Individua Substantia

Aristotle used the term "first substance" to denote the individuality and essential distinctness of the things in our experiential world. However, in the medieval reception of Aristotle, a consequential conflict arose over the interpretation of the individua substantia. In the common context of Christian revelation, Thomas Aquinas’s in-depth interpretation stands in fundamental contrast to a reinterpretation of Aristotle’s substance theory. While Thomas, like Aristotle, grounds the reality of things and primarily understands the living as the paradigm of substantiality, Duns Scotus sees the substantial being of things as founded on the compatibility of essential structures. His scientia transcendens thus becomes the starting point of rationalistic metaphysics.