Duns Scotus, JOHANNES, was one of the most influential of the medieval schoolmen. Little is known of his history. His name alone seems to be the chief reason for the different conjectures as to his birthplace, which is variously given as Dunstane, a village in Northumberland, Dun (now Down) in the north of Ireland, and Duns in Berwickshire. He was probably born about 1265 A.D., or, according to others, about 1274. While still young, he is said to have entered the Franciscan order, studied at Merton College, Oxford, and lectured there on philosophy and theology. The reports of the number of his auditors, and that 30,000 students then thronged to Oxford, may be taken as testifying in an exaggerated way to the popularity of his instructions. In 1304 he was transferred to Paris, then the intellectual centre of the world, and in 1308 to Cologne, where he died, in November of the same year, at the age of forty-three, or, according to the other account, thirty-four. His works consist chiefly of commentaries on the Bible, on Aristotle, and on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. The first are not contained in the collected edition (edited by Luke Wadding, Lyons, 1639). The last occupy seven out of its twelve vols. folio (vols. v.-x. called Opus Oxoniense, vol. xi. called Opus Parisiense—the latter edited from students' note-books, but containing the author's latest views).
Duns Scotus was at once the critic of preceding scholasticism and the founder of a new type of thought. The great schoolmen of the 13th century, especially Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, had systematised and defended the Christian theology by means of the forms and doctrines of the philosophy of Aristotle. In this way philosophy became the handmaid of religion, and the authority of Aristotle was recognised by orthodox teachers. On certain points indeed—such as the eternity of matter and of the world—his theological position compelled Aquinas to diverge from Aristotle. But the disagreement of Duns Scotus went much deeper. He contended that Aquinas was wrong in subor- dictating the practical to the theoretical, and seeking in speculation instead of in practice for the foundation of Christian theology. This contention struck at the root of the whole Aristotelico-Christian philosophy. Theology, he holds, rests on faith, and faith is not speculative but practical—an act of will. Will is the moving principle of intellect, not intellect the basis of will. 'Will,' he says, 'is the mover in the whole kingdom of mind, and all things are subject to it.' The whole apparatus of proofs by which Aquinas had built up a system of Christian theology is subjected by Duns Scotus to a searching criticism, conducted with consummate dialectical skill, and abounding in refined distinctions, which gained for him the title of 'Doctor Subtilis.' In his own system Duns Scotus maintained a strict theological orthodoxy. He carried on a zealous controversy against the Dominicans (the order to which Aquinas belonged) in defence of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, a doctrine which gradually gained ground in the church, until in 1854 it was finally declared to be a necessary part of Catholic faith. In philosophy he was influenced not only by Aristotle, but also by Neoplatonic doctrines which reached him to a large extent through the Fons Vitæ of the Jewish Ibn Gebirol (Avicenna, q.v.). By this influence in particular, his mode of applying the realist doctrine of universals, and his explanation of the nature of things, were much modified. His psychological doctrine of the supremacy of will over intellect led to his treatment of morality as depending on the mere will of the Deity. The good is good, he held, because God commands it. See AQUINAS, FRANCISCANS.
The controversies between Thomists and Scotists were continued long after the deaths of their leaders. Among notable Scotists were Nicholas de Lyra (1340) and Petrus de Aquila (1345); and William Ockham, the Nominalist, was originally a disciple of Scotus, the apostle of Realism. See SCHOLASTICISM, NOMINALISM, REALISM. At a later period, when the followers of Duns Scotus or Dunsmen opposed the new classical studies, the name dunce came to be used contemptuously for an opponent of learning, an ignoramus.
For a further account of the views of Duns Scotus, the 'Doctor Subtilis' of the schools, see K. Werner's J. D. Scotus (Vienna, 1881); E. Pluzanski's Essai sur la Philosophie de Duns Scot (Paris, 1887); the histories of philosophy of Ritter, Erdmann, and Ueberweg; Prantl's Geschichte der Logik; and Hauréau's Philosophie Scolastique.