Distinction and Identity in Late-Scholastic Thought and Beyond

This volume aims to document the historical emergence of the various types of distinctions in medieval philosophy, highlighting in particular the emergence of the Formalist tradition that had its roots in the works of the Franciscan John Duns Scotus († 1308) and his early followers. This literature enjoyed vast diffusion during the Renaissance and still played a significant role in textbooks of scholastic philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It framed the early-modern debates about the distinction between body and mind or matter and extension. This book provides an important case for a much-needed revision of the relationship between “Medieval” and “Early Modern” philosophy – these categories are too often used to signal some fundamental divide in intellectual history, where in fact there was continuity. It deals with many figures who have been little studied to date as well as canonical thinkers such as Francisco Suárez and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.