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Research Article

No. 9 (2025): Dossier: "Mimesis in Philosophy and Literature"

The Imitation by Not Imitating: Duns Scotus on Self-determined Rationality as Imago Dei in Humans

DOI
https://doi.org/10.64957/nesir.1797816
Submitted
28.07.2025
Published
23.10.2025

Abstract

The concept of imitation creates a paradoxical paradigm in Duns Scotus’ philosophy. Following the traditional framework, this medieval thinker considered rational power to be imago Dei, i.e., God’s image in humans. A human’s finite rationality imitates the divine being as an image resembles and imitates the object it depicts. This common medieval assumption—strongly connected with the theological context—is also interesting from an ontological point of view, as it clarifies historical discourse concerning the relation between the principle of beings and beings themselves. Duns Scotus’ theory of imitation merits consideration because it includes not only the necessary causal aspect but also the contingent, free element of the relation. Scotus identifies rational power with free will. This presumption leads the thinker to a provocative theory of imitation. For rational finite beings, the method of imitation is paradoxically “not to imitate.” Unlike all nonrational beings, which imitate by following pre-determined nature, rational beings can imitate by not imitating and being free in their volitional acts.

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