maybe she is addressing more the general cultural assumptions?
Still, a very good introduction, and some good suggestions for further reading, as well as a selection of translations of Scotus's writing in the appendices.
October 28, 2015
Ideal reader right here
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews