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Annotation Guide:

cover
The Ordinatio of John Duns Scotus
cover
Ordinatio. Book 2. Distinctions 1 - 3.
Book Two. Distinctions 1 - 3
Third Distinction. First Part. On the Principle of Individuation
Question Six. Whether Material Substance is Individual through Some Entity per se Determining Nature to Singularity
A. To the Question
1. The Opinion of Others
a. Exposition of the Opinion

a. Exposition of the Opinion

148. Here it is maintained [by Godfrey of Fontaines] that the specific nature is of itself a ‘this’, and yet it can, through quantity, be the nature common to several singulars, or quantity can be the reason that several singulars can exist in the nature.59

149. The first point [sc. specific nature is of itself a ‘this’] is made clear thus: the most specific species is of itself an atomic unit; therefore it is indivisible.

150. And there is confirmation from the remark of Porphyry [Book of Predicables ch.2 2b14-16], “When we descend from the most general to the most specific, Plato [Politicus Latinus I 596] bids us come to a rest;” but if it were possible for there to be a further division of this nature, one should not rest at the nature; therefore etc.

151. Likewise Boethius in his book Of Divisions, when he is enumerating all the divisions not only per se but also per accidens, does not enumerate a division of the species into individuals; therefore the specific nature is a not a ‘this’ through something else.

152. Again, if there were some reality in an individual beside the sole reality of the specific nature, the species would not state ‘the whole being of individuals’ - which is against Porphyry [Predicables ch.2 3a5-9].

153. The second point [n.148] is made clear by the fact that quantity, although it is not the formal idea of the division of anything into subjective parts, yet, when a quantitative whole is divided into quantitative parts, it is divided per se into things that are of the same idea; now the principle of a division into something is the same as the principle of distinction of the very dividers; therefore, just as quantity itself is the principle of the division, so it is the principle of the distinction of the dividers. But these dividers are the subjective parts of the common nature; therefore quantity is the principle of the distinction of such parts.

154. Now how these two points [n.148] can stand together can be made plain through an example, because, according to the Philosopher Physics 1.2.185a32-b5, ‘substance is of itself indivisible into parts’, speaking of parts of the same idea - and yet, when quantity is added, substance is divisible into such parts, indeed it then has such parts. In this way, then, can a nature of a species be of itself a ‘this’ and yet, though a nature coming to it from without, be this here and this there.