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Rezension zu Goris, Wouter, Scientia propter quid nobis. The Epistemic Independence of Metaphysics and Theology in the Quaestio de cognitione Dei attributed to Duns Scotus, Münster: Aschendorff 2022. (VIII) 296 S.

Theologische Revue, Januar 2024

Die Rezension ist auf der Website der Theologischen Revue frei verfügbar. 

Anzeige von Goris, Wouter: Scientia propter quid nobis. The Epistemic Independence of Metaphysics and Theology in the Quaestio de cognitione Dei attributed to Duns Scotus (uni-muenster.de)

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This study is part of a larger project on the primacy of adequacy in the philosophical thought of Duns Scotus. It offers, together with a critical edition, the first attempt at an overall interpretation of the Quaestio de cognitione Dei attributed to Duns Scotus — a text famous for its enhancement of Scotus’s conception of metaphysics with the systematic distinction between metaphysics as a science ‘in itself’ and ‘for us’. 

In line with the theory of science in the Lectura Parisiensis, in which Duns Scotus casts theology as a strictly demonstrative science in the present state (a scientia propter quid nobis), the Quaestio de cognitione Dei is seen to demand that the same be allowed for metaphysics as well — its conception of metaphysics as a scientia in se distinct from theology hence critically amends Scotus’s conception of metaphysics. This criticism not only shows that the Quaestio de cognitione Dei is wrongly attributed to Duns Scotus and is rather to be situated in the innerfranciscan debate on his Parisian theory of science in the second decade of the 14th century — in the direct environment of John of Reading, whose texts resonate in the Quaestio de cognitione Dei. This criticism also incites further investigation into the singular character of Scotus’s Parisian conception of science as well as a reconsideration of the traditional interpretation of his metaphysics, prey to the systematic inconsistency the Quaestio de cognitione Dei denounces.
 

Über den Autor

Wouter Goris is currently Professor for Philosophy, esp. of the Middle Ages, and the director of the Scotus Archiv at the University of Bonn. He has written studies on the metaphysics of Meister Eckhart, on the medieval discussion of the primary object of the intellect, and on the metaphysical doctrine of transcendental unity.