FORMALITAS · The Formalist Tradition in Late Scholastic Philosophy: a Renaissance Forerunner of Formal Ontology

The Formalist Tradition in Late Scholastic Philosophy: a Renaissance Forerunner of Formal Ontology

The concepts of identity and distinction are the key components in a special kind of metaphysical literature that thrived throughout the Renaissance. This is the genre of the so-called “Formalist treatises” or “Treatises on the formalities” (Tractatus formalitatum) and the tradition that cultivated this literature may be called the "Formalist tradition." The UCLouvain-based project FORMALITAS has demonstrated the philosophical and historical siginificance of this tradition, especially in the time span ca. 1480–1620. The genre of the Formalist treatises takes its very name from the Franciscan John Duns Scotus’s formal distinction. This kind of distinction holds among the intrinsic features (called formalitates) of things. Duns Scotus’s formal distinction, though, was just one of a number of kinds of distinctions discussed by the Formalists. The tradition originated in Late-Medieval scholasticism, primarily in the works of Duns Scotus and his early followers, the Scotists. From the 1480s onwards, however, authors not affiliated with Scotism proper or with the Franciscan Order increasingly became interested in, and contributed to, the Formalist literature. From this time, we thus do not only have Scotist treatises on identity and distinction, but also similar works of Thomist, Lullist, Aristotelian, and still other provenance. Motifs from this tradition continued to play a significant role in textbooks of scholastic philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the sixteenth century, some Formalist authors discussed, whether or not their doctrines constituted a discipline of its own, a “science of the formalities” (scientia formalitatum), a discipline that by and large would correspond to what to-day goes by the name of formal ontology. One may indeed view the metaphysical discussions among the Formalists as a Renaissance forerunner of modern formal ontology. The central idea discussed in the Formalist tradition may be illustrated by the example of present-day identity politics with its focus on the plurality of special identities (ethnic, religious, sexual, or other) and their relationship with the cultural or national identity of the majority. A differentiated view of identity would here seem to be helpful, one that would explain how one group identity does not exclude also having some additional (wider or narrower) group identity or indeed having a personal identity. On some levels, people may be said to have some identity in common (to be identical) with others, whereas on other levels they differ (are distinct) from one another. The Formalist tradition has a general ontology for such a differentiation. The Formalists cultivate a genuine identity metaphysics that operates with a whole hierarchy of kinds of identity and their corresponding kinds of distinction. In their treatises, the Formalists thus explored the whole spectrum of possible ontological identities, from singular things to universal concepts, the broadest kind of identity being the one that holds among items that have in common only the abstract concept of being as such. The science of formalities proposed in the sixteenth century may indeed be seen as one historical realization of that part of Aristotle’s metaphysics that considers being as being (called 'ontology' in the later tradition). The overall objective of FORMALITAS was to demonstrate both the philosophical and historical importance of the Formalist tradition in Renaissance thought. The rise of a new metaphysical discipline must be part of what we know about the intellectual culture of the Renaissance. The Formalist tradition has mainly been studied through its influence upon other scholastic currents of the Renaissance, but has not itself attracted the attention it merits, and this in spite of its undisputed philosophical depth and historical significance. Such neglect is due not only to the general disinterest regarding the scholastic philosophy of the Renaissance, but rather also to the very nature of this hard-to-read literature with its extraordinarily technical vocabulary. The FORMALITAS project innovatively identified and eliminated this gap in our historical knowledge and reassessed the significance of scholastic metaphysics during the Renaissance. The wider objective of FORMALITAS is to contribute to a better understanding of Early Modern scholastic thought and its central role in European intellectual history. The project was supervised by Prof. Jacob Schmutz (CDWM / Institut supérieur de philosophie, UCLouvain), a leading specialist on Post-Medieval scholastic philosophy and theology. The project was conceived as a part of an endeavor to establish an internationally attractive milieu for studies in Early Modern scholastic philosophy at UCLouvain. Scholars working with a focus on post-medieval scholastic philosophy are increasingly aware that their work is not reflected in the institutional division in departments focusing either on Medieval or on Early Modern philosophy. This traditional departmental division has no natural place for research into the manifest continuation of scholastic philosophy beyond the Middle Ages, despite scholasticism constituting one central element in the intellectual culture of Early Modern Europe and its overseas colonies until the eighteenth century. Along with the revision of the historiography of Early Modern scholastic philosophy, the establishment of a research environment with this kind of focus as well as the development of relations to other such environments are of utmost importance. The project comprised a series of in-depth research articles with focus on various aspects of the Formalist discussions of distinctions and related matters. Through one large conference (held at UCLouvain in May 2023), other scholars have been involved in the study of the Formalist tradition and its philosophical contexts. The project website www.formalitas.eu with its comprehensive online catalogue of Formalist literature from the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period facilitates future scholarship with a much needed work tool for such studies. The book and manuscript exhibition "Scotism Made in Louvain. The Scholastic Culture of the Franciscans in Belgium" in the Maurits Sabbe Library at KUn Leuven (June-September 2024) aimed to make the scholastic culture of one part of Early Modern Europe concrete and visible to a larger audience. The project finally included a number of dissemination and outreach activities in which the subtle theories of the Formalists were presented and explained.

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