Contingent causality and the foundations of Duns Scotus' metaphysics
By: by Michael Sylwanowicz.
Series: Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters,; Bd. 51
Publisher: E.J. Brill
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Leiden; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 273
Subjects: Duns Scotus, John, ca. 1266-1308.; Philosophy, Medieval.; Metaphysics.
Description: This study challenges the current view that the originality of Duns Scotus' notion of contingent causality lies in modal logic. It works as an ontological concept, and so provides a point of entry into the foundations of Duns Scotus' metaphysics.

As one of two basic manifestations of the active causal power of being, it points to Scotus' underlying ontology, which can no longer be seen as a failure to attain Aquinas' clarity. We have a positive alternative, capable of generating the characteristic Scotist theses: univocity of being, formal distinction, haecceitas, proof of God's existence from possibility, the producibility of God's ideas.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [260]-268) and index.