Books

Hoffmann, Tobias. Creatura intellecta. Die Ideen und Possibilien bei Duns Scotus mit Ausblick auf Franz von Mayronis, Poncius und Mastrius. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters – Neue Folge 60. Münster: Aschendorff, 2002.

The most controversial aspect of the interpretation of Scotus’s modal theory concerns the question of whether things are possible because God knows them to be possible, or whether they are possible independently from God. I argue that Scotus thought that the possibles are possibles because of God’s knowledge of them. I adduce a number of relevant texts that previous 20th century discussions of this interpretational problem have not taken into account. In addition, I discuss the modal theory of Francis of Meyronnes (14th century) as well as the reception of Scotus’s modal theory by two Scotists of the 17th century, i.e., John Punch and Bartholomew Mastrius.

Hoffmann, Tobias. Johannes Duns Scotus: Die Univozität des Seienden. Texte zur Metaphysik. [Introduction, translation and notes]. Sammlung Philosophie 1. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002.

This volume contains a translation (facing pages, Latin and German) of Duns Scotus’s discussion of how God can be known by means of a univocal concept of being, together with Scotus’s critique of divine illumination. In addition, it contains a historical-doctrinal introduction and detailed explanatory notes. By construing being as a univocal notion, Scotus finds new answers to two important questions: (1) How can we have knowledge of God? – By means of the univocal notion of being and of the transcendentals that are predicable of God and of creatures. (2) What gives unity to the science of metaphysics? – The notion of being, which is predicable of all beings (God and creatures) in a univocal way.

Hoffmann, Tobias, Jörn Müller, and Matthias Perkams (eds). Das Problem der Willensschwäche in der mittelalterlichen Philosophie  / The Problem of Weakness of Will in Medieval Philosophy. Leuven, Paris, and Dudley, Mass., Peeters, 2006.

This volume contains fourteen papers on Aristotelian and non-Aristotelian medieval discussions of weakness of will, many of which have not previously been the object of scholarly writing. The papers give insight into a variety of accounts of practical rationality that were directly or indirectly influential on modern thinkers. The temporal framework of the volume extends before and after the Middle Ages by including Aristotle and authors from the Renaissance and the Reformation. The volume collects papers from a conference in Jena, Germany, 2004. [See the abstracts of all contributions.]

Hoffmann, Tobias. Weakness of Will from from Plato to the Present. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008.

This volume contains original thirteen essays on weakness of will by scholars of contemporary philosophy and the history of philosophy. It covers the major periods of Western philosophy. The volume collects ten papers from a lecture series at the Catholic University of America in the Fall of 2004 as well as three essays written for this book. [See the abstracts of all contributions.]

Articles or Book Chapters

Hoffmann, Tobias. “Duns Scotus: Die Unbefleckte Empfängnis Mariens.” In Im Ringen um die Wahrheit, edited by Remigius Bäumer et al., 711–33. Weilheim, 1997

A translation into German with historical-doctrinal introduction and explanatory notes of Duns Scotus’s text of Ordinatio 3.3.1, in which he defends the possibility that the Blessed Virgin was conceived without original sin. The introduction summarizes the theological obstacles to the doctrine of the immaculate conception and the theological debates from the 12th to the 14th century. The main obstacle was the dogma that all human beings are saved by Christ, including Our Lady. Hence the objection to the immaculate conception is that if she had been conceived without original sin, she would not have needed the saving grace of Christ. Scotus famously argues that it was possible for God to exempt Our Lady from original sin by foreknowing the merits of Christ.

Hoffmann, Tobias. “Individuation bei Duns Scotus und bei dem jungen Leibniz.” Medioevo 24 (1998): 31–87.

Leibniz’s first essay, his dissertation on the principle of individuality, is mainly dedicated to a critique of Duns Scotus’s explanation of individuation. Leibniz’s critique of Scotus and the historical antecedents of the German philosopher’s position have not been studied before. The paper examines Scotus’s and Leibniz’s views on individuation and sheds some light on the doctrinal genealogy that leads up to Leibniz’s position. I argue that Leibniz’s view and his critique of Scotus depend upon William of Ockham and Francis Suárez. Ockham, Suárez, and Leibniz posit that individuals are such by themselves or by their entire entity, rather than by an entity that is only a part of their being (as Scotus’s ‘haecceity’). Furthermore, all three take issue with Scotus’s view for the same reason, i.e. because they reject the formal distinction, a key assumption in Scotus’s account of individuation.

Hoffmann, Tobias. “Ideen der Individuen und intentio naturae: Duns Scotus im Dialog mit Thomas von Aquin und Heinrich von Gent.” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 46 (1999): 138–52.

Duns Scotus vigorously defends an idea foreign to Greek philosophers, namely that the individual has a higher ontological dignity than the species. He develops this view in two contexts: the problem of the principle of individuation and the discussion of divine ideas of individuals. This article focuses on the latter, in which Scotus critiques Aquinas, whom he mistakenly interprets as denying that there are divine ideas of individuals, as well as Henry of Ghent, who repeatedly rejects this hypothesis. In connection with the claim that God has distinct ideas for each individual, Scotus argues that the intentio naturae concerns not merely the species, but also individuals. Contrary to Greek thought, therefore, Scotus holds that the purpose of individuals is not merely to guarantee the eternity of the species; rather, they have an intrinsic value.

Hoffmann, Tobias. “The Distinction between Nature and Will in Duns Scotus.” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 66 (1999): 189–224.

The distinction of active potencies into will and nature is one of the most characteristic traits of Duns Scotus’s thought. Scotus distinguishes free and self-determining causality from natural and necessary causality. In this article I show how this distinction underlies large parts of his moral psychology, ethics, metaphysics, and Trinitarian theology.

Hoffmann, Tobias. “Les idées comme essences créables chez François de Meyronnes.” In Le Contemplateur et les idées. Modèles de la science divine du néoplatonisme au XVIII^e siècle, edited by Olivier Boulnois, Jacob Schmutz, and Jean-Luc Solère, 129–47. Bibliothèque d’Histoire de la Philosophie. Paris: Vrin, 2002.

If one defines essentialism as the view that essences have proper being, apart from existence, then Francis of Meyronnes is perhaps the most extreme essentialist of high scholasticism. In fact, Francis holds that creaturely essences are essences independently of God’s knowledge and power: they do not receive their “being of essence”—which Francis construes as being simply (ens simpliciter)—from God. Yet he denies that, qua essences, they are eternal, necessary, and real. Inspired partly by Avicenna, partly by Duns Scotus, Francis inquires what characterizes essences as such, i.e., prescinding from their existence and from any other of their “intrinsic modes,” such as individuality/universality, contingency/necessity. Creaturely essences likewise prescind from any relations, including the relation to God. What grounds their nature is their definition alone.

Hoffmann, Tobias. “Henri de Gand: Idées divines et essences.” In Sur la science divine, edited by Jean-Christophe Bardout and Olivier Boulnois, 226–44. Épiméthée. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2002.

This chapter consists in a partial translation into French of Henry of Ghent’s Quodlibet 9.2, his most detailed and mature treatment of divine ideas. In the introductory essay I emphasize the novelty of Henry’s account of divine ideas. Through the knowledge which God has of non-existent possible creatures, the possibles receive a “being of essence” that is devoid of real existence.

Hoffmann, Tobias. “Moral Action as Human Action: End and Object in Aquinas in Comparison with Abelard, Lombard, Albert, and Scotus.” The Thomist 67 (2003): 73–94.

This article examines different medieval explanations of the causes of moral goodness, principally the end of the agent and the object of the action. Special attention is given to Thomas Aquinas, who considers the end (that which is willed) to be not only the origin of moral goodness, but also its main criterion. Peter Abelard, whose ethics I argue to be non-subjectivist, had developed a similar theory, though the vocabulary he uses is not very refined. By contrast, for Albert and Duns Scotus, the end is accidental to the moral act. The importance of this study is to shed light on the subjective and objective criteria by which to evaluate the morality of actions.

Hoffmann, Tobias. “L’akrasia selon Duns Scot.” In Duns Scot à Paris, 1302–2002: Actes du colloque de Paris, 2–4 septembre 2002, edited by Olivier Boulnois, Elizabeth Karger, Jean-Luc Solère, and Gérard Sondag, 487–516. Turnhout: Brepols, 2004.

What characterizes Duns Scotus’s and other voluntarist explanations of free decision is that they attribute to the will the power to be inclined contrary to what the practical intellect judges best to do here and now. The question of how one can act against one’s better judgment thus seems to be unproblematic: without any cognitive defect, the will can cause incontinent behavior. Yet according to Scotus, the discrepancy between the practical judgment and the inclination of the will, though possible, is atypical. Normally, when one acts incontinently, the will makes the practical intellect turn away from the consideration of right reason

Hoffmann, Tobias. “Aquinas on the Moral Progress of the Weak Willed.” In Das Problem der Willensschwäche in der mittelalterlichen Philosophie  / The Problem of Weakness of Will in Medieval Philosophy, edited by Tobias Hoffmann, Jörn Müller, and Matthias Perkams, 221–47. Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales Bibliotheca 8. Leuven, Paris, and Dudley, Mass.: Peeters, 2006.

The paper investigates Aquinas’s explanation of how the incontinent can make moral progress. The incontinent cannot be healed by moral instruction, because they already know what is best, but fail to act accordingly. Their moral knowledge has to be interiorized. Thus by attaining prudence and the moral virtues, moral knowledge becomes practically effective knowledge. Yet these virtues are no remedy for the incontinent, who are still struggling to attain them. By reason and will they can resist individual acts of incontinence, but in order to resist incontinence consistently, they need the assistance of grace.

Hoffmann, Tobias, Jörn Müller, and Matthias Perkams. “Der mittelalterliche Beitrag zum Problem der Willensschwäche.” Ibid., 5–37.

This chapter surveys the contemporary discussion and the history of the problem of weakness of will and argues that the contributions of medieval authors have been widely neglected. Many prominent medieval thinkers provide extensive discussions of weakness of will in its own right. Others examine related problems in contexts such as free will, the unity of virtue, sin from passion, conscience, original sin, and angelic sin. The medieval accounts of weakness of will offered refined analyses of the relation between passions, intellectual failure, corruption of the will, and moral responsibility.

Hoffmann, Tobias. “Voluntariness, Choice, and Will in the Ethics Commentaries of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas.” Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 17 (2006): 71–92.

The article studies the reception of Aristotle’s treatments of voluntariness and decision (EN 3.1–5) in the first three Latin commentaries (two by Albert the Great, one by Thomas Aquinas) that are based on the integral text of the Nicomachean Ethics. In particular, my goal is to examine how Albert’s and Thomas’s non-Aristotelian concepts of the will as a faculty distinct from reason influences their explanations of the Aristotelian account. It is argued that the Dominican commentators emphasize the idea of freedom more than Aristotle did.

Hoffmann, Tobias. “Aquinas and Intellectual Determinism: The Test Case of Angelic Sin.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 89 (2007): 122–56.

This paper intends to show that Aquinas gives a non-determinist account of free decision. Angelic sin is the eminent test case: ex hypothesi, angels are supremely intelligent and not subject to ignorance, passions, or negatively disposing habits. Nothing determines their choice except for their free decision. Good and evil angels had a reason for their act, but why certain angels acted for an insufficient reason whereas others for an adequate reason cannot ultimately be explained. His action theory allows Thomas to explain angelic choice as contingent and self-determined. The salient features of this explanation are transferable to human free decision.

Hoffmann, Tobias. “Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas on Magnanimity.” In Virtue Ethics in the Middle Ages: Commentaries on Aristotle’s Ethics (1200–1500), edited by István Bejczy, 101–29. Leiden: Brill, 2008.

Certain traits of the magnanimous man of the Nicomachean Ethics seem incompatible with gratitude and humility. Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas are the first commentators of the Latin West who had access to the integral portrayal of magnanimity in the Nicomachean Ethics. Surprisingly, they welcomed the Aristotelian ideal of magnanimity without reservations. The paper summarizes Aristotle’s account of magnanimity, discusses briefly the transformation of this notion in Stoicism and early scholasticism, and analyzes Albert’s and Thomas’s interpretation of Aristotle. Thomas is found to be a more faithful and ingenious interpreter than Albert. He addresses and solves a number of philosophical problems of Aristotle’s account that still puzzle contemporary interpreters.

Hoffmann, Tobias. “Henry of Ghent’s Voluntarist Account of Weakness of Will.” In Weakness of Will from Plato to the Present, edited by Tobias Hoffmann, 115–37. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008.

According to Henry of Ghent, akrasia (incontinence or weakness of will) does not presuppose, but rather produces a cognitive defect. By tracing akratic actions and other evil actions to a corruption in the will rather than to a cognitive defect, Henry wants to safeguard their freedom. Though the will is able to reject what the intellect judges as best here and now, strength and freedom of the will increase to the degree that one adheres more firmly to the good. What strengthens the will are the moral virtues, which are essentially virtues of the will.

Hoffmann, Tobias. “Duns Scotus on the Origin of the Possibles in the Divine Intellect.” In Philosophical Debates at Paris in the Early Fourteenth Century, edited by Stephen F. Brown, Thomas Dewender, and Theo Kobusch, 359–79. Leiden: Brill, 2009.

Would there be possibles if God did not exist? The interpretative impasse on this point has been mainly due to the failure to recognize an ambiguity in Scotus’s terminology. “Possibilia” are (1) the eidetic natures of things or (2) the possibility for a creature to exist. In this paper I argue that Scotus denies that God is responsible for giving things the possibility of existence. In this sense, possibles do not depend on God. Yet I also argue that according to Scotus, only God can originate the eidetic natures of creatures, i.e., the natures of which possibility is predicated. If God did not exist, there would be no possibles, because there would be no eidetic natures and thus no subjects of which possibility could be affirmed. What leads Scotus to this view are not so much considerations pertaining to modal logic but rather epistemological concerns.

Hoffmann, Tobias. “Walter Chatton on the Connection of the Virtues.” Quaestio: Yearbook of the History of Metaphysics 8 (2008): 57–82.

This article studies Walter Chatton's account of the connection of the virtues and its relation to the teaching of Henry of Ghent and John Duns Scotus. Chatton's position with regard to the connection of temperance, fortitude, and justice is influenced by Henry and yet importantly different from him. Chatton's teaching on the connection between prudence and the moral virtues closely follows Scotus's view. Both Franciscans frame this problem in terms of the connection between intellect and will. They both deny that having prudence implies possessing the moral virtues on account of the freedom of the will. Furthermore, they deny that prudence presupposes the moral virtues, because they consider it impossible that the will induce the intellect to err.

Hoffmann, Tobias. “‘Liberté de qualité’ et ‘liberté d’indifférence’ chez Thomas d’Aquin.” In Renouveler toutes choses en Christ: Vers un renouveau thomiste de la théologie morale: hommage au P. Servais Pinckaers, O.P., edited by Michael Sherwin, O.P., and Craig Titus. Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg, forthcoming.

In this article I intend to show that Thomas Aquinas admits that there is freedom of indifference, but that contrary to William of Ockham’s position, he bases this freedom on the freedom for excellence. To this goal, I analyze Aquinas’s account of God’s freedom to create or not as well as his account of human freedom.

Hoffmann, Tobias. “The Quaestiones De anima and the Genesis of Duns Scotus’s Doctrine of Univocity of Being.” In Soul and Mind: Medieval Perspectives on Aristotle’s De anima, edited by Jean-Michel Counet and Russell Friedman. Philosophes médiévaux 52. Leuven: Peeters, forthcoming.

Duns Scotus wrote the Quaestiones super secundum et tertium De anima at least half a decade before his commentaries on the Sentences. Though less systematic and less complete, it is already close to the definitive discussions of univocity in the Sentences commentaries. In this work, Scotus finds for the first time a solution to the principal obstacle to construing being as a univocal notion, namely the problem of how the general notion of being can be further differentiated if being is predicated univocally not only of the differentiated quiddities, but also of the differentiating qualities.

Hoffmann, Tobias. “Intellectualism and Voluntarism.” In Cambridge Companion for Medieval Philosophy, edited by Robert Pasnau. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.

This chapter rehearses major accounts of free decision of the second half of the thirteenth century, from St. Bonaventure to Duns Scotus. A clear divide between intellectualists and voluntarists is observable beginning in the early 1270s, when the question of whether free decision is founded upon reason or will becomes central. Intellectualists stress the causality of the object apprehended as good at the expense of the will’s self-determination, whereas the reverse emphasis can be observed among voluntarists.