C. Objections against Scotus’ own Response

30. [Exposition of the objections] - Against this solution it is objected that the foundation of a relation, when it founds a relation, exists according to the being according to which it founds, - otherwise it would not found according to that being; but a stone according to true being of essence founds the eternal relation to God as knower, and this in eternity; therefore the stone exists in eternity according to this being. Proof of the minor: it founds the relation to God as knower according to the being according to which its being as object is known by God; but it is known by God under the idea of true essence, not under the idea of diminished essence, because the first intellection of a stone by God is not reflexive.

31. Further, production is not of some relation merely, because relation only exists in something absolute; therefore since it was conceded in the preceding question [d.35 nn.31-32, 40, 42] that God produces things in intelligible being ‘according as the known thing is said to be an idea’, it follows that in the second instant [ibid., nn.32, 49] one must posit some absolute entity of the produced thing, so that on the absolute being having such entity the relation to the producer may be founded.

32. [Response to the objections] - To the first [n.30] I say that a canceled term is not canceled with respect to the canceling term but with respect to a third to which it is compared under the reason of what cancels, - because according to the Philosopher De Interpretatione 11.21a21-24, when predicating of someone that he is ‘a dead man’ there is an opposition in the adjective, on which contradiction follows [sc. a dead man is not in fact a man]; therefore when comparing a determinable precisely to the determination, the determinable is not canceled with respect to the determination but includes a contradiction to it; but with respect to the third term - about which ‘dead’ is said - there is a canceling determination and that which is determined by it is canceled, so that it is only said to be it ‘in a certain respect’ [sc. a dead man is not a man simply but a man in a certain respect, as a body that was a man].

33. Thus I say that a diminished thing is not diminished with respect to the diminishing term but with respect to a third, to which it is compared under the diminishing determination; just as when I say ‘he is white as to his teeth’, the white is not diminished but is taken for white simply with respect to this determination (otherwise it would be frivolous); but, as it is taken under the determination, it is said of a third thing -as of an Ethiopian - as diminished.

34. Now this determination ‘to be in opinion’ is a diminishing one (according to the Philosopher, ibid. 21a24-33), and the way being in opinion is, so being in intellection also is or being from an exemplar or being known or represented, - all which are equivalent. Although therefore what is compared to any one of these, as it is compared to it, is not diminished - yet as it is under any of these compared to a third, it is diminished; for the being of man simply - and not diminished being - is the object of opinion, but the ‘being simply’ as it exists in opinion is being ‘in a certain respect’; and therefore the inference does not follow ‘Homer is in opinion, therefore Homer is’, nor even ‘Homer is existing in opinion, therefore Homer is existing’ - but there is a fallacy of simply and in a certain respect.

35. So here: when comparing to divine intellection a stone in eternity, the stone is indeed simply compared to the intellection (and this according to the being not only of essence of the stone, but also of existence), and anything comparable is so compared -yet as it is taken under this comparison to the knowledge of God it is diminished; it is not indeed canceled, as if ‘being simply’ could not stand with this sort of respect, but it is diminished so that such respect does not necessarily posit that ‘its determinable’ is a being simply.

36. Next to the form of the argument [n.30]: ‘the foundation of a relation is according to the being according to which it founds the relation’ is true when the founded relation is not simply diminishing the being of the foundation. And the real reason for the ‘in a certain respect and simply’ seems to be this, that the first distinction of being seems to be into being outside the soul and being in the soul, - and the ‘outside the soul’ can be distinguished into act and potency (of essence and of existence), and any of these beings ‘outside the soul’ can have being in the soul, and the being ‘in the soul’ is other than every ‘being outside the soul’ and therefore about no entity nor about any being does it follow that, if it has diminished being in the soul, it has because of this being simply -because the being is in a certain respect, absolutely, which however is taken ‘simply’ insofar as it is compared to the soul as foundation of the being in the soul.

37. Argument [sc. against nn.35-36]:

A stone is not of itself a necessary existence in any existence;[Text canceled by Scotus] This does not follow, if it is a true being, and not divisible into necessary and possible. ⁵ therefore in being known it is caused; only by an efficient cause - whose term is only being simply.

38. Again what is only in something virtually is never formally such save through actual causation; a stone ‘as known’ is only virtually in the divine essence; therefore it does not become actually known without causation - and then as before [n.37].

39. In response to these [nn.37-38]:

One can respond otherwise than is responded here above [nn.35-36], namely that the intellection of God, although it is not absolutely caused, yet as it is of this secondary object (to wit, a stone) does as it were have a principle, and this from the essence as an equivocal objective formal nature - and so it is more from a principle then when it is of the first object because in this latter way it is from a principle as from a univocal objective formal nature. And to be an intellection, as it is ‘of this’, as from a principle equivocally is for the ‘this’ to have a principle in diminished being, just as for an intelligible species to be from a principle in the intellect is for the object ‘in a certain respect’ to be from a principle as it is actually intelligible, or - a better example for the purpose - in the way that through the species of the subject ‘the intellection of the property is from a principle’ is for the property as actually understood to be from a principle; therefore this example is fitting, because a stone does not have a principle equivocally from the essence as intelligible first before it does so as understood; for nothing has formal being in the memory before it does so in intelligence, but only virtual being. Nor does it seem unacceptable to concede that the divine intellect has as it were a principle (not in itself, but as it is of this object), because one must posit this about volition (as it seems), since volition is contingently of this object, and nothing contingent is altogether uncaused.

40. Thus there will be an order between the altogether without a principle (as the essence) and the from a principle univocally (as the intellection of the essence) and the as it were from a principle equivocally but necessarily (as the intellection of a stone) and the as it were from a principle equivocally and contingently (as the willing of a stone).

41. This way well says, in this regard, that the essence as ‘moving reason’ is altogether without distinction, univocally as it were when moving to itself as to first term of act, and equivocally as it were when moving to a secondary object as to second term of act; such that neither in the intellect (as is plain) nor in motive reason nor in understanding nor in the first term must one posit any distinction. But when it is said ‘the act is as it were equivocally from a principle as it is of a secondary object’ [n.39], this is nothing other than that it is extended - as if beyond the first object - to the second in virtue of an objective principle that is equivocal to the second term.

42. But what is it for an act to be thus extended? Not to be a relation in act, nor to be a relation in the first object to the second, - for you [sc. Scotus himself]; therefore it is for the second object to be referred to the act or the first object; this object is only of what possesses some being [sc. diminished being], - and then follows what is had there [nn.35-36].

43. So the imagination is false that ‘to understand’ is distinguished (so that it might be of many things) as if into many ‘to understands’; nay there is no need for any difference in it, as it is a sort of mean between reason and the first term, which secondary objects follow;     therefore it is false that the secondary objects are the immediate term of

‘to understand’, just as neither do they move - for in no way are they necessarily required for act, but they are required in idea of term, to the act as it is of this; this only asserts a relation in the second mode.a

a [Note of Duns Scotus] God: intellect, essence as reason; to understand: essence as first term, -stone, angel etc     ., secondary objects.

44. To the second [n.31] I say that this production is in the being of a reason different from all being simply, - and it is not being of reason simply, but also of the foundation; not indeed according to the being of essence or existence, but according to diminished being (which is ‘to be’ true), which is a to be in a certain respect also of absolute being, which ‘absolute being’, however, according to this diminished being has a relation of reason as concomitant.

45. An example of this: if Caesar were annihilated and yet there were a statue of Caesar, Caesar would be represented by the statue. This ‘being represented’ is of a reason different from all being simply (whether of essence or existence), nor is it a diminished being of Caesar, as if something of Caesar had this being and something of him did not -as an Ethiopian is diminished white because something of him is truly white and something not [n.33]. But of the whole Caesar ‘the being of him from a cause’ is true being of essence and of existence, and to that whole - according to such being of his -this being in a certain respect belongs, and in him, according to this being in a certain respect, there can be some relation to the statue.

46. And although one could suppose there to be calumny in the example, it cannot thus be said in the issue at hand about intellection and the object without the whole object, and in accord with its whole being, having ‘diminished being’ in act. And if you wish to look for some true being of this object as such, there is none to look for save ‘in a certain respect’, save that this ‘being in a certain respect’ is reduced to some being simply, which is the being of the intellection itself; but this ‘being simply’ is not formally the being of that which is called the ‘being in a certain respect’, because it is of it as term or principle, so that to this ‘true being in a certain respect’ is thus reduced the fact that without this true being of it there would not be this ‘being in a certain respect’ of it.

47. Now from this becomes clear something said above in distinction 3 nn.265-267 (‘About knowledge in the eternal rules’), namely that the moving of our intellect ‘by intelligible quiddities’ is reduced to the divine intellect, through whose ‘being simply’ those objects have being in a certain respect, namely objective being (which is the being that moves our intellect to know genuine truths), and because of their motion the intellect is said to move, just as too they have ‘their own being in a certain respect’ because of the being simply of it.