Treatise Chapter 1, Paragraphs 6-8

1.6 – The First Division of essential order is the division of this ambiguous order into the more concrete orders that constitute it: those of “eminence” and “dependence.”

1.7 – In the order of eminence, what is more perfect is prior to that which is less perfect. To illustrate this, Scotus cites Aristotle's proof (Metaphysics, Book IX, Part 8) that action itself is more perfect than the potential for action. A contemporary example: a computer programmer has the potential to write code. But the programmer is not fulfilling her function as “computer programmer” unless she is actually coding. A computer programmer is someone who programs computers, not someone who just has the capacity for programming them. She is thus more perfectly a programmer when she is actually coding, because she is exercising her function, rather than merely having the potential to do so. This sort of order (and any others that involve varying scales of perfection) is an order of eminence.

1.8 – The order of dependence places that which is dependent posterior to that upon which it depends. It should be noted that the prior in this order can exist without the posterior, but the reverse is not true, even if the posterior proceeds necessarily from the prior (so that there are no possible instances of it without the posterior). This is because the existence of the posterior without the prior is contradictory - to go back to an example from earlier, it is a contradiction to have a child without a parent. The existence of the prior without the posterior is bound by no such restrictions, and is not a contradiction, even if the two are necessarily paired. There is no law of nature that prevents a parent from existing without a child; the child needs the parent for existence, but the same does not work in reverse. This requirement is what Scotus calls dependence.

Note: In my attempt to make Scotus's definition of essential order more plain in section 1.5, I used the terms 'causer' and 'caused'. These terms do not fully reflect what is meant by "essential order", in fact, they only reflect one possible view of the term - in the form of the "order of dependence" - as (hopefully) demonstrated in this post. Though for precision's sake, I probably should have just maintained Scotus's use of 'prior' and 'posterior', I believe that 'causer' and 'caused' do help to make the definition more vivid and perhaps a little bit easier to understand. So I'm not editing it out - a bit of imprecision in the beginning for the sake of a little bit of ease of understanding on a difficult work seems to be the proper sacrifice to make, especially since the imprecision is noted (and hopefully eliminated) here.

Treatise Chapter 1, Paragraphs 1-5

1.1 – This is a pretty typical invocation of God-as-First Principle to allow Scotus to understand what he already believes – in this case, God's existence. While it may be interesting to look at in terms of the medieval view on the place of philosophy (or the extent to which it can reach), this does not really concern the current exercise, and is not unique to Scotus.

1.2 – Scotus outlines the aim of the Treatise – to discover as much as he can of God's nature using the information we can glean from God's name, “I am who I am” (Ex 3:14). God is what it means to exist, the essence of existence, and though Scotus believes this, he wishes to discover it through a philosophical demonstration in order to understand it.

1.3 – In order to discover the nature of existence, Scotus decides to dig into the source of the “essential order” (defined in 1.5). Though there are many other properties of existence, Scotus believes that this essential order is the most basic one, and thus the best place to start in his investigation. The rest of the chapter is devoted to the four divisions of order – defining and understanding them – in order to discover how many types of essential orders there are.

1.4 – There are three requirements of a clear division within any subject of discussion:

1. the different parts that result from a division must be known and shown to be held within what is divided. For example, when dividing books into the species of “prose” and “poetry”, we've first got to acknowledge that these are the species we will divide the books into, and then we've got to show that both of them are species of the genus “book.”

2. the different parts must be known to be mutually exclusive. We have to know that prose is not a part of, contained within, nor overlaps with poetry, and vice-versa.

3. the classification must be exhaustive – there must be no thing within the genus that is not contained within the divisions. If there were a third type of book that did not fall into the species of prose and poetry, then our divisions would be inadequate, and would require another species of book in order to be a complete division of the genus “book.”

Scotus goes on to say that the first chapter is dedicated to the first requirement, while the others will be dealt with in the second, and so the rest of the first chapter is dedicated to defining the divisions.

1.5 – “Essential order” is a relation which can be asserted of both the causer and caused of each other, equally. “Causer” and “caused” (or, as Scotus puts it, “prior” and “posterior”) are enough, essentially, to divide up anything ordered. For example, look at the relationship between a parent and a child. The pair is an ordered one, with the parent as the causer and the child as the caused. Parent X is prior to child Y, and child Y is posterior to parent X. We speak of the relationship between the two equally, at least when speaking of both the causer and caused – such a relationship requires the both of them as participants. There cannot be a parent without a child, nor a child without a parent. But were child Y to have a child (call her Z) herself, she could not be spoken of as a parent/causer with regard to her own parent – Y's relationship with X regards her only as child/caused, and only the new relationship with Z will allow Y to be ordered as parent/causer.

This view of essential order is presented in opposition to the view that what is caused is ordered, and what is a causer exists beyond the order. This view of essential order is much more strict than the one Scotus proposes, as the only “causer” could be a being like God, who is uncaused and thus outside of the causal chain. As noted in the example of the last paragraph, every parent is a child in relation to some other parent, and so they are a part of the causal chain, within the order. In essence, Scotus is allowing essential order to have much more scope than the more rigid view proposed here, and avoiding circular logic in his proof of God's existence. If he were to choose the strict view of essential order, he would need to posit some sort of “uncaused cause” - a necessarily God-like being - just to get his proof started. Instead, he defines essential order without recourse to a being outside of the causal chain of existence, avoiding the assumption of his conclusion in the early stages of his proof.

Welcome to Not Easily Satisfied!

Not Easily Satisfied is a philosophy blog devoted to interesting philosophical problems that I feel the need to tackle, but do not really have anywhere else to address them. I (probably) won't be an expert in anything I tackle here, but close reading and analysis should carry the day where extensive knowledge cannot tread. The format should change slightly from project to project, but will generally consist of a close reading of that argument in question, a presentation of the strongest possible form of the argument (which will come out through such a reading), followed by the conclusions I draw from my presentation of the argument. If nothing else, it should be a fun attempt to figure out some of those problems that nag just about everyone “when we are caught without people or drink.”

I encourage reader participation (if, indeed, anyone feels the need to read this awkward little blog), as everyone misses something or other, and it's difficult to know if my explanation of a passage is as clear as it can be without someone else reading it! Besides, philosophy is a social activity, and if we all can come to a greater understanding of the issues at stake, then so much the better.

Before I wrap this up, I'd like to give a few introductory notes about my first project, an analysis of John Duns Scotus's Treatise on God as First Principle. I decided to open with this one for two major reasons: first, it is probably the strongest proof of God's existence that I have encountered (even if my experience with it is minimal), and second, Scotus is often a tough nut to crack – he was known as “The Subtle Doctor” for a reason! So while picking apart the Treatise will no doubt be difficult, it seems like the best way to go about both discovering whether or not a proof for God's existence can work, as well as improving my skills at interpreting dense philosophical texts at the same time. Hopefully I'll be able to assist someone trying to parse Scotus on their own, as well.

As the Treatise follows a convenient Chapter-Paragraph numbering system, I will be following it rather strictly. What this means is that I will be analyzing each individual paragraph with a paragraph (or more, as required) of my own. While this may seem tedious, it is very easy to refer back to the original text this way, and allows for the most thorough investigation possible.

I will be working with the Allan B. Wolter translation of the Treatise. Though it's a bit old, and there's no doubt that there is a more contemporary translation available somewhere, this is the one I have access to. In the most ideal situation, I'd use my own translation, but sadly my Latin skills are not yet up to task, and I don't have the time to both translate and philosophize!

Anyway, I've rambled for far too long. Thank you for reading Not Easily Satisfied, and hopefully with a lot of work, we can come to a sort of satisfactory conclusion to some of the most interesting problems the philosophical world has to offer.