Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
While we modern folks have a generally clear distinction between law as in descriptive laws of nature and law as in ethical or civil commandments, these Medieval philosophers saw these as very much related if not actually the same thing, given that humans can ignore the dictates of their nature, i.e. reason, whereas the rest of nature just proceeds according to natural law, which for these theologians means God's dictates. So what actually is the relation, in general, between law and reason?
Our text includes Aquinas' presentation of this issue and his near-contemporary Duns Scotus' commentary on it. Read along with us at aristotelophile.com/Books/Translations/STIaIIae.90.pdf.
Get more Closereads: Philosophy with Mark and Wes at closereadsphilosophy.com. Get additional parts to this and many other discussions at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy. Note that any ads here are inserted by YouTube, with no money going to us. Everything on our Patreon page is ad free.
While we modern folks have a generally clear distinction between law as in descriptive laws of nature and law as in ethical or civil commandments, these Medieval philosophers saw these as very much related if not actually the same thing, given that humans can ignore the dictates of their nature, i.e. reason, whereas the rest of nature just proceeds according to natural law, which for these theologians means God's dictates. So what actually is the relation, in general, between law and reason?
Our text includes Aquinas' presentation of this issue and his near-contemporary Duns Scotus' commentary on it. Read along with us at aristotelophile.com/Books/Translations/STIaIIae.90.pdf.
Get more Closereads: Philosophy with Mark and Wes at closereadsphilosophy.com. Get additional parts to this and many other discussions at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy. Note that any ads here are inserted by YouTube, with no money going to us. Everything on our Patreon page is ad free.
