The scotist dualism between nature and freedom and its consequences in Philosophy and Modern Culture

Abstract

We propose to investigate here an aspect of Duns Scotus’s thought, which seems relevant to us in the formation of modern philosophy and culture, namely: his dualistic conception of freedom and nature, understood as contra-distinct or opposed. This scotist metaphysical and anthropological contrast was received and continued in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries until it influenced modern philosophy and culture (this dichotomy is very clear in Descartes and Kant, for example). We attempt a critical analysis of this conception of freedom and –so as not to remain only critical– we propose what it would be to conceive the relationship between freedom and nature in a non-voluntaristic way, that is, in terms of a more balanced complementarity.