John Duns Scotus developed a distinctive Franciscan scholasticism concerning being, individuation, will, and divine freedom through highly exact argumentative distinctions.
Intellectual setting
Scotus wrote within Franciscan and Parisian disputes over Aristotelian metaphysics, divine attributes, and the relation of intellect and will.
Key ideas
Univocity of being
A common concept of being makes demonstrative thought about God and creatures possible without making them the same kind of thing.
Haecceity
Individuality is explained through a “thisness” rather than matter alone or a merely accidental bundle.
Legacy
Scotism became a major scholastic tradition and a continuing interlocutor for Thomist and modern metaphysical debates.