Duns Scotus, John, Latin Joannes c.1265-1308
Scottish Franciscan philosopher and theologian

His brief life is scantily documented. Born probably in Duns, Berwickshire, he became a Franciscan and was ordained priest in St Andrews Church, Northampton, in 1291. He studied and taught at Oxford and Paris, probably also in Cambridge, and finally at Cologne where he died and was buried. His works, consisting mainly of commentaries on the Bible, Aristotle and the Sentences of Peter Lombard, many incomplete, were later collected and edited (not always very responsibly) by his associates. The main works are now taken to be the Opus Parisiense (the Parisian Lectures, as recorded by a student), the Opus Oxoniense (the Oxford lectures, also known as the Ordinatio, and probably revised by the author), the Tractatus de Primo Principio (Eng trans A Treatise on God as First Principle, 1966) and the Quaestiones Quodlibetales. His philosophy represents a strong reaction against both Aristotle and St Thomas Aquinas. He propounded the primacy of the individual (in the dispute about universals), and the freedom of the individual will. He saw faith as the necessary foundation of Christian theology, but faith was for him exercised through an act of will and was practical, not speculative or theoretical. He also pioneered the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. He rivalled Aquinas as the greatest theologian of the Middle Ages - the Franciscans followed Scotus as the Dominicans did Aquinas - and was known by contemporaries as 'Doctor Subtilis' for his dialectical skill. In the 16th century the Scotists were ridiculed by the English Reformers, and dubbed 'Dunses' (hence 'dunce') for their defence of the papacy against the divine right of kings. More recently he has been admired by figures as diverse as Charles Peirce, Martin Heidegger and Gerard Manley Hopkins, who found him 'of realty the rarest vein�d unraveller'.

Bibliography: Efrem Bettoni, Duns Scotus (1961)