The Emergence of the Idea of Subject and the Modern Idea of Possibility

I will first indicate what idea of possibility is meant here, and then trace its origins. Two main areas are involved and have come together: the religious (primarily the idea of God as the subjective cause of the world, who created the world out of nothing) and the philosophical. A first crucial moment in the constitution of the idea of possibility is the clear definition of possible logicum by Duns Scotus. I will briefly review the process that led to this definition. This is a sign that, in modernity, the modal category of possibility is gradually acquiring a certain primacy over that of reality. Another later sign is Nicholas of Cusa’s radical theory of possibility (the conception of God as possibility itself), on which I will focus. I will then consider three later key theories of possibility, involving thinkers such as Bruno, Spinoza, Descartes and Kant, which also clearly show (this is the main thesis) the strong connection between the idea of possibility and the idea of the subject, when the latter is conceived as an originary and autonomous entity (both as God and as human being).