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[ 104 ] the rise and fall of soul and self
Scotus claimed that since human intellectual cognition transcends the power
of the senses it is not an organic function and, hence, probably resides in some-
thing, the human soul, that is not itself extended. Moreover, since humans have
free will, they can transcend organic appetite, which they probably could not do
if they were wholly material. It is likely then, he thought, that humans have an
immaterial soul, which must be the specific form of humans that separates them
from the brutes. In addition, he claimed, since humans are a composite of soul
and body, the soul by itself is not a human (or person). Thus, human death is the
death of humans, which are composite entities, but not the death of the soul.
Only what is composite can die. The soul, which is simple, cannot die.
However, contrary to Aquinas, Scotus argued that the human soul without
its body is as perfect as when it is joined with its body. Even according to Aquinas,
he said, the soul possesses the same being separate from the body as it possesses in
union with the body. In Scotus’s view, the union of soul and body is for the per-
fection of the human, not of the soul. He elaborated that the tendency of the
intellect to think of material things, and its de facto dependence on the senses, is
due not so much to its nature as to its union with the body, which union may
well be a consequence of sin.
Finally, in agreement with the growing tide of Latin Averröéist and double-
truth theorists but contrary to Aquinas, Scotus thought that neither the immor-
tality of the soul nor the resurrection of the body can be demonstrated. Rather,
both can be shown only by probable arguments. Scotus also claimed, contrary to
Aquinas and others, that it is not clear what Aristotle’s view on immortality was,
or even if he believed in it. While Aristotle continued to provide the terminology
and the method and continued to nourish the increasingly empiricist spirit of
Scholastic philosophy, the careful, energetic attempt by philosophers such as
Scotus to synthesize science with Christian revelation brought forth a critical
intelligence on the part of philosophers that would ultimately undermine the
authority of Aristotle.
In this regard, consider, for instance, the views of William of Ockham
(1285-1349), an Oxford-educated Franciscan who, at the University of Paris,
was initially a student and then a colleague of Scotus. The central principle of
Ockham’s thought, and the most consequential, is his claim that only individuals
exist—that is, that except as mental concepts, there are no universals. He rea-
soned that if a distinct and independent universal were in a thing in the normal
way in which one thing may be in another, then the so-called universal would be
a part of the thing or else identical with the thing. In either case, the so-called
universal would not be a universal but a particular. In his view, things are com-
pletely particular, and only things exist.
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