If we are to distinguish mere non-being from that which is not, yet
may be, from that which was not, yet could have been, or from that
which will not be, yet could become, we are committed in some way
to grant being to possibilities. The possible is not actual; yet it
is not nothing. What then could it be? What ontological status
could it possess? In Contingency, Time, and Possibility: An Essay
on Aristotle and Duns Scotus, Pascal Massie opens these questions
by combining two approaches: First, an original inquiry that
analyses the notions of chance, fate, event, contradiction, and so
forth, and suggests that the distinction between potency and act
arises from a confrontation with the impossible. Second, a
historical inquiry that focuses on Aristotle and Duns Scotus, two
key figures contributing to a fundamental transformation in the
history of Western ontology; namely, the transition from a
metaphysics of nature (Aristotle) to a metaphysics of the will
(Scotus). In doing so, this book departs from the prevailing
interpretation of the history of modal logic according to which
Scotus rejected the principle of plenitude attributed to Aristotle
and replaced the ancient diachronic theory of possibilities with a
synchronic one, thereby contributing to a "possible world's
semantics." Rather, Massie argues that in its proper ontological
import, the question of possibility concerns the limit between
being and non-being and that this limit must be thought in terms of
temporality. With Scotus, however, a radical shift occurs.
Possibilities are understood in terms of will, creation,
omnipotence, and transcending freedom. As such, they belong to the
realm of what is supremely actual (i.e., superabundant activity).
What used to be understood as a lesser degree of being (the quasi
non-being of uninformed matter and mere possibilities) becomes the
mark of omnipotence.
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