Reasons for willing John Duns Scotus' critical assessment of Aristotle's notion of rational and non-rational powers

Abstract

In his Quaestiones super libros Methaphysicorum Aristotelis IX q.151, John Duns Scotus examines the difference between rational and non-rational potencies, proposed by Aristotle in Metaphysics IX 2. According to Aristotle, rational potencies are capable of producing opposite effects, while non-rational ones operate ad unum, i.e. directed to achieve one of the opposite effects. We propose that Scotus' intention was to determine the principle that makes the rationality or non-rationality of a potency, in order to find the foundation of actual contingency. In fact, rationality as a distinguishing attribute of potencies, and the subsequent affirmation of the intrinsic rationality of the will, allow Scotus to assert that actual contingency is a rational mode of organization of the real. The purpose of this paper is -based on an interpretation of the well-known Scotistic distinction between natural and free active principles- to show the place that Scotus ultimately gives to human action, whose foundation is the only rational potency in strict sense: the will. It is precisely in the analysis of this potency that we find the Scotistic thesis of synchronic contingency of the present, which opens a new perspective on the issue of human freedom and action.