Tommaso d'Aquino, Duns Scoto ed Edith Stein sulla individuazione

Aristotelian individuation by matter and the thomistic distinction between undesignated matter and designated matter is deeply criticized by John Duns Scotus on the basis that nothing belonging to the essence of the individual can be accounted to explain individuation. Thus for the doctor subtilis the "ultima realitas entis" can't be captured by means of the essential constituents of the individual and yet can't be knowable in this life. Edith Stein seems to be echoing this critics by sustaining that the principium individuationis is to be found outside of the species to which the individual belongs and that at last individual essential difference is always far from a complete intellectual comprehension.