Scotist Metaphysics: Notes on the Subject of the Metaphysics in Antonius Andreae and Duns Scotus

Abstract

Antonius Andreae, by reworking Duns Scotus’s works, tried to elucidate the complexity of his master’s philosophical doctrine thus stating some of the fundamental theses of Scotist metaphysics. An example of this operation takes place in the delimitation of the subject of metaphysics that Andreae proposed in his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, which achieved a huge editorial and academic success during the 15th and 16th centuries. Scotus’s treatment of this question is highly ambiguous and contradictory if we consider the conclusions of his logical and metaphysical works and the differences that these present with his theological texts. Against this background, Andrés determined in his work the position that would become part of the later Scotist doctrine: the first subject of metaphysics is the being qua being, universal, common, univocal, neutral and transcendental. With this proposal, metaphysics took a new ontological direction during the Late Middle Ages, broking with the earlier Scholastic tradition, and was finally conceived as a scientia transcendens.

Keywords: Antonius Andreae; Duns Scotus; Scotism; Subject of Metaphysics; Univocity.