Subject: Scotus on univocal concepts of God
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Macquarie University
PHIL360 Later Medieval Philosophy

Cassette 1: Scotus on univocal concepts of God

Copyright © 1996
R.J. Kilcullen

This course is concerned mostly with Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, in the
14th century. Then we skip over a couple of centuries to the 17th, to the early
modern philosophers, Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. We will be
looking at them to illustrate the connections between medieval and early modern
philosophy; we won't study them for their own sakes--the early modern
philosophers are the concern of PHIL245. So we are concerned mostly with Scotus
and Ockham, with a brief look in the 17th century.

PHIL252 was a sampling of certain strands of medieval thought up to the
1270s. Most of what we read was on topics of the "Philosophy of Religion". This
was fair enough, because in fact most medieval philosophical thought was
concerned with religion. However there are other strands: in the Arts faculties
especially medieval academics were devoted to logic and what we would call
philosophy of language, and to natural philosophy or science. These interests
continued and perhaps intensified in the 14th century, but again we will follow
mainly the "philosophy of religion" and metaphysics strand. Medieval philosophy
of religion was not based so much on the Bible (as you might have expected), but
more on a philosophical tradition coming down from Parmenides and Plato and
Aristotle and the neo-Platonists. (For Parmenides see PHIL252
Supplement, p. 99, and see p. 100 on Parmenidean problems in Thomas
Aquinas; for the beginnings of philosophical theology see Plato,
Laws, book X; for neo-Platonism see PHIL252
Supplement, p. 1ff and 105ff). In this Greek tradition, the first
principle (or God) was held to be one, simple, and unchanging, and this made it
difficult and problematic to speak about or understand him/it in human concepts:
the things we experience are not simply one but are unified complexes. Most of
the thinkers in this tradition held that our words and concepts apply to God
"analogically" or even "equivocally", in some different sense or manner than
they apply to the things we normally know about. It was also difficult to
reconcile the philosophical account of God with Christian belief: if God is
unchanging and not affected by anything else, how can he involve himself in the
flux of human history? These difficulties had already faced Muslim philosophers.
When the works of Aristotle and the Muslim thinkers became widely available in
Latin in the 13th century Christians had to do some hard thinking.

Scotus, who was a Scot, and Ockham, who was English, both studied and taught
at Oxford, were both members of the Franciscan order, the order established at
the beginning of the 13th century by Francis of Assissi. In philosophy and
theology the Franciscans do not seem to have formed a united school of thought.
Diversity and disagreement characterises the Franciscan tradition. One of the
most obvious common characteristics of 14th century philosophy was that it was
academic or "scholastic" (belonging to the Schools). In other words, it was
written by university teachers for a university readership, students and other
teachers; it was not addressed to the general public outside the universities.
In this respect it contrasts with philosophy in the 17th and 18th (and, in
English, in the 19th) centuries, which was generally deliberately non-academic,
being addressed to lay readers, to the general reading public, written generally
in the vernacular. Seventeenth century writers such as Descartes did not
generally refer to anyone else's writings: there were no learned footnotes, no
analyses of other people's arguments, quotations from Aristotle and Plato and so
on. This has misled some 19th century historians into thinking that the 17th
century writers made a completely new beginning, which is not true. They were
often using, and implicitly arguing with, earlier writers' ideas.

But, as I said, Scotus and Ockham and their contemporaries are academics
writing for academic readers. In this respect their works are often reminiscent
of the writings of the Anglo-American analytic school of the 1960s and later,
the centre of which was Oxford. Fourteenth century scholastics also made no
concessions to the casual reader; they assumed readers who were willing to
follow difficult arguments with close attention, prepared to pursue quite
technical points a long way. Another similarity with modern analytic philosophy
is the use made in the 14th century of logic. Ockham and Scotus, like analytic
philosophers, presuppose a knowledge of logic and an interest in it, and they
make constant use of it. In both the 14th and the 20th century Oxford philosophy
was professional, in the sense that it was written by and for people who were
philosophers full time for a good part of their lives. More exactly, the 14th
century writers were professional theologians; but their approach to theology
was philosophical. The cultural horizons of these professional theologians were
somewhat narrower than those of the writers of the 13th century. Thomas Aquinas
had a big project, to make Greek and Arabic philosophy useful to Christians, and
this led him to criticise representatives of non-Christian thought (e.g.
Averroes). Scotus and Ockham, on the other hand, seem to regard the main 13th
century problems as settled. They are teachers in a Christian institution,
carrying out the everyday task of teaching on the set books, taking up difficult
technical questions as they arise, moving on steadily through the curriculum in
what might be called a routine way. There is no sense when you read these
people, as I think there was when you read Thomas Aquinas, that large cultural
issues are at stake. They are concerned mostly with technical issues of
philosophy.

Now besides being academic, or perhaps it's part of the same thing, their
work is very critical, that is they are very much engaged in testing the current
theories and trying to replace them with better ones. (Then as now, academics
often advanced their careers by refuting someone.) This has led some historians
to regard the spirit of their work as sceptical. This is said especially of
Ockham. But no medieval philosopher was sceptical in the ancient sense; that is,
none of them set out to force suspension of judgment or to show that nothing can
be known. But it often happened that when they applied their critical powers to
some accepted doctrine or set of doctrines they came to the conclusion that this
or that traditional thesis could not, after all, be proved. For example, Duns
Scotus says that it is not possible to prove that the human soul is immortal,
Ockham says that you can't prove that just one God exists. This doesn't mean
that Scotus did not believe that the soul is immortal or that Ockham did not
believe that there is one God, but these beliefs were for them matters of faith,
not of demonstration. It is perhaps a manifestation of the academic spirit of
their work that it didn't bother them to refute traditional arguments for
orthodox theses. It wasn't as if their students were going to turn away and
cease to be Christians if this or that thesis of Christian belief couldn't be
proved. So they were saying frankly, "We can't prove this, we can't prove that,
we think we can prove this, or perhaps we can provide probable arguments toward
that other thing", but it was taken for granted both by them and their readers
or hearers that they were all Christians, and there was no question really of
turning away from Christianity just because various things couldn't be proved.

Given that they approach philosophy as academics working in a minutely
critical way though a pre-established curriculum, it becomes difficult to sum up
their philosophies. Their philosophies consist in the many details, rather than
in a few grand theses or master arguments. Still, I will suggest one theme, at
least for Ockham, and by contrast for Scotus. Ockham is famous for his "razor",
the principle, "Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity". One of
Ockham's characteristic concerns is to reduce the catalog of different sorts of
beings or entities by showing that a term that seems to refer to some sort of
entity is simply a way of referring to, or saying something about, one or more
of the few basic sorts of entities. Duns Scotus, in contrast, seems quite happy
to recognise a multiplicity of entities--as if in recognising each one he was
discovering more about the constitution of the universe. For example, according
to Scotus, when two things bear some relation to one another--let's say, if
Socrates and Plato are related as similar, in that they are both white--then,
besides Socrates and Plato and Socrates' whitness and Plato's, there is another
entity, their relationship of similarity. Ockham, in contrast, says that if you
say that Socrates and Plato are similar in being white, that's a way of saying
that Socrates is white and Plato is white: the only kinds of entity involved are
substance (Socrates and Plato) and quality (whiteness). There is not an
additional entity in the category of relation. In Ockham's view Aristotle's 10
categories are not 10 kinds of beings, but 10 kinds of predicates. Ockham didn't
invent the slogan that entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity, but
it does usefully sum up one of his aims as a philosopher, to reduce the
catalogue of entities that Scotus and others recognised. In fact, Scotus would
have agreed that entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. When he
postulates some kind of being, it is because it seems to be necessitated by some
argument. Ockham's catalogue is shorter because he thinks he sees ways of
turning the arguments that led Scotus to postulate another kind of entity. So
the contrast between them is not so much in acceptance or rejection of this
principle, but in the degree of ingenuity Ockham disposes of in avoiding the
conclusion that such and such a kind of entity has to be postulated.

There is another comparison that might be helpful. Scotus shows the influence
of Avicenna, and behind him of the ancient (neo-) Platonists (Plotinus, Proclus
etc.); he is also influenced by Augustine, who was also influenced by Platonism.
The Platonists saw the things we know as being highly complex, in contrast with
the simplicity of higher things surpassing our experience. Complex beings
consist of many principles or elements that have to be held
together by some principle of unity. That is how Scotus sees the things
of our experience: each of them is a complexity containing many realities or
entities unified in some way. (The Latin word for thing is res, the
word realitas is an abstract term formed from res. Being in
Latin is ens, and entitas is an abstract term formed from
ens: each res or ens is a complex of realities or
entities held together by some principle of unity.) Compare Proclus, proposition
13, in PHIL252 Supplement, p.106.

One of these entities, according to Scotus, is the common nature, i.e. the
nature (e.g. of humanity) that various individuals (e.g. men) have in common.
This common nature according to Scotus is itself an entity, with what Scotus
called quidditative or essential being, and this common nature really exists in
all the individuals of that species. The individuals also contain an
individuating entity, which makes them individuals. So the individual is a
complex, including the common nature and the individual entity (and other
realities). The notion of a common nature comes from Avicenna, ultimately from
Plato. Like Aristotle, Ockham insists that there are no realities that are not
individual: there is no real common nature of humanity, but there is a word or
concept of humanity that can in appropriate statements stand for any of
them--but the similarity of human beings with one another is not an entity. Thus
Scotus and Ockham differ in their theories of the universal in a way that
reflects Ockham's desire to reduce the catalogue of entities.

Scotus on human knowledge of God
Well, let's start reading. You should
have in front of you Hyman and Walsh, Philosophy in the Middle
Ages, and it would be useful also to have the PHIL 252 course books
handy. Read Hyman and Walsh from p.555 (or from p.551) up to p.560. Pause.

There you have something from the editors to orient you in reading. It will
be useful to re-read their introduction after you've read the extracts. Now look
at the beginning of the first extract, on p.560.

First, there is a question: whether God is naturally knowable by the
wayfarer. "Naturally" contrasts with "supernaturally", by revelation.
Apart from revelation, by using the natural human intellectual power, can human
beings obtain knowledge of God? "The wayfarer" means the human being in the
present life here on earth, on their way or pilgrimage toward heaven, the next
life, after death. The second question refers to "this present
condition"--again, this present life.

The extract is from what is called the Opus Oxoniense or "Oxford
Work", Scotus's commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, which
he wrote, or began, while he was a bachelor of theology in the university of
Oxford. The Sentences of Peter Lombard was one of the text books
lectured on in the theology faculty. The extract printed here is only part of
Scotus's discussion of this question. There is a text and full translation in
Duns Scotus Philosophical Writings, tr. A. Wolter, pp. 14-33. Well,
after some opening arguments pro and con, as in the first part
of a question of Thomas Aquinas's Summa, Scotus marks some
observations on the meaning of the question. Put a mark on p.561 just in front
of the second last paragraph, "I say first of all", and read to that point.
Pause.

Some comments. The first paragraph refers to the doctrine of Dionysios the
Pseudo-Areopagite, that our knowledge of God is negative: we can know what he is
not, not what he is. Thomas Aquinas sometimes echoes Dionysios. For example in
PHIL252 Readings, p.107, he said, "Now because we can't know what
God is, but rather what he is not" etc. But Thomas, like Scotus in the question
we've begun to read, rejects the thesis that everything we say of God must be
construed as a negation. See PHIL252 Readings, p.114, article 2.

Another comment. In Scotus, on p.561, line 5, "Chimera" means a mythical and
impossible beast.

The rejection of the distinction between whether a thing is,
and what it is ("Nor should a distinction be made..."), might
also be a reference to Thomas Aquinas. See PHIL252 Readings, p.104,
two thirds of the way through the prologue. There he says: "concerning the
divine essence we must consider (1) Whether God exists, (2) The manner of his
existence, or rather what is not the manner of his existence"
(an echo of Dionysios again). Scotus says that these two questions, whether and
what, can't be separated and can't be answered in that order. You can't discuss
whether something exists without some concept of what it would be if it did
exist; and in fact in his five ways Thomas employed the meaning of the word God
as part of the argument for God's existence--remember the repeated line, "And
this everyone understands to be God".

Another comment, on the last distinction ("between knowledge of God in a
creature and in himself..."). Scotus's point is that if it is said that we know
God indirectly, e.g., by knowing his effect, this can be knowledge of God only
if we already have some conception of God to which we can attribute something on
account of the character of his effects. This is inferential knowledge.
Inferential knowledge of A from B presupposes some conception of A. As Scotus
puts it, discursive, i.e., inferential, cognition or knowledge must have a term
or terminus, something to which what is inferred can be attributed.

Henry of Ghent
Now although I've been relating what Scotus is saying to
Thomas Aquinas, his target was in fact Henry of Ghent, who makes all the
distinctions that Scotus has just rejected. So let me tell you a little bit
about Henry of Ghent. He was a secular (i.e. a member of the diocesan clergy,
not a member of a religious order) who was a master in the Paris theology
faculty from 1276 until 1293. Thomas Aquinas died in 1274, Duns Scotus became
bachelor of theology in Oxford about 1300, so Henry was in the intervening
period, and he was often the target of Scotus's criticisms. In the section
omitted here (at the omission dots after the passage you've just read), Scotus
gives an exposition of Henry's answer to the question. First, Henry says, we
know God in a quasi-incidental manner, when we know one of his attributes--for
example, if somehow we learn of God's wisdom, then incidentally we know the God
who is wise--we know that much about him. Second, we can know God in a general
way, when we know some perfection such as wisdom that is analogically
common to God and to creatures. The wisdom of God and the wisdom of a
human being are two different concepts, yet we run these concepts together as
knowledge of both. General knowledge of God through concepts
analogically common to God and creatures has three stages:

When we know a creature as this being,
we already conceive God, indirectly and indistinctly, because God is a being
(though not this being).

We can remove the "this" and conceive simply being. Being is a concept
that applies analogically both to creatures and to God.

We can apply negations to this analogical concept of being, to distinguish
God's being from the being of creatures--non-composite being, uncreated being
and so on.

This general knowledge becomes least general, that is,
closest to being proper knowledge precisely of God himself, when we deny any
composition between the objects of the various concepts we've arrived at through
the 3 stages just described. For example, we identify God's uncreated and
infinite wisdom with his uncreated and infinite being, goodness and so on: God's
wisdom is his goodness, is his justice, is his . . ., is his being.

So that's Henry's answer to the question. In this life we can attain a
general, non-proper, knowledge of God by combining negation with analogy: we
develop certain general concepts from our experience of creatures and apply
these to God, negating the imperfections found in creatures. Against this,
Scotus will say that if we are to have any genuine natural knowledge of God in
this life, we must be able to form some concepts that apply univocally, i.e., in
the same meaning, to both God and creatures.

Scotus against Henry of Ghent
After explaining Henry's theory, Scotus
says, "My answer to the first question is different. I shall contradict the
preceding view on five points". And this brings us to the next part of the
extract in Hyman and Walsh, on p.561. So what are these 5 points on which Scotus
will contradict Henry of Ghent? Before the paragraph beginning "I say first"
(the second last para. on p.561) write I; before the next paragraph write II;
then on page 563, the middle of the page, before "Thirdly", write III; 3
paragraphs down, "Fourthly", write IV; and over the page, last paragraph of the
extract, write V.

Some direct quidditative knowledge must come first
Now read section I.
Pause.

A comment: The contrast here is between, on the one hand, "accidentally" or
"incidentally" (in Latin per accidens), and on the other hand
"intrinsically", "definitionally" (per se and quidditative).
"Definitionally" means conveying something about the essence or the quiddity of
something. "Quiddity" comes from the Latin question Quid est?, What is
it? When you give any part of the answer to the question "What is it?" you are
giving some part of its quiddity--e.g. it is an animal of some sort. Take
wisdom, for example. This is here called a quasi-property or quasi-attribute
because in God there is no distinction between subject and attribute--God is his
wisdom. Well, we may know some person as "The Wise" or "The Good" (an adjective
with "the" in front to make a kind of noun--awkward in English, idiomatic in
Latin). If we know someone as "The Wise" we then know that person not as he is
in himself, but only through this attribute. Scotus says that to have this
indirect knowledge you must first have some direct quidditive knowledge (perhaps
not much): in the present example, "person" conveys something about the essence
or quiddity. We said, "suppose we know some person as the
Wise". "Person" already gives you some clue about the subject that has the
wisdom. So knowledge through an attribute can't be all the
knowledge that we have, and it can't be the first knowledge
that we have. We must already have some, perhaps only a little bit, of direct
knowledge of the essence on quiddity of the subject of this attribute or
quasi-attribute.

Go back to the text now, and in the margin write 1 at the second paragraph on
p.562 ("And I prove"); write 2 beside the last paragraph on that page ("I argue
the second principal proof"), and 3 at the beginning of the first new paragraph
on p.563 ("Third").

Definition of univocity
Now read to "The argument is confirmed", in the
middle of p.562.

Comment. In the introduction on p.558 the editors tell you that they are
translating not the latest edition, but the Wadding edition, which dates from
the 18th century. The older text contained interpolations, often designed to
bring Scotus into line with later theological opinion. In what you've just read
the parenthesis, "But not making an assertion, since it is not consonant with
the common opinion", is such an interpolation. Delete it. That there are
univocal concepts common to God and creatures is precisely what Scotus does mean
to assert!

Now to remind you, the distinction between "univocal" and "equivocal" comes
from Aristotle's, Categories Chapter 1. A word is used equivocally
when it shifts from one sense to another: for example, "pen" as applied to a
writing instrument and as something you keep animals in. A term is used
univocally when it is used in the one sense--for example, horse and dog are both
animals in the same sense of animal, "living material beings" (or whatever the
sense is).

Aristotle says also that some words are used "according to priority and
posteriority", with one primary sense and others related to that. His example is
"healthy"; primarily an animal is healthy (a human being, for example); but a
complexion can be healthy (a sign of health in the primary sense), a place or
way of life can be healthy (conducive to health in the primary sense). When a
word is used in different related senses the scholastics said it was used
analogically, from the Greek word for proportion.

Equivocation ruins an argument. For example, if you construct an argument
with "pen" as middle term, but shift from meaning writing instrument to meaning
enclosure for animals, your argument fails. Also, equivocation ruins an
attempted contradiction or refutation. For example, if one politician says that
full employment is unattainable, and the other says it will be attained through
his policies, you'd better check that they mean the same thing by "full
employment".

So, as Scotus says, the unity or oneness of a univocal concept
"suffices for contradiction and for use as middle term in a
syllogism", i.e. a term is being used univocally if there is no shift
of meaning that ruins contradiction or argument. This is his minimal definition
of univocity--an attempt to define it without raising complicated issues about
what concepts are, etc.

An argument for univocity: certainty and doubt
Look again at his first
proof, beside I, that there is some concept univocally applicable to both God
and creatures. There are some changes needed to the translation to bring it into
line with the better text (printed by Wolter in Duns Scotus, Philosophical
Writings). On p.562, line 10, delete "something" and the brackets, so
that it reads "certain of God that he is being" etc. Two lines down delete
"anything" and the brackets. In the same line "this concept and
that one" refer respectively to the first and second members of the pairs in the
line before, finite/infinite, created/uncreated. Since it is possible to
be certain that God is being while doubting whether he
is finite or infinite, the concept of "being" as then applied to God is a
concept common to finite and infinite beings. In the rest of this paragraph,
"major" and "minor" refer to the two premisses of the argument given in the
first part of the paragraph. The major is that "every intellect certain about
one concept and doubtful about various others" etc. The minor is, "But the
intellect of the wayfarer can be certain of God" etc. The clause "the subject
includes the predicate" is an irrelevancy, perhaps a marginal comment relating
to some other point in the text that got copied into the text.

Notice toward the end of the paragraph that it is impossible to be certain in
Scotus's sense of something that is false. "Certain" is not merely a subjective
state of mind, but knowledge. Perhaps this undermines the proof of the minor.
Perhaps the pre-Socratic philosophers that he's talking about were not certain
that their first principles were being, if they were mistaken in thinking that
fire or water were first principles.

Read to the last paragraph on p.562, beginning "I argue the second principal
proof thus". Comment: in the last paragraph you read, "two neighboring concepts
that seem to be one concept" is Henry of Ghent's notion of an analogical
concept: an ambiguity so close as to be taken as a single sense. (I don't know
of any other medieval writer who described analogical concepts that way.)

Every concept in the mind of the wayfarer derives from sense
experience
Read now the second proof, down to "Third" (p. 563).

It is called "principal" ("I argue the second principal proof thus") because
the argument two paragraphs previously is a confirmation of argument 1, not a
second new argument.

The phantasm is the image or impression made by something that affects our
senses. The agent intellect, or active part of the intellect, produces from the
phantasm an intellectual knowledge of the thing sensed. So Scotus is saying, in
effect, that without sensation we can't form an intellectual concept. But if a
concept applicable both to God and to objects of sense experience is analogical
in Henry of Ghent's sense--that is, really a pair of different concepts so close
as to seem like one--then where did the other one come from,
the one not derived from sensation? There seems to be no possible source, and
Henry's theory seems untenable. So according to Scotus we can't have any concept
applicable to God unless sense experience of creatures yields univocal concepts
that apply to God as well as to objects of sense experience.

A comment on the wording. "Assumption" (p.563, 3rd line) does not have its
modern meaning. The second or minor premiss was often called the assumption. In
this case it is the premise "But a concept which would not be univocal", etc. At
the end of this premise Scotus says, "as I shall prove", referring forward to
the proof of the assumption.

The argument, then, is that Henry's theory of a pair of close concepts can't
account for the formation of the member of the pair that applies to God.

Another argument
Now read "Third: every metaphysical inquiry..." down to
III.

Comment. Note the phrase, "From the fact that the characteristic does not
include an imperfection or limitation". Recall from PHIL252 Anselm,
Monologion ch.15: The concepts that can be predicated substantively
(i.e. quidditatively, in Scotus's terminology) of God are those that are of
characteristics that it is in every way better to be than not
to be--i.e. concepts that imply no imperfection. Scotus is arguing here that
unless we have such concepts (concepts that imply no imperfection and can
therefore be attributed to God in the same sense as they have when we form them
in experience of creatures), there can be no knowledge of God.

So although, as we first encounter it in creatures, wisdom exists
imperfectly, there is no imperfection implied in the concept of wisdom. It is a
concept of something not necessarily imperfect, although as we first experience
it it exists imperfectly. Since it implies no imperfection we can apply the term
wisdom in exactly the same sense--i.e. we can apply exactly the one concept--to
both God and creatures.

You might compare this with Thomas Aquinas in PHIL 252 Readings
p.117, article 3.

I'll leave the rest of this extract till the next cassette. It will be a
useful exercise for the next tutorial to compare Scotus's theory with Thomas
Aquinas's on the names of God, Summa, I, q.13.

Now read section Roman numeral III. Some comments.

The omission dots are for the omission of an argument that Scotus rejects.

By "except with respect to His intellect alone" means that God's own
intellect is the only intellect that naturally knows God. "As this" means as
this particular individual, i.e. as an individual.

The major premise of the argument given is that God is a "volitional and not
a natural object". Scotus often distinguishes between the voluntary and the
natural. As we will see later, Scotus is not a determinist: he does not believe
that the will is determined in its choice by causes. By "natural" in contrast
with voluntary he means determined by causes. When he says here that God is a
"voluntary" object of human knowledge, he means that God is not knowable to us
as an individual except when he chooses, freely, to reveal
himself. Otherwise, we can know him only in general terms such as "being", or
"wise" or "good", which apply to other individuals besides God.

Scotus leaves aside the question "whether there is another reason", namely
that the human intellect in this life naturally knows only
material beings. This was the opinion of Thomas Aquinas. See
PHIL252 Readings, p.155. We will come to Scotus's discussion of
this question on p.572.

A concept "proper to God": infinite being
Now read section Roman numeral
IV. Comment. Scotus has said that all our concepts of God apply in the same
meaning also to creatures. So how can we have a "proper" concept of God, i.e. a
concept of God in particular, as distinct from other beings? One possible answer
is, by combining enough common concepts so as to form a unique complex concept.
We only have general concepts of human beings, also; when we want to pick one
out in particular we can say "the one wearing the blue shirt who has red hair
and is very tall"; there may be several who are tall, but only one who satisfies
all these concepts. (Actually, as an account of how we pick out individuals this
is incomplete--see Strawson, Individuals: at some point our complex
description has to be linked to sensation; in the example I've just given we
must assume we are looking at a crowd of people and picking out
one of them). Anyway, this passage refers to something like
this method of building up a unique concept by combining common concepts.
"Highest good" combines the common concepts of "highest" (which is a common
concept, applying to the highest building, the highest mountain, the highest
official in an organisation, and so on), and "good" (which is also common--there
are many goods). As Scotus remarks the concept "highest good" involves external
comparison, i.e. comparison with other goods, than which this good, God, is
higher. Also, the concept of "highest good" is complex--it combines two common
concepts.

Scotus says that the concept "infinite being" is simpler
than "good being" or "time being" or "highest being". He does not say
that it is absolutely simple: an absolutely simple concept applicable to God
would not be univocally common to God and creatures. But it is simpler, in the
sense that the concept of a grade or degree of some one attribute is simpler
than a concept that combines something with something else--two attributes, or
attribute and subject. Still, there is some complexity: the concept of intense
white is not as simple as the concept white. (Do we accept this ranking of
complexities--that perfect being is less complex than highest being? What are
these intrinsic modes of being or whiteness?)

Another point to notice in the passage you've just read, in the first new
paragraph of p.564, is the reference to truth, goodness, and being. In medieval
philosophy being, truth, goodness and unity were called the "transcendentals",
transcending the ten categories. (See one of the pieces distributed in the first
mailing in this course, Thomas Aquinas, Truth. Read question 1,
article 1, concerned with the transcendentals "being", "thing", "something",
"one", "good", and "true".) Recall (from PHIL252) that according to Aristotle
"being" is not a genus, not a category; there are ten supreme or highest genera
or categories, and all ten are "kinds" of being, but not as species of a genus;
"being" transcends the highest genera. According to medieval thinkers, "true",
"good", and "one" are convertible with "being", and are therefore likewise above
the categories: whatever is, is (as such) intelligible, desirable, and unified.
This is in origin a Christian neo-Platonic doctrine. Scotus took it over and
introduced an interesting modification: besides these concepts convertible with
being, there are also certain others that are convertible with being in
disjunctive pairs: every being is either finite or infinite, necessary or
contingent, actual or potential.

According Scotus, then, the most satisfactory concept of God is "infinite
being". His argument for the existence of God will be an argument for the
existence of an infinite being.

Now read section Roman numeral V. Comment. Species here is not contrasted
with genus. It means any form. If you perceive a cat, through its form which you
apprehend you know a cat, an animal, a being--by knowing the less universal
(cat) you also know the more universal (being): or, at least, the thing sitting
there on the mat can cause in you knowledge of the less universal, or of the
more universal. So in general any creature in any of the ten categories can
impress on your mind a conception of being, of truth, goodness, unity etc.

"The topic a minori"; from the lesser. What can be done by the
lesser power can be done by the greater. If the imagination can build up
composite images, the intellect, which is a greater power than the imagination,
can build complex concepts.

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