Volume 9, 1998
Medieval Philosophy
Woosuk Park
Pages 48-54
Toward a Scotistic Modal Metaphysics
The problem I tackle in this article is: Do we have in Scotus a modal logic or a counterpart theory? We need to take a rather roundabout path to handle this problem. This is because, whether it be in Lewis's original formulation or in others' applications, the crucial concept of 'counterpart' has never been clearly explicated. In section two, I shall therefore examine the recent controversy concerning Leibniz's views on modalities which centers around the counterpart relation. By fully exploiting the lessons learned from such an examination, I shall then launch a trilemma against a Leibnizian in section three. Section four shall make the claim that unlike Leibniz's case, Scotus's position is not endangered by the trilemma. One important premise will be adopted from my thesis presented elsewhere regarding the different between Scotus's haecceitas and Leibniz's individual essence. Another will be secured from a brief report on Scotus's views on similarity, which might be utterly original to modern eyes jaundiced by contemporary set theories.