Today is Duns Scotus Day (for John of Duns, Scotland). No "dunce" was Duns. In fact, he was a brilliant philosopher.

In an age when many people adopted whole systems of thought without qualification, John pointed out the wisdom of Augustine, Aquinas, Aristotle and the Muslim philosophers.

At a time when people believed that human actions are determined by outside forces, and free will an illusion, Scotus offered a liberating world view. He said if he started beating someone who denied free will, the person would tell him to stop. But how could he stop if he didn't have free will? John could be very persuasive. A Ph.D. from Paris, he lectured at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

Unlike today's philosophers, John never contemplated going "on strike". But he was a member of the Franciscan order of priests, having taken a vow of obedience. If the Prior called a work stoppage at the Cologne Cathedral, John would have been compelled to join the picket line. So it appears that free will can be influenced by outside forces, and be limited by them.

What are these forces? Are they the same in our time as they were in the Middle Ages? I'll leave that for today's philosophers to answer--wise men like Anthony Steinbock, who knows more about phenomenology and "strikes" (I daresay) than anyone at SIUC.