A question raised in the Prologue, but developed in great detail in Question 3 of Distinction III, is a question nominally about memory. ‘‘Thirdly, I ask about memory: Is memory found in the intellect having actual or habitual intelligible objects present to it by means of species which formally inhere in the intellect prior to the act of understanding?’’ Here Reading, defending Scotus against Henry of Ghent, who contended that an intelligible species is not necessary, since, if it were known, it would interfere with knowledge of the object because it takes its place. His second opponent is Richard Drayton, another Franciscan follower of Henry of Ghent, who also fought Scotus and denied the necessity of an intelligible species. The principal opponent of Scotus in Reading’s Distinction III text, however, is William of Ockham, who argues in accord with his famous razor that holding to the necessity of intelligible species to account for human and angelic universal knowledge of created realities should more probably be considered as defending something that is superfluous. Reading’s presentation of Ockham’s position is a very thorough representation of Ockham’s whole portrait of intuitive and abstractive cognition and its various types, both natural and supernatural, before summarizing Ockham’s conclusions regarding intelligible species as follows: (1) to have intuitive intellectual knowledge the object and the intellect suffice, without any species; (2) for abstractive cognition the object and intellect are not sufficient; (3) what is needed beyond the intellect and object is not an intelligible species but rather a habit (habitus). John of Reading then brings on Scotus to defend the necessity of intelligible species, using the texts of Aristotle and Averroes as interpreted by Scotus, as firm supports. For Scotus, unless the intellect could have its object present to it without it being present to the sense powers, and thus through a species, it would necessarily depend on the sense powers in its own operation and therefore would depend on them for its very existence. Nor is it enough to say, as Ockham argues, that a habit would suffice, since habits depend on acts: how then can an act depend on a habit, when acts themselves build up habits and thus precede them. It is in this debate with Ockham that one can sense that Reading believes that Ockham is the chief threat to Scotus’ teachings: he goes into the most detailed presentation of Ockham’s disagreement with Scotus and answers every one of his arguments in the most clarifying way possible for a follower of Scotus. It is in discussions such as this one that we can understand why Adam Wodeham considered John of Reading Scotus’ most faithful disciple.
One of the most famous positions of Scotus concerns the nature of freedom. He argued that the created will
Could operate with complete autonomy. Reading summarized his own position with a declaration of allegiance: ‘‘As the Subtle Doctor argues, so also do I.’’ The direction of Reading’s thinking can be gleaned from the way he poses the question: ‘‘Whether when the ultimate end is grasped by the created intellect the will necessarily wills that end?’’ For both Scotus and Reading, the negative answer is a declaration of the primacy of angelic and human freedom. This sixth Question of Distinction I fills 76 pages in its modern edition and shows the presence of the authors of his early commentary, Henry of Ghent, Duns Scotus, Robert Cowton, and Richard of Conington, as well as the later discussions of this issue in the works of Peter Auriol and William of Ockham. In this question, Reading not only follows Scotus, he once again attempts to explain Scotus’ teaching to those who have over the past 2 decades raised objections or given other interpretations to the Subtle Doctor’s teaching and his understanding of St. Augustine, St. Anselm, and Peter Lombard.
John of Reading’s metaphysical thought leads him to a twofold approach to the discussion of man’s natural knowledge of God. In questions 2 and 3 of Distinction II, Reading poses these problems: ‘‘Can a First Being be known with certitude by our natural abilities?’’ and ‘‘Is there but one First Being?’’ Once again, we can sense that in answering the first question, he is following John Duns Scotus. Scotus, in his discussion of our natural ability to know with certitude that God exists, touches on a number of prefatory definitions regarding causes: univocal versus equivocal, per se versus per accidens, partial versus total, and essentially ordered versus accidentally ordered. William of Ockham had challenged many of Scotus’ explanations and claims regarding each of these couples. John of Reading made it his task to clarify and justify the Scotistic options. For the second question, Reading’s chief opponents, as he answers, are William of Ware and Peter Auriol. William of Ware, known as a Praeceptor Scoti (a teacher of Scotus), held that the unicity of God is a tenet of faith, and is thus not demonstrable. Reading here takes on the many Franciscans who followed Ware (William of Alnwick, Robert Cowton, Peter Auriol, and William of Ockham) and criticized Scotus. However, most of his effort in dealing with the unicity of God focuses on Peter Auriol who presents him with two theses: an analysis of final causality does not bring us to a single final cause of all things, nor can it show a final cause that is identical with the efficient cause of the world. These are not theses of Auriol himself, but rather his representation of Averroes’ portrait of Aristotle’s views. Nonetheless, it provides John of Reading, with some help from the Dominican Robert Holcot, the opportunity to develop his own philosophical arguments for the existence and unicity of God through his reinterpretation of final causality and its link to a unique efficient
Cause.
World History
