ABSTRACT
The new paradigm prepared for and introduced by Duns Scotus is one of representation. Objective being is being that is conceived by the intellect under some determinate aspect or ratio and is not simply indicated vaguely and indeterminately. The incipient severance of formal knowing of intensional conceptual contents from knowing and unknowing of reality in its absoluteness and otherness becomes much sharper after Scotus, and it ushers in the fully modern paradigm of representation. For Scotus, the immediate object of human knowing as objective being is a represented being, and this being is actively produced by the active intellect. Knowledge is now produced not directly by the object to which the mind is receptive but by the mind itself through its faculty of representation. Dante’s self-reflexive imagination raises questions concerning the relation of all humanly attainable knowledge to theology and revelation.
