Tradition
Scotistic realism
Overview
Scotistic realism (also Scotist realism or Scotist formalism) is the Scotist position on the problem of universals. It is a form of moderate realism, which is sometimes referred to as 'scholastic realism'. The position maintains that universals exist both in particular objects and as concepts in the mind.
The "problem of universals" was an ancient problem in metaphysics about whether universals exist. For John Duns Scotus, a Franciscan philosopher, theologian and Catholic priest, universals such as "greenness" and "goodness" exist in reality. This is opposed to the later nominalism of William of Ockham, and the earlier conceptualism of Abelard, which say universals exist only within the mind and have no external or substantial reality, or universals don't exist at all (including the mind). In addition, Scotus doesn't think that universals exist in some "third realm" or "Platonic heaven", as Plato thought (i.e. Platonism).
In this way, Scotistic realism can be seen as a middle ground between Aristotelian realism (i.e. immanent realism) and conceptualism. Scotistic realism can also be seen to take a nod to Platonism. Not because Scotus thinks that universals ultimately trace back to a "Platonic Heaven"; rather, because (for Scotus) universals ultimately trace back to ideas in God's mind.
Therefore, scotistic realism affirms that universals exist in particular objects, finite minds, and the infinite mind of God.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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So long as what are termed Universals were regarded as a peculiar kind of substances, having an objective existence distinct from the individual objects classed under them, the _dictum de omni_ conveyed an important meaning; because it expressed the intercommunity of nature, which it was necessary on that theory that we should suppose to exist between those general substances and the particular substances which were…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what Scotistic realism is.
To do so would be to forget that finite things are changeable and transient, _i.e._ that existence is associated with them for a season, but that the association is neither eternal nor inseparable. Speaking in the phraseology of the categories before us, we may say that, to call a thing finite, means that its objective existence is not in harmony with the thought of it, with its universal calling, its kind and its…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel
States what Scotistic realism is.
But whether valid or not, the argument has been very widely advanced in one form or another; and very many philosophers, perhaps a majority, have held that there is nothing real except minds and their ideas. Such philosophers are called 'idealists'.
Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy
States what Scotistic realism is.
Philosophers who discussed Scotistic realism
Related ideas
- Philosophy
- Metaphysics
- Nominalism
- Thomas Aquinas
- Platonism
- Plato
- Problem of universals
- Theory of forms
- Haecceity
- Theology
- Universal (metaphysics)
- William of Ockham
- Duns Scotus
- Peter Abelard
- Essence
- Charles Sanders Peirce
- Conceptualism
- Franciscans
- Priesthood in the Catholic Church
- Moderate realism
- Existence
Place in the tradition
Part of Outline of metaphysics.