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Alcune note su individuazione e struttura metafisica della sostanza prima in Duns Scoto

Summary: Purpose of the article is to show the inner consistency of Duns Scotus’s innovative metaphysical theories (of divine ideas, univocity of the concept of being, no real composition between essence and being, differentia individualis, and formal distinction) and their usefulness for illustrating and clarifying the contents of the Christian faith. Scotus’s theories are looked against the backdrop of Thomas Aquinas’s views on the same subjects. The comparison reveals two different philosophical strategies at work: Aquinas tries to transcript the contents of the faith into the terms of a given rigid philosophical apparatus (the Aristotelianism), while Scotus develops an autonomous philosophical paradigm specifically thought in order to support the main contents of the Christian faith. So, as far as the value and role of the person are at issue, whereas Aquinas’s thesis of individuation through materia signata quantitate fails to offer a solid metaphysical ground for Christian personalism, Scotus’s theory of individuation restores their central position in the creation to the concrete human beings.