Francisco Suárez (1548–1617)^[1] was a highly influential philosopher and theologian of the SecondScholastic (or “Early Modern Scholasticism”), that is, therevitalized philosophical and theological inquiry of the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries, conducted within the tradition shaped by ThomasAquinas, Duns Scotus, and other medieval scholastics. WhileSuárez is commonly praised for his comprehensive, exhaustive,and systematic exposition of more or less everything known inphilosophy up to his time (certainly, at any rate, in metaphysics),his achievement in this regard should not be permitted to overshadowthe depth, power, and originality of his own ideas. He worked in agreat variety of fields, including metaphysics, natural theology,philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, ethics, politicalphilosophy, and law. In all these areas he made contributions theinfluences of which are so widespread and commonplace that theysometimes escape notice. Still, it is noteworthy that figures asdistinct from one another in place, time, and philosophicalorientation as Leibniz, Grotius, Pufendorf, Schopenhauer, andHeidegger, all found reason to cite him as a source of inspiration andinfluence. Grotius, for instance, praised the Jesuit doctor as atheologian and philosopher of such depth, breadth, and penetrationthat “he hardly had an equal” (Grotius, Letter of 15October, 1633; 2001: 194). See the entry on theSchool of Salamanca formore context.

• 1. Life and Works
• 2. TheMetaphysical Disputations
  • 2.1 Suárez's Nominalism
  • 2.2 The Causes of Being
  • 2.3 Formal Causation and the Existence of Substantial Forms
  • 2.4 Final Causation
  • 2.5 Beings of Reason (entia rationis)
  • 2.6 Metaphysical Theology
• 3. Moral Theory and Natural Law
• 4. Political Authority
• 5. Distributive Justice
• 6. Just War
• Bibliography
  • Latin Editions of Suárez's Works
  • Suárez in English Translation
  • Works Cited and Secondary Literature in English
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Life and Works

Francisco Suárez was born in Granada on 5 January 1548, the sonof Gaspar Suárez de Toledo and Antonia Vázquez de Utiel.He made a famously slow start. Thus, for example, his application tojoin the Society of Jesus at the age of sixteen was the only one offifty to be rejected: his health was weak and his intellect seemedunpromising. After appeal, he was finally admitted to the novitiate,but only as a lowly rankedindiferente—someone whosepermanent rank within the Society would be determined at a later date.Even after being admitted, it took some time—and somepraying—before Suárez's talent for philosophy andtheology began to emerge. Eventually, however, they emerged as fullyand undeniably apparent, and he rose to a position of greatprofessional and academic prominence.^[2]

Suárez's intellectual landscape was marked by the revival ofIberian scholasticism, triggered in part by Francisco de Vitoria. Hisworks should therefore, in the first instance, be read ascontributions to this far-reaching theological and philosophicalmovement and research program. The revival was very widespread,engaging dozens, if not hundreds, of theologians, not only acrossEurope and in the centers of learning and universities of IberianAmerica (such as Lima, Quito, and Mexico), but as distant from theIberian peninsula as Japan, China, the Philippines, India andEthiopia. In all these lands philosophically minded missionaries,mainly Jesuits, promulgated his works.^[3] Consider as an illustration that the Jesuit missionary MartinoMartini, based at Hangzhou, even attempted a Chinese translation ofSuárez's great masterpiece, theMetaphysicalDisputations, in the mid-seventeenth century.^[4]

Suárez was thoroughly educated within the framework of thisrevival, receiving two years of philosophy and four of theology,before he himself started teaching at the Jesuit School in Segovia.This first appointment was followed by positions at Avila, Valladolid,Alcalá, Salamanca, the Jesuit School at Rome (the CollegioRomano), and, for almost twenty years, at Coimbra, in Portugal. Whilean unsuccessful preacher (his few attempts failed because of histendency to digress into the abstruse points of doctrine, thesubtleties of which tended to be lost on his auditors), Suárezproved to be a dedicated and original teacher, if not always a popularone. His method departed from the norm: instead of merely repeatingthe opinions of others, he believed in taking a fresh look at theissue under consideration, examining, as he used to say, the very rootof the problem (Scorraille 2005: I, 156).

Like many of his fellow Jesuits, Suárez was frequently accusedof straying too far and too often from views attributed to ThomasAquinas. During Suárez's own lifetime and shortly after,allusions to a “Suarista” party (here in opposition to theThomists) became popular. Suárez himself resisted thesedistinctions as false and as resting on fabricated oppositions. Hedenied being any sort of “inventor of a new school” or as“in opposition to or creating a faction against anybody”(Scorraille 2005: I, 310). He also faced opposition within his ownorder, in particular, from the other great theologian of his time,Gabriel Vázquez—an opposition which developed into alife-long rivalry and a partisanship which survived their deaths.

Beyond authoring works of highly abstract metaphysics andphilosophical theology, Suárez wrote a number of polemicaltracts motivated by the political upheavals of his day. InDeimmunitate ecclesiastica, written in 1606, he defendedecclesiastical rights against alleged encroachments by the Republic ofVenice. InDefensio fidei, published in 1613 at the behest ofthe papal nuncio in Madrid, Decio Caraffa, he offered a response toJames I of England's defence of his requirement that Catholic subjectstake an oath of fidelity. This work went beyond its original purpose,to the point where it provided something close to a full-fledgedtheory of political power. Seen as undermining the foundations ofregal absolute rule, it was publicly burned, not only in London at theend of 1613, but also the following year in the courtyard of theParliament in Paris.

These unhappy events, though, came towards the end of Suárez'slife, the last two decades of which were spent in the more peacefulsurroundings of Coimbra, then an intellectual hub of therevitalization of scholastic philosophy. Philip II of Spain (Philip Iof Portugal), who imposed his rule on the whole of the Iberianpeninsula in 1580, sought to appoint a distinguished theologian to themost eminent university of this new part of the realm. After initiallyaccepting Suárez's personally tendered apologies, given ongrounds of ill-health, Philip reconsidered and then insisted in asecond letter that Suárez take up a post in Coimbra. Clearly,Suárez could not decline. Travels apart, Suárez wouldremain in Coimbra until shortly before his death on 25 September 1617,aged almost seventy, after convalescing for two weeks in Lisbon fromwhat may have been dysentery.

During his working life, Suárez was both remarkably prolificand industrious (according to Fichter 1940: 327, he wrote about 21million words, more than twice the output of Thomas Aquinas), not onlywriting but equally involving himself in all manner of editorialmatters. Given his eminence and popularity, almost as soon asSuárez published a book, unauthorized copies were printed inplaces such as Paris, Vienna, Cologne, Geneva, Lyons, and Mainz.

Twenty-two volumes of Suárez's works were published, nine ofthem posthumously under the care of his friend Baltasar Alvarez.Within this corpus most of the philosophical interest has gone to themonumentalDisputationes metaphysicae (MetaphysicalDisputations, 1597), a work in which Suárez collects andthoughtfully assesses the views of numerous authors, on a vast arrayof problems, before offering his own solutions;De legibus(1612), where he outlines his natural law theory; andDeanima (1621), where he offers a critical exposition ofAristotelian approaches to life and cognition.

A number of writings have been lost, including his commentaries onAristotle, which Suárez had used for his classroompresentations during his first tenure at Salamanca. His oeuvre hasbeen collected, most recently in the 28 volumes (including indexes),and published in Paris between 1856 and 1878 (Opera omnia).We also have a collection ofresponsa (Conselhos ePareceres).

2. TheMetaphysical Disputations

It is scarcely credible that there is no complete English translationof Suarez's great masterpiece of metaphysics, theMetaphysical Disputations^[5]—though, happily, we do possess a translation into Spanish.^[6] It is a work of surpassing sophistication and comprehensiveness,serving at once as a kind of authoritative epitome of ancient and^[7] medieval metaphysics and as a free-standing, incisive, and originaldiscussion of all topics pertaining to metaphysics, conceived,according to Suárez's understanding of this subject, as thestudy of being. As Schopenhauer remarked, the work is “anauthentic compendium of the whole scholastic tradition”.Extending to fifty-four disputations, each in its own righteffectively a dedicated monograph on a discrete topic, the workcontains 7,709 references, citing some 245 authors, led in typicalscholastic fashion by Aristotle, who receives 1,735 references,followed by Thomas Aquinas, with whose philosophy Suárezretains an animating sympathy, who receives 1,008 (Iturrioz 1949).Still, Suárez is hardly beholden to Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas,or any other thinker: he is, as hisMetaphysical Disputationsmakes manifest, a thinker of fearless originality and innovation.

As shown in this work, Suárez has a conception of metaphysicswhich initially seems much more narrowly focused than that subject asit is conceived today. Still, even given this narrower concentration,metaphysics as practiced by Suárez opens itself into many ofthe topics commanding the attention of current day metaphysicians. Hisavowedly narrow focus results from his taking metaphysics to have butone, exclusive object: “the study of being insofar as it is realbeing” (DM I 1.26).^[8] In this sense, Suárez understands metaphysics in a broadlyAristotelian manner as the study of being and its causes. This studywas rechristened in the seventeenth century as “ontology”,^[9] literally, the study ofto on, or being, in view of the thenbroadening sweep of metaphysics whereby it came to include theinvestigation of minds and bodies, causation, numbers, identity andother relations, properties and propositions, modality, and,eventually, the nature of abstract entities, including fictional ones.Relative to this broader conception, ontology, as the study of being,seems highly specific. Still, this appearance is misleading,especially where Suárez is concerned, since he addresses mostof the topics on this list in one way or another, if in an idiom aliento those unschooled in Aristotelianism. For, as it turns out, heunderstands “the study of being” and its causes verybroadly indeed.

This is partly because he looks at being as a subject matter requiringconsideration of the categories; of terms or properties whichtranscend the categories; of infinite and finite beings; andeven—as indispensable but falling outside the remit of themetaphysician proper—the study of beings of reason (entiarationis), that is, beings which do not in fact exist, such asfictitious entities, privations, and various forms of abstraction, allof which, Suárez insists, force themselves into view, despitetheir non-existence.

Altogether, then, Suárez'sMetaphysical Disputationscomprises fifty-four questions, or topics for discussion, constitutingseven unequal sections, ordered first under a general division ofbeing in general (DM I–XXVII) and then being as dividedinto infinite and finite being (DM XXVIII–LIII):^[10]

1. The nature of metaphysics (DM I)
2. The transcendentals (DM II–XI)
3. The causes of being (DM XII–XXVII)
4. Finite and infinite being (DM XXVIII–XXXI)
5. Substance and accident, pertaining to finite beings (DMXXXII–XXXVIII)
6. The nine categories of accident (DMXXXIX–LIII)
7. Real and conceptual being (DM LIV)

The first and last of these, which in different ways stand outside ofthe subject matter proper of theMetaphysical Disputations,we have already characterized briefly.

The second topic (DM II–XI) treats transcendentalterms, including being (ens), but also good (bonum)and true (veritas), which are transcendental in the sensethat they may be predicated of beings in any category (a quality is abeing, anens, just as a substance is anens, and soon for every category of being). Every being is, as such, according toSuárez, one; hencebeing one is predicated across thefull range of categories as well. So, too, but less obviously and morecontroversially, according to Suárez, every single being issomething true, in some suitably ontological sense oftrue(as in “true propositions are simply facts”) and alsosomething good. So, these terms require dedicated treatment at thehands of the metaphysician.

The remaining sections of theMetaphysical Disputations arecentrally and recognizably discussions of kinds of being: infinitebeing, that is, God; finite being, what is created by God; and thenthe nature and features of finite beings, again as delineated by atheory of categories: substance and accident, and then all of thekinds of accident there may be. We will restrict ourselves mainly to(3), the causes of being, since doing so provides a clear picture ofthe character of Suarez's inquiry in theMetaphysicalDisputations.

Before doing so, however, because of its relative obscurity andinaccessibility to present-day readers, it will be helpful to offer acomplete outline of the fifty-four disputations.

1. The nature of metaphysics (DM I)
2. Being as such (DM II)
   1. The transcendentals (DM III–XI)
      1. The attributes of being in general (DM III)
      2. Unity (DM IV–VII)
         1. Transcendental unity in general (DM IV)
         2. Individual unity and individuation (DM V)
         3. Universals and unity (DM VI)
         4. Distinguishing various kinds of unity (DM VII)
      3. Truth (DM VIII–IX)
         1. Truth as an attribute of being (DM VIII)
         2. Falsity (DM IX)
      4. Goodness (DM X–XI)
         1. Transcendental goodness (DM X)
         2. Evil (DM XI)
   2. The causes of being (DM XII–XXVII)
      1. The causes of being in general (DM XII)
      2. The material cause (DM XIII–XIV)
         1. The material cause of substance (DM XIII)
         2. The material cause of accidents (DM XIV)
      3. The formal cause (DM XV–XVI)
         1. The formal cause of substance (DM XV)
         2. The formal cause of accident (DM XVI)
      4. The efficient cause (DM XVII–XXII)
         1. The efficient cause in general (DM XVII)
         2. The requisites of causality (DM XVIII)
         3. Necessary and contingent causes (DM XIX)
         4. The first cause (DM XX–XXII)
            1. Creation: the first action of the first cause (DMXX)
            2. Conservation: the second action of the first cause (DMXXI)
            3. Concurrence: the third action of the first cause (DMXXII)
      5. The final cause (DM XXIII–XXIV)
         1. The final cause in general (DM XXIII)
         2. The ultimate final cause (DM XXIV)
      6. The exemplar cause (DM XXV)
      7. Properties common to all causes (DM XXVI–XXVII)
         1. The relation of causes to their effects (DM XXVI)
         2. The relation of causes to one another (DM XXVII)
3. Being, infinite and finite (DM XXVIII–LIII)
   1. The distinction between finite and infinite being (DMXXVIII)
   2. Infinite being (DM XXIX–XXX)
      1. The existence of the first being, as known by natural reason(DM XXIX)
      2. The nature of the first being, as known by natural reason(DM XXX)
   3. Finite being (DM XXXI–LIII)
      1. The essence and individuation of finite beings (DMXXXI)
      2. The distinction between substance and accident (DMXXXII)
      3. Created substance (DM XXXIII–XXXVI)
         1. Created substance in general (DM XXXIII)
         2. Primary substance (thesuppositum) (DMXXXIV)
         3. Immaterial substance (DM XXXV)
         4. Material substance (DM XXXVI)
      4. Accidents in general (DM XXXVII–XXXVIII)
         1. The nature of accidents (DM XXXVII)
         2. The relation of accident to substance (DM XXXVIII)
      5. The nine categories of accident (DM XXXIX–LIV)
         1. The nine highest genera (DM XXXIX)
         2. Quantity (DM XL–XLII)
            1. Continuous quantity (DM XL)
            2. Discrete quantity (DM XLI)
         3. Quality (DM XLII–XLVI)
            1. Quality in general (DM XLII)
            2. Potentiality and actuality (DM XLIII)
            3. Habits (DM XLIV)
            4. Contrariety among qualities (DM XLV)
            5. Intensity of quality (DM XLVI)
         4. Relation (DM XLVII)
         5. Action (DM XLVIII)
         6. Passion (DM XLIX)
         7. Time (DM L)
         8. Place (DM LI)
         9. Position (DM LII)
         10. Having (DM LIII)
4. Beings of reason (entia rationis) (DM LIV)

As is clear from this list of topics, theMetaphysicalDisputations covers a great deal of territory. In fact, again, ifin a different idiom, Suárez traverses virtually all of thetopics of concern to metaphysicians practicing in the periods whichfollowed him, down even to the present day.

2.1 Suárez's Nominalism

Suárez conducts his metaphysical inquiries against the backdropof a pervasive commitment to nominalism, according to which onlyindividuals exist: all extra-mental entities are singular andindividual (DM VI 1.2; cf.DM V passim). Sincewhatever is singular and individual is not common, it follows, inSuárez’s preferred idiom, that ‘formal unity, as itexists in a thing, is incommunicable’ (DM VI 1.11).This is to say, then, that nothing extra-mental is fully shared bymore than one being; hence, there are no universals, where these areconceived as mind- and language-independent entities capable of beingwholly present in more than one place at one time.

Those approaching Suárez’s works for the first time,however, are confronted with not a few passages in which he seems toassert exactly the opposite. For instance:

Things which are denominated universals truly exist in reality (resquae universales denominatur vere in re existunt). First it must beestablished that those things we denominate universal and common arereal and exist in things themselves; for we do not fabricate themmentally, but rather apprehend them and understand them to be inthings, and we produce definitions, construct demonstrations, and weseek knowledge of them thus conceived (DM VI 2.1).

So, some work is required to come to terms with his approach to thisissue. The effort required is, however, productive, since once oneappreciates Suárez’s nominalism, many otherwise obscureremarks he makes become immediately intelligible.

In order to come to terms with Suárez’s position, thefirst point to appreciate is that a nominalist of his day faced animmediate, inescapable problem. It is, in fact, the very problemmentioned by Suárez in the passage cited: Aristotelian sciencepresupposes a conception of the organization of knowledge according towhich a science must proceed via demonstrations, that is, deductions,or logically valid syllogisms, the premises of which are necessary,better known than their conclusions, and universal in scope(cf. Aristotle, APo. 71b16–25, 77b5–73a6;Met.981a5–30, 1006a6–18, 1039b27–1040a7). If the premises are universal inscope, however, then that is presumably due to their featuringuniversals as terms. This is why, in part, Suárez isinclined to take the claims of realism about universalsseriously. Like others of his time, he embraces an Aristotelian theoryof demonstration and so must confront its evident commitment torealism.

The easy way to address this commitment, of course, would simply be toembrace realism about universals. Suárez does not take the easyroute. Instead, when he considers an argument for the existence ofuniversals conceived as mind- and language-independent entities (in,for instanceDM VI 1.4), he offers in response the‘true and contrary opinion’ (DM VI 1.8–12).This is that in all real things, there is a formal unity per se,belonging to each essence or nature (DM VI 1.8). As a result,every individual is not only one in number but one essentially. Formalunity is distinguished from singular unity by reason (perrationem) (DM VI 1.9). An individual unity does notbelong to some common essence just by itself; something must be added,namely formal unity. That is to say, then, nothing is a φ, a humanbeing say, merely in virtue of its being one thing; that one thingmust have in addition some definite formal character, namelybeing-φ. The claim that something is a unity tells us nothingdeterminate about an individual beyond that it is some one thing orother. By contrast, formal unity takes us directly to an essence,without any addition, even by reason. This is what Suárez meanswhen he says that formal unity and singular unity are not one and thesame. Even so, this difference is not given by the extra-mentalindividual (ex parte rei), but by reason alone (sedratione tantum) (DM VI 1.10)

The common essence and the singular entity are distinguished, then,not on the basis of the nature of the thing (ex natura rei),but by reason; hence, again, there is no world-given distinctionbetween something’s existing as an individual and its existingas this or that kind of individual: reason makes this distinction.This permits Suárez to insist that formal unity, as it existsin a thing, is incommunicable (unitas formalis prout in reexistit, incommunicabilis est) (DM VI 1.11). The formalunity marches in step with the nature of a thing, and in real thingsthere is no common nature; instead, ‘nature and essence aremultiplied as many times as there are individuals’ (DMVI 1. 12). So, while formal unity at the individual level is mind- andlanguage-independent, formal unity as common is not: it is supplied bythe operations of the mind.

So, why does he say, then, that ‘things which are denominateduniversals truly exist in reality (res quae universalesdenominatur vere in re existunt;DM VI 2.1)? The crucialand characteristically subtle coloration comes from the word‘denominated’ (denominatur). Suárez isthinking, in fact, that things called ‘universals’ reallydo exist—but what they turn out to be are extrinsicdenominations, that is, in this case, features of individuals broughtforth by the workings of the mind. He says, for instance:

Universals in reality are not separate from singulars. Secondly, itmust be supposed that these things or natures which we denominateuniversals, are not really separated from singular things, since, ashas been demonstrated above, every thing which exists is necessarilysingular and individual … (DM VI. 2. 2).

His position, then, is that only individuals exist, but that acollection of individual φ-things can be—and indeed are inscientific demonstrations—regarded as having a common nature,being-φ. This is just to say, for example, that the universalpredicate ‘… is a human’ is applied equally andrightly to Peter and Paula by a discerning mind; but that is not tosay that there is a universal in which they equally partake.

That this common predication is ‘rightly’ made derivesfrom the fact, according to Suárez, that there is an objectivesimilarity obtaining between Peter and Paula—this similarity isnot imposed by the mind, but is rather reflected in the mentalapprehension ascribing a common predicate to them. This permits him tosay, then:

And it follows from these considerations, first, that although someindividuals may be,a parte rei, formally one apart from thethinking of the mind, nevertheless several individuals which are saidto be of the same nature are not one thing with the true unity whichis in the things, but only either by way of being grounded or throughthe intellect … It follows, secondly, that it is one thing tospeak of formal unity and another thing to speak of the community ofthis unity, for unity is in things, as has been insisted; community,however, properly and strictly is not in things, for no unity whichexists in things is common, as we have shown, but there is in singularthings a certain similarity in their formal unities in which theircommunity is grounded, which community the intellect is able attributeto such a nature, as conceived by it, which similarity is not properlyunity, since it does not represent the undividedness of the entitieson which it is based but only their congruence or their relation ortheir co-existence with one another (DM VI 1.12).

His view is, then, nominalistic. Since, however, the word‘nominalist’ is used in different ways by differentphilosophers, and is, indeed, used rather austerely by some of thephilosophers with whom Suárez was acquainted, we should specifyprecisely his variety of nominalism, in a single sentence: a universalis a being of reason (anens rationis), properly regarded asan extrinsic denomination grounded in the intrinsic individual formalunities of mind- and language-independent things (res), asmediated by non-formally representing intelligible species related totheir objects predicatively by some manner of analogy of attribution.That the representations are non-formal is, in this context, just tosay that they represent their objects not as universals, but asindividuals regarded as being the same, which manner of regarding themis grounded in a real fact about them, namely that they areobjectively similar.^[11]

One may wish to question whether Suárez's position isdefensible. What is required for understanding his conception ofmetaphysics, however, is recognizing that this is his position. Forbetter or worse, Suárez is a nominalist, in the sensespecified. His investigation of the causes of being respects thisconstraint throughout.

2.2 The Causes of Being

Suárez devotes a great deal of energy to an investigation oftopics pertaining to causation, broadly construed. This is because heis interested in the first instance, as a metaphysician, in aninvestigation into the causes of being (DM XII–XXVII),an approach to metaphysics colored by the writings of Aristotle, thebroad idiom of which Suárez, in common with other scholastics,embraces. More specifically, first, in keeping with the Aristotelianconception of science (scientia), Suárez supposes thatto understand anything we must grasp and understand the causes of thatthing; so, as a special case, to understand being (ens) wemust investigate and understand the causes of being, taken in its mostgeneral and abstract aspect. Second, as he conceives it, causalinquiry proceeds within the context of an Aristotelian four-causalframework of explanatory adequacy: material, formal, efficient, andfinal. Suárez supposes, however, that to execute his study ofthe causes of being, it is first of all incumbent on him to understandprecisely what it is for something tobe a cause, but thenalso further, as a distinct matter, what it is for a cause toexercise its causality.

As Suárez approaches these issues, the question ofwhat a cause is differs crucially from the question ofhow a cause actively brings about its effects—twoquestions which were often run together in later periods ofphilosophy. According to Suárez, one might truly say, forinstance, that a doctor is a cause of health, without yetunderstanding the precise activity of the doctor in virtue of which heis a cause, how it is that his activity on a specific occasionqualifies as an instance of healing—how, that is, the causeexercises its causality (DM XII 2.13). To have a fullunderstanding of the science of medicine, then, one must understandthe causes of health and, further, how those causes exercise theircausality, that is, how those causes manage to have the effects theyhave. So too, then, with the causes of being. To understand being, wemust understand what brings being about, in the broadest possiblesense—what is responsible for being (ens). Thereafter,we must come to terms with what causes individual beings(entia) to come into existence, or to change their manner ofexistence once they have come into existence. This involves reflectionon all the causes of being, however many and of whatever kinds theymay be. It further involves reflection on the narrower question of howthe causes of being exercise their causality—how precisely, thatis, such causes come to be responsible for being. This, then,licenses, or indeed requires, Suárez to engage in a thoroughexamination of causation itself.

The fifteen disputations in which Suárez explores these matters(DM XII–XXVII) consequently contain extended, intricatediscussions of each of the four causes, as well as detailedexplorations of how each cause effects its causality on a specificoccasion. In general, he urges, a cause is a sort of origin or source(aprincipium). But what sort of source or origin? Not everysource or origin qualifies as a cause (a journey from Athens toJerusalem begins in Athens, but Athens is not the cause of thisjourney). Suárez notes that certain of his contemporariessought to characterize the relevant sort of principle simply as thaton which other things depend as such (DM XII 2.4:causaest id a quo aliquid per se pendet);^[12] but he sets aside this formulation in favor of one which, ifinitially odder sounding, is more contentful and characteristic of theidiom within which he works. He thinks that a cause is the sort ofprinciple that “in its own right imparts being to somethingelse” (causa est principium per se influens esse inaliud:DM XII 2.4). One reason his approach sounds oddis that talk of one thing's “imparting being”, or perhapseven of one thing's “flowing being into” (influensesse) another thing, is initially hard to fathom. This fact doesnot escape Suárez, however. Indeed, he calls attention to thisvery word “flowing” (influens) and glosses itsimply as “giving” or “communicating” being toanother thing (dandi vel communicandi esse alteri). So at themost general level, a cause is the sort of principle or source whichcan impart being to another being—that is to say, then, that acause is something that makes something exist or makes somethingalready existing come to exist in a new and different way.

Of course, this generic formulation by itself tells us very little,but that too is by design. On the overarching approach favored bySuárez, causation is initially very broadly characterized: acause, taken most generically, is responsible for the existence orfeatures of some being beyond itself; and an exercise of causality isprecisely the activity by which a cause imparts existence to another,by creating it, or altering its features once it exists. As he movesthrough each of the four ways one thing might be responsible for theexistence or features of another, Suárez brings content andspecificity to his first generic notion, by explicating the variousways each of four causes manages to impart being to some being beyonditself.

In fact, this general approach to causation encourages Suárezto treat the subject so broadly that, for instance, he devotes anentire disputation (DM XIX, of some 39,000 words), one of thesix disputations given over to efficient causation (DMXVII–XXII), to the topics of necessity and contingency, fate andluck, freedom of the will, and issues pertaining to God's freedom increation. He even indulges in this disputation on efficient causationin a discussion of the question of whether there could be contingencyin the world if—(in his view) contrary to modal fact—Godwere necessitated to create the world as it is. This discussion offersa good example of the richly metaphysical character of Suárez'sgeneral philosophical outlook: he very often engages not only incounterfactual reasoning, but in counterfactual reasoning featuringcounterfactuals with impossible antecedents. Such reasoning permitshim to make fine-grained, highly intensional discriminations thatwould otherwise be inaccessible to him. Thus, with respect to thecurrent illustration, he concludes that there could indeed becontingency in the world if it were the case that God,perimpossibile, was necessitated to create the world just as we findit. This finding, whether or not ultimately defensible, then permitshim to make further, finer-grained distinctions among different typesof contingency, and so also among different types of modality:physical, nomic, and logical.

When focusing on the nature of the individual causes seriatim,Suárez begins by dividing the four causes into theinternal andexternal (or intrinsic and extrinsic;DM XII 3.19). Formal and material causes are internal,whereas efficient and final causes are external. A thing's matteraccounts for the material features of the thing which it constitutes,without actuallybeing that thing; and the same again for theform. So, for example, a statue is malleable because it is made ofbronze, though that quantity of bronze in virtue of which it ismalleable is not identical with the statue, since it may exist whenthe statue does not; and the bronze statue is a statue of Hermesbecause of its form, which, like its matter, can be readily thought ofas a constituent of the statue without being identified with thestatue, which is itself neither exhaustively matter nor form, but acomposite of both. In Suárez's terms, then, matter and formconform to the general definition of a cause, because each in its ownway infuses something beyond itself—the statue—with itsexistence and features. Each manages to give some manner of being(esse) to the statue, even they are in different waysinternal to the entity whose being they influence. By contrast,neither of the statue's external causes—the efficient cause,that is, the sculptor who sculpts the bronze so as to give it this orthat form, and its final cause, that is, the goal or reason thesculptor has in view when sculpting—is a constituent of thestatue. They are thus external causes in Suárez's terminology.

Within this overarching framework, Suárez proceeds toinvestigate each of the four causes minutely. One immediatelyappreciates when studying his treatment of these issues a level ofdetail and sophistication plainly lacking in many of the accounts ofcausation written in the several centuries after his death. It isdifficult to believe, for example, that Hume's modest and cursorysuggestion, inAn Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,that a cause is “an object, followed by another, and where allthe objects similar to the first, are followed by objects similar tothe second” (Hume 1993 [1748], II.7) is an advance in nuance orsophistication over Suárez's the protracted discussions of theMetaphysical Disputations.

However that may be, one is confronted in this work with a discussionwhich is by any measure rich, intricate, and comprehensive. Each ofthe four causes receives it own extended treatment in the sections oftheMetaphysical Disputations dedicated to the causes ofbeing (DM XII–XXVII). To come to see the character ofthese discussions, we may reflect especially on Suarez's presentationof two of the four causes in particular, one internal and oneexternal. His treatments of formal and final causes are in any case ofspecial note, since each in its own way represents a departure anddevelopment from the very Aristotelian tradition which forms the basicfoundation for Suárez's metaphysics.

2.3 Formal Causation and the Existence of Substantial Forms

Suárez's treatment of formal causation provides a good example.He begins his treatment of the formal cause in his typical fashion, byshowing it conforms to his overarching causal framework. A standardtextbook account of formal causation familiar to Suárez holdssimply that “form in an internal cause that gives being to athing” (causa intrinseca quae dat esse rei:DMXII 3.3). This approach certainly comports with his basic frameworkfor causation, at least in general terms. Suárez is, however,unwilling to adopt this formula unqualifiedly, since he thinks theother internal cause, matter, has a causal efficacy of its own, notparasitic on the causality of form. Thus, when he comes to give anaccount of the most significant kind of formal cause, the substantialform, he offers the following definition:

x is a substantial form =_dfx is a definitesimple and incomplete substance, which, as the actuality of matter,constitutes with it the essence of composite substance (forma estsubstantia quaedam simplex et incompleta, quae ut actus materiae cumea constituit essentiam substantiae compositae:DM XV5.1)

Suárez here insists that it is the form togetherwith thematter (cum ea) which constitutes the essence of asubstantial composite. He thinks, then, that matter has, so to speak,its own independent causal pathway as an internal cause. Even thoughthe substantial form is the actuality of the matter, this does notdeprive matter of its causal efficacy. In this respect, he partscompany from a good many of his contemporaries and predecessors, whohad opted for the simpler formulation, often by representing thecausal efficacy of matter as somehow parasitic on the causality of theform.

If this shows some development by acknowledging the independent roleof matter in causation and explanation, it is also likely to appearretrograde in its basic appeal to the apparatus of formal causation.Indeed, inMetaphysical Disputations XV Suárez takesup in detail a question about substantial forms which has a specialresonance because of the contumely poured on this doctrine byphilosophers writing in the centuries after his death, many of whomwere self-consciously concerned to distance themselves from the entireidea of formal causation—a doctrine they regarded as noxious,obscurantist, and explanatorily vacuous. Locke, for instance, in hisEssay Concerning Human Understanding, derided hispredecessors for their “fruitless Enquiries after substantialForms, wholly unintelligible, and whereof we have scarce so much asany obscure, or confused Conception in general.” (Locke 1976[1690]: 3.6.10)^[13]

Locke's reaction was in many ways typical of the general tenor ofpost-scholastic rejections of substantial form in that he founded hischarges of unintelligibility largely on epistemic considerations: thefruitlessness of substantial forms, he thinks, is shown most readilyby their empirical inadequacy. We have, he complains, no experience ofthem at all, and therefore, no idea of what we might be takingourselves to be positing. This is in part because Locke conflates thenotion of substance with that ofsubstratum, which he deridesas a something “I know not what, [introduced] to support thoseideas we call accidents” (Locke 1976 [1690]: 2.23.15).

It is striking that Suárez, a staunch defender of substantialforms, in a way agrees the Locke's dominant complaint. At any rate, hethinks that we might have only two reasons for accepting substantialforms:

The first reason for doubting that substantial forms exist is thatthey cannot be known by any experience (ratio dubitandi est primoquia formae substantiales nullo experimento cognosci possunt);nor are they necessary [to account for] the actions and differences inthings which we do experience. Therefore, lacking any [sufficient]reason, they are not to be introduced (DM XV 1.1).

There are two distinct succinctly stated arguments here. First, if wecan have no experience of substantial forms, we have reason fordoubting their existence. Second, if we have no need to posit them toexplain the phenomena we do experience, then, again, we have reason todoubt their existence. These arguments are clearly connected, thoughdiscrete, in that the second becomes dialectically salient preciselywhen the first is endorsed. If one grants that we have reason to doubtthe existence of substantial forms insofar as we never experience themdirectly, the question immediately arises as to whether we have someindirect, non-experiential reason for granting them. The proponent ofthe second argument contends that we do not.

What is striking is that Suárez simply grants the first premiseof the first argument, and so effectively cedes the point on whichLocke later laid so much emphasis: we have no direct experience ofsubstantial forms. Hence, he agrees, we have some reason for doubtingtheir existence. Needless to say, however, Suárez does not joinLocke or any of the many philosophers who followed him in finallycasting substantial forms aside. This is because he roundly rejectsthe first premise of the second argument, according to which it is notnecessary to posit substantial forms to explain other data known to usthrough experience. Suárez counters that, on the contrary,substantial forms have significant explanatory work to do. Heconcludes, then, that to the extent that this is so, we have reason tocountenance their existence after all.

His argument for the existence of substantial forms is thuseffectively abductive: for some range of data or phenomena,Suárez contends, some explanation is required, and the only,or, more weakly, the best, explanation of these phenomena involves acommitment to substantial forms. So, his general argument schema isclear: (i) some phenomenon φ requires explanation; (ii) the onlyor best explanation of φ is the existence of substantial forms;hence, (iii) there are substantial forms. The argument thus assumesthat the phenomena in question both obtain and are not primitive, thatis, that we are confronted with some data for which some form ofexplanation is both wanting and available.

What are these phenomena? InMetaphysical Disputations XV,Suárez appeals most forcefully to the following four: first, wefind accidents unified in a single subject (DM XV 1.7);second, as a related matter, we observe various properties in a singlesubject, both essential and accidental, standing in superordinationand subordination relations to one another (DM XV 1.14);third, we experience various entities coming into and going out ofexistence, suffering, in his preferred idiom, generation andcorruption (DM XV 1.7); and finally, we observe variousphysical systems, including especially (but not only) living beingsmanifesting equilibrium states which they maintain unless put underpressure, and to which they return when a pressure applied has beenrelieved (DM XV 1.8).

The arguments for these claims are varied, but in each case show greatsensitivity to matters of systematicity and unity. To explicate thefirst, by way of illustration, Suárez appeals to the simplethought that there are privileged unities in our world. He thinks itplain—and does not dally to offer an argument—that, forinstance, Socrates is a unified being, who exists in a specific placeand time, that he is a human being who eats, sleeps, grows, diminishesand dies. By contrast, the mereological sum of Socrates, thePinturricchio frescoes in the Bufalini Chapel in Rome, and a volume ofwater equal to one pint in somewhere in the Indian Ocean is no suchunity. There is, of course, a mereological sum of these three diverseitems; but this sum does not exhibit the form of unity we observe inSocrates. By the same token, Socrates is himself a mereological sum ofvarious atoms. Suárez takes it for granted that he isalso a mind- and language-independent privileged unity. If heis right, then this further fact is either primitive or explicable.Suárez thinks it explicable rather than primitive and tendersthe existence of substantial forms—in this case the form ofbeing a human being—as the appropriate explanatory posit.

Needless to say, this last step requires further amplification anddefence if it is to be at all credible. Again, however, one can see,at a bare minimum, that Suárez has fully anticipated objectionsto his views later taken as decisive; yet many of those unreflectivelysatisfied by those later objections seem to show no awareness of hisanticipations.

2.4 Final Causation

In offering his spirited and protracted defense of substantial forms,and of formal causation more generally, Suárez shows himselfaware of the need to articulate and defend core features of hisbroadly Aristotelian framework, including some which later came in forharsh criticism. Indeed, in the case of substantial forms, thesecriticisms were finding voice already during his lifetime; he was, forinstance, an older contemporary of Descartes (b. 1596), who was twentyyears old when Suárez died in 1617. Descartes simply reportswithout argument that substantial forms are “a philosophicalbeing unknown to me” (Letter to Morin, 12 September 1638;Descartes 1984: 122). Because he is alert to such concerns, andaddresses them directly, Suárez appears to many historians ofphilosophy as a sort of bridge figure between scholastic and earlymodern philosophy. That may or may not be so, depending on theprinciples of periodization presupposed by those offering this sort ofjudgment. What is clearly true, however, is that he very oftendevelops Aristotelian theses in a manner betraying a willingness toabandon those features of Aristotelianism which were to come in forthe harshest treatment by philosophers subsequent to him.

One such thesis pertains to his attitude towards teleologicalcausation. He endorses its centrality to his framework, but recognizesthat it requires articulation and defense. In theMetaphysicalDisputations it receives both:

Although a final cause is in a certain way more eminent than allothers and even prior [to them], its nature of causing is,nevertheless, more obscure and for that reason was almost entirelyunknown to the ancient philosophers… For this reason …in order to explain this more thoroughly and to resolve thedifficulties, it should first be inquired as to whether an end is acause, then in what manner and what it causes, and also how many kindsof ends there are and what the nature of causing is for each one ofthem (DM XXIII 1.1)

Here, as elsewhere, Suárez shows himself to be aware of many ofthe sorts of problem that came to form the basis for the widespreadrejection of teleological causation. Whether this redounds to hiscredit, given his affirmation of their centrality to causation ingeneral, is an independent question.

We find him wondering expressly whether we are right to call the finalcause a cause at all:

But that any whichever of these is a true cause can easily be provenindeed in the case of material, formal, and efficient [causes], forany whatever of these manifestly inflows some being… Butconcerning the final cause there can be some reason for doubting,since no real being is presupposed in it by which it could cause(De fine vero potest esse nonnulla dubitandi ratio, quia nullumesse reale in eo praesupponitur, quo causare possit:DMXIII 3.3)

The worry, according to Suárez is that the final cause perhapshas no “real being” (esse reale), in which caseit could not enter into any kind of causal relation. In so speaking,he is not just saying in a colorful way that perhaps the final causedoes not exist, but rather that it is perhaps a merefictum,that possibly all of our appeals to final causation are merelyconvenient fictions, able in principle to be replaced by appeals toother kinds of cause, those with real being, like efficient causes. IfPonce de León travelled to Florida in order to find theFountain of Youth, that is well and good; but the Fountain of Youthdoes not exist—it has noesse reale—and soit hardly caused him to do anything at all.

In more detail, Suárez offers six distinct worries about finalcausation (DM XXIII 1.1–6): (i) Every cause is aprincipium, but no end is aprincipium; hence, noend is a cause of any kind; (ii) every cause infuses being(influit esse) into its effect; no end does so; hence, no endis a cause: (iii) a form is an end; if an end were a real cause, formwould thus have to cause itself; nothing causes itself; hence the endis not a real cause; (iv) if an end is real cause, then it is also amoving principle, and no end is a moving principle; hence, no end is acause; (v) natural agents (here Suárez is thinking of elementsand beasts) have determinate propensities; the postulation of ends forbeings with determinate propensities is idle; hence, the postulationof final causes for natural agents lacks sufficient foundation; (vi)one cannot specify what or in relation to what (quid vel circaquid) a final cause causes; if not, then a final cause does notimpart motion; hence, a final cause is not a cause.

In different ways, these objections call into question the status ofthe final cause as cause. Some of them directly anticipate and addressthe sorts of considerations which came to dominate later, oftencaustic rejections of final causation.

Be that as it may, Suárez roundly affirms final causation. Itis noteworthy, however, that he does so by offering significantconcessions to what came to be the textbook rejections of finalcausation:

Although the end is last in execution, nevertheless it is first inintention and under that aspect has the true nature of a principle.Moreover, the principle is not afictum but is true and real(verum et reale), since it truly excites and moves. Hence,just as it has sufficient being by which it can exercise the sort ofnature a principle has, so also it has the nature of a cause(DM XII 3.3).

The endorsement is clear. The concession comes in the phrases“first in intention” (primum in intentione) and“under that aspect” (sub ea ratione), whereSuárez allows that a final cause qualifies as a cause onlybecause and to the degree that it is conceived by an intentionalagent. This, then, removes final causation from the realm ofnon-intentional nature, even while affirming that final causes play anineliminable role in psychological explanation, particularly asregards intentional action.

In a positive vein, Suárez argues on behalf of final causes bymeans of a simple counterfactual argument. One might say, forinstance, that someone made a journey to the storein order to buymilk. The buying of milk, then, is the final cause of thatjourney. If it were discovered that store had unfortunately run out ofmilk, then, suggests Suárez, the milk, or the buying of themilk, would remain the final cause of the action all the same;otherwise there would have been no journey. To the rejoinder that theactual cause was not the milk, but the agent'sdesire to buymilk, coupled with her belief that milk was to be had at the store,Suárez readily agrees—but then insists that the desirewould not be the desire it was were it not a desirefor buyingmilk. He contends, in other words, that the identity conditionsof any desire to buy milk derive from the end, which is to say thatfinal causation remains in play in the sphere of intentional action byproviding the very identity conditions of the desires which serve asefficient causes of intentional action. Still, this reasoning,positive though it is, also contains a large concession: final causesare implicated in the efficient causal realm only under the aspect ofintentionality. This is why Suárez ultimately concludes:

I say first: in order for an end to cause, it is altogether necessarythat it be cognised in advance. (Dico ergo primo: ut finis causet,necessarium omnino est ut praecognitus sit:DM XXIII7.2)

2.5 Beings of Reason (entia rationis)

Suárez seems to have conceded a great deal to the critics offinal causation in allowing that every final cause remains at rootimplicated in the realm of the intentional. Still, again, he makesthis concession only by way of affirming the existence of finalcauses. He has thereby also, however, evidently maneuvered himselfinto an uncomfortable position whereby the Fountain of Youth, forinstance, is a final cause, even though it has no real being (essereale). Yet he himself insists that nothing is a cause, orprincipium in general, without having real being. He thusowes an explanation of how he avoids falling into a directcontradiction on this point. The Fountain of Youth cannot both lackreal being and be a cause, of any kind.

He offers his explanation in last chapter of hisMetaphysicalDisputations, which is dedicated to beings of reason (entiarationis). This disputation is independently interesting becauseit engages a question which has continued to fascinate metaphysiciansdown to the present day, though it has taken various forms in variousperiods of inquiry. This is the question of how we are to speak (orthink) about things that are not. If something is unavailable to bespoken or thought about, then, presumably, we do not speak or thinkaboutit. After all, as Suárez notes, non-existingbeings of reason about which we pretend to think or speak

are neither true, real beings, because they are not capable of realand true existence, nor indeed do they have any true likeness withreal beings. (DM LIV 1.4)

Still, according to Suárez, we can and do think and speak aboutbeings of reason. It follows, then, that we do speak and think aboutthings which do not exist. It falls to the metaphysician to offer anaccount of how this might be so. Indeed, for better or worse, themetaphysician must address the topic of beings of reason, not leastbecause, invariably and inevitably, such (non-)beings force themselvesinto view along the periphery of any inquiry into real beings. To takebut one example, even if we think that there is no void, indeed evenif we think that it is impossible that there should be a void, and sothink that the void is merely a being of reason, we will findourselves discussing “the void” when investigating thecharacteristics of space, motion, matter, and quantity. We may ask,for instance, whether the existence of motion requires the existenceof the void, and, even if we decide that it does not, our inquiry intospace and motion—certainly appropriate topics of inquiry for themetaphysician—has led us to consideration of a non-existingbeing, the void. So, in Suárez's terms, inquiry into beingsinevitably propels the metaphysician into consideration ofnon-existing beings of reason. So,entia rationis—thesenon-beings—require a treatment by the student of being.

It is first of all striking in Suárez's treatment that theclass ofentia rationis includes a seeming motley of cases,extending beyond non-existing objects of thought and reference (and sobeyond non-existent final causes). In addition to final causes whichare not, the student of being finds himself confronted withtrue-sounding appeals to phantasmagorical and mythical beasts andcreatures of fiction of various sorts, even though their subjects havevacuous reference (“Pegasus is a winged horse”). Moreimportantly, Suárez countenances a whole range of othernon-beings amongentia rationis, some of which are morepedestrian than creatures of fiction: negations, such as beingnot-human; privations, that is, lacks keyed to positive properties,such as blindness; and also (what he takes to be mere) logicalabstractions, such as being a consequent or an antecedent; andtaxonomical categories, which, in view of his general nominalism, hetakes to be mere metaphysical abstractions, such as species andgenus.

The first thing to notice about this list is its heterogeneity.Suárez is interested in a group of entities, broadly conceived,that end up in metaphysical discourse even though they do not exist.Note, too, that he does not say that such entities do not exist“strictly speaking” or “fully” or“really” or that they exist “in the mind orimagination only”. Instead he insists: they do not exist. Evenso, in metaphysics and physics, we speak of genera and species; inlogic, of antecedents and consequences; in causation and metaphysicsmore broadly, of privations; and in many walks of life, ofnon-existent entities, often enough innocently imputing causalprofiles to them.

Focusing on the last case, which is in any case the most colorful andcaptivating, Suárez argues that it falls to the metaphysicianto come to terms with such true sentences such as “The gryphonis fierce”, “Gryphons do not exist”, and even“The gryphon frightened the children to the point where some ofthem began to cry uncontrollably”. How can these sentences betrue, when there is nothing here about which one may talk or think?What must be the case, if these sentences are to be accepted as true?Perhaps, one may think, the gryphon must exist in some way, if it isto be fierce; that if it can be said not to exist, then it—thething about which the speaker is speaking—must exist in some oneway but not in some other; and, most of all, that if it is to beimplicated in the causal network, it certainly must exist—orelse it could not stand in a causal relation to anything at all.Indeed, Suárez himself gives voice to just these sorts ofcontention in other contexts. For example, this last observation isperfectly reflected in a claim he makes about the necessary conditionsof formal causation: “The first requisite [for formal causation]is the actual existence of a form itself” (prima estactualis existentia ipsius formae:DM XV 6.3). Thequestion, then, is how beings of reason can enter the causal networkif they fail this first requirement of any cause: that it exist.

At first it may seem as if Suárez intends to hold that beingsof reason do, in fact, have some mode of existence, perhaps some sortof subsistence or some mode of being short of the sort manifested bywhat he calls “true, real beings”. For instance, hecontends that “beings of reason must be granted”(DM XLIV 1.4), and then hastens to add that:

such beings are neither true, real beings, because they are notcapable of real and true existence, nor indeed do they have any truelikeness with real beings—[any likeness, that is,] in terms ofwhose account they would have a common concept of being with them.(DM XLIV 1.4).

He also insists that: “fictitious things … or beings ofreason, are not said to endure truly and properly, because they do notexist” (DM L 1.1). So, again, it may seem as if hemeans to contend that they exist, though not in the manner of true andreal beings, or, again, insofar as they may be said to endure at all,they do so not truly or but rather only improperly.

This is not at all, however, his view ofentia rationis. Hisapproach to them is in one way disarmingly simple: he insists thatthey do not exist (Shields 2012b). Even so, he maintains, one mayfreely speak of themas if they existed. Indeed, just as“they are fashioned or apprehended as if they truly existed,they are further conceived as if they endured”. His view, morefully:

Again, that objective being, even though the being of reason in itselfis nothing, still necessarily supposes some real being, on which it isfounded, or from whose denomination or relation that objective beingquasi-results (quasi resultet). Therefore, that cause whichproduced such a real being is the cause of the being of reason(DM LIV 2.3).

His picture is that beings of reason are such that, although they donot exist, one may speak and thinkas if they existed, wherethe thinking in question is a real, existing formal structure in themind of an actual thinker. Thinking is in this way contentful, becausefounded in some real feature of some real thinker, but not thereforesuch as to take an object. One may think of Socrates or one may thinkof a gryphon; the gryphon's being thought, however, unlike Socrates'sbeing thought, is not an extrinsic denomination of the gryphon, as itis of Socrates; for Socrates is and the gryphon is not. Were there agryphon, says Suárez, the formal structure of the thinker wouldindeed give rise to an extrinsic denomination of it, no more or lessthat Socrates's being thought gives rise to such a feature of him.Still, he insists, because there is not such a gryphon, there is notsuch a feature to be had by him.

In short, then, the content of the thought derives from the real,formal structure in the mind of the thinker and not from the object.That holds fixed across all episodes of thought. It is just that somethoughts are about something and others about nothing at all. Theirbeing about nothing, insists Suárez, hardly robs them of theircontentfulness: the motion of a missed punch is a real motion, and notthe same as the motion of a missed kick; but neither makes contact,and so in neither case is there something contacted, something kickedor punched. On the contrary, nothing is kicked in a missed kick, andnothing punched in a missed punch. In the same way, then, nothing isthought or referred to when there is no object of thought orreference. In such cases, all the causation involved eventuates fromand reaches only the actual formal structures of an actual mind:

all that efficient [causation] is terminated—as to a terminus ofreal production—at the formal concept of the mind itself, and itstops there. (tota vero illa efficientia, ut ad terminum realisproductionis terminatur ad formalem conceptum ipsius mentis, et ibisistit:DM LIV 2.3)

Taking all that together,S can speak of the gryphon, thoughthere is no gryphon there to be spoken of; and the thinking in thiscase is in all respects like the thinking that goes on in one who isthinking of Socrates. The difference is that Socrates comes to have anextrinsic denomination—being thought of byS—whereas the gryphon, who does not exist, does not acquirethis or any other denomination, extrinsic or intrinsic. There is,nonetheless, a fact about the world such that were there to be agryphon, it would have acquired such a denomination, precisely becausesome actual person would have been in the relevant state of thinkingabout it.

Exactly the same holds true, according to Suárez, of the othersorts ofentia rationis he countenances: negations,privations, and abstractions. They are not, but this does not precludeour thinking of them and speaking about them. Our doing so in no wayinvests them with existence of any kind. This is how Suárezinsists thatentia rationis “must be granted”even though they lack “any true likeness with real beings”(DM LIV 1.4).

2.6 Metaphysical Theology

Needless to say, Suárez regarded God as a being and not a beingof reason. He also thought that unaided natural reason could go a longway towards providing a philosophically tenable description of thenature of God. Because of this, he devoted two book-lengthdisputations,Metaphysical Disputations XXIX and XXXto the topics of God’s existence and nature, the second ofwhich, devoted to God’s nature, comprises 17 sections coveringhis essence and attributes, insofar as these are accessible to humanreasoning.

In his treatment of God’s attributes, Suárez concentrateson perfection, infinitude,^[14], simplicity, immutability, oneness,invisibility incomprehensibility, and ineffability; he alsoinvestigates God’s life, knowledge, will, omnipotence, and omnipresence.^[15] The breadth, extension, and detail ofSuárez’s discussion makes it impossible to consider allof these topics here. We may, however, consider a subset of theseattributes as representative of his approach: perfection, infinitude,simplicity, and immensity or omnipresence. Here wetreat only the foundational topic of God’s perfection.

Suárez maintains, in common with many others of his period,that God’s attributes can be known by us as they truly are onlyby means of a manifest vision of him, something made possible onlythrough his supernatural aid. Even so, natural reason can offer alimited knowledge of God and can proceed, according to Suárez,in two different ways. It can deduce divine attributes from theknowledge of the effects of divine operation (a posteriori).Alternatively, it can proceed by deducing one attribute from another(a priori) (DM XXX.1. intro). Suárez appliesboth of these demonstrative methods to each of the divine attributesin turn.

Can it be demonstrated by natural reason that God is by his essence anabsolutely perfect being? This question is immediately complicated bythe fact that Suárez recognizes two central senses of‘perfection’ (DM XXX.1.1). In one sense, which hecalls ‘privative’, what is perfect is whole and lacksnothing requiredby its nature; in these sense we couldspeak, for instance, of a perfect horse. In a second sense, whichSuárez calls ‘negative or absolute’, we refer towhat is absolutely perfect—perfect, that is, not relative to thestandard set by a thing’s nature but in absolute terms. Suchperfect entities necessarily have or contain every other perfection.Suárez wishes to demonstrate that it belongs to the essence ofGod to be perfect in both of these senses.

Suárez believes that imperfection in the sense of lackingsomething that is due to nature always comes from external causes. Ahorse without tail is a horse which had its tail removed or wassomehow prevented from growing one. But there is nothing capable ofmaking God less than perfect in this sense: nothing can damage him orotherwise interfere with his perfection. God is not vulnerable toimperfection coming from without (DM XXX.1.2). This can beshowna priori, Suárez contends, by reasoning fromGod’s other attributes. In the first instance, we can deduceGod’s perfection from his simplicity; because he is simple, Godis non-composite. Since partless entities cannot be partiallydiminished, but either exist totally or are totally destroyed, itfollows that if God is simple, and exists, he must be perfect in thesense of being complete (DM XXX.1.2).

Let us turn now to absolute perfection. Every perfection, saysSuárez, is either created or uncreated. If a perfect entity isuncreated, that entity must be God. If, however, something is created,it owes its existence to God. Created perfection is the effect of acause able to bring about such an effect . According to a causalprinciple held in common by Suárez and many of his peers, thiscause must be more noble and more excellent than its effect (if onlyin the sense that it possesses perfection in itself and not as causedby something else). From this, Suárez deduces that it belongsto the essence of God to posses in some way the perfections of allcreated beings in a mode that is more noble than the way in whichthese perfections exist in created beings. This, then, constitutes hisa posteriori proof for God’s absolute perfection(DM XXX 1.4).

Suárez thinks that God’s absolute perfection can also bedemonstrateda priori. As the first cause of everything andthe most necessary being, it is necessary that God is also first inabsolute perfection. Suárez adds that the very idea ofperfection requires us to posit a completely perfect thing to serve asstandard for other beings admitting of degrees of perfection. Thisstandard, he infers, must be God (DM XXX.1.5).

Suárez notes, however, that his view that the most perfectbeing must be understood ascontaining the perfections of allother beings is not self-evident and requires being argued for as itis liable to be wrongly interpreted. Human beings are more perfectthan kangaroos, for example, but do not contain within themselves theperfections of kangaroos (for one thing, we cannot hop as high)(DM XXX 1.5).

Suárez maintains instead that God is not simply and in factmore perfect than all other beings: he is more perfect in so far as heisthe first principle or origin of all the perfections ofall other beings. To be the first principle or origin of another isnot just to be more perfect than every other thing: a first principlemust additionally be more perfect ina determinate way thanthe perfections of the beings for whose perfections he serves as anorigin. This determinate way of being perfect Suárez labels‘eminent’.

A seconda priori proof offered by Suárez (DMXXX.1.6) is that: (i) God is the most perfect not only of all existingbeings but also of allpossible beings; (ii) therefore—forreasons explained below—God must be perfect in a higher sense thanall other possible beings; (iii) this higher sense of perfectionconsists in containing the perfections of all other possiblebeings. The first premise (i) is shown thus: if there is a moreperfect being than God, either it is a necessary being and exists inact, or it is not yet existent and would be produced by something elsein order to exist. If this other, productive entity already exists,then we do not have apossible being which more perfect than every actualbeing. On the other hand, this entity could not be merely possible,since a less perfect being cannot create a more perfect being. Thequestion thus arises: who or what would be able to create it? Itfollows, then, that it is not possible to think of a possible being moreperfect than God. That (ii) follows from (i) is shown thus: if thefirst being does not contain all the perfections of other beings, itis not the most perfect of all possible beings since in that instanceone could think of a possible being that is at least as perfect as thefirst being. It would then contain all the other perfections.

Suárez suggests a thirda priori proof as well: thefirst being must be more perfect than any other being not in specificrespects but absolutely, which is to say inall respects.Thus, for instance, human beings are more perfect than dogs in mostrespects, but not as concerns their olfactory capacity. God must bemore perfect in every respect and for this reason he must include allthe perfections of lesser beings (DM XXX.1.7).

One might be tempted to infer on this basis that God must have theperfections of all lesser beings in the same mode as they exist inthose beings. Suárez rejects this inference. Following othertheologians, he distinguishes between absolute andsecundumquid perfections. Absolute perfections are those that caninhere without conflict or opposition in the same thing. These, then,belong to the very idea (or “formal concept”) of God. Bycontrast, thesecundumquid perfections can beincompatible with one another and can be hypothetical in the sensethat they presuppose some imperfection in that in which they inhere(for example, sensory perception seems to involve the imperfection ofbeing unable to know the qualities of things perceived in anunmediated way. So, we could not say that God “sees” inthe sense we see). So, God has that perfection“eminently”, which means that his creative essence has thecapacity to communicate to or cause these perfections in beings (forexample to communicate the capacity of vision to us) (DMXXX.1.8).

The absolute (non-secundumquid) perfections arepossessed by God formally (that is, not eminently). These perfectionsare also attributed to creatures, but not, then, in the same way. Godis wise, but his wisdom has only some formal fittingness(covenientia) to ours. For Suárez, our talk aboutGod’s absolute perfections is analogical.

3. Moral Theory and Natural Law

Suárez thus entered deeply into the metaphysical debates of hisday. He was hardly, however, therefore indifferent to other, morepractical areas of philosophy and society. Along with his fellowscholastic theologians, Suárez was deeply interested in moraland social goodness and cared greatly about the sphere of humanaction. Also like his fellow scholastics, he tended to preface histreatment of the moral goodness and badness of human actions with adiscussion on the nature of the morality of action as such. Themorality of human actions, he held, is that by virtue of which a humanaction can contract the species of goodness or badness (Debonitate et malitia actuum humanorum, disp. 1, proem, inSuárez,Opera omnia IV). To use an analogy: there isbad art and good art, but there are also properties which make anobject a work of art, that is, an object which can be specified asgood or badqua work of art. For Suárez, indistinction to some present-day moral theorists, the nature of an actcannot be divorced from the mode of its production; neither, then, canits normative evaluation.

Suárez operated in a context where the two main competing viewsof the nature of morality were that: (1) the morality of the actconsists in its being in principle able to conform to the externalstandards provided by reason; and (2) the morality of the act belongsto the act itself, quite apart from any external standards.

Suárez, against Vázquez (Vázquez 1608: I, 414, d.73 c. 9 n. 43), held the second view. For him, the morality of the actconsists in its dependence on volition as the productive impetusbehind the act and on reason as the guiding set of rules that theagent takes herself to be guided by in shaping the precisecharacteristics of the act (De bonitate, sect. 2, n. 15).Suárez provides the parallel of the production of an artefact.An artefact can be evaluated by the standards applying to artefacts(say, beauty or ugliness), because its producer took herself to beguided, in the act of production, by the rules of her art (Debonitate, sect. 2, n. 17). The mode of production defines thenature of the object. Thus, two objects that look identical may besusceptible to different standards of judgment, because one might bean artefact (say, a carved stone) and the other not (say, a stonewhich fell from a cliff and broke, resulting in the same shape as thecarved stone).

For Suárez, it was important to argue that the morality ofhuman action belongs to the act itself. This he regarded as anecessary precondition to arguing that the moral goodness or badnessof actions can be ascertained regardless of the presence of commandingor prohibiting divine law. If acts are to have pre-positive moralproperties, they must also have a pre-positive aptitude to be morallygood or bad.

Operating within this basic framework of morality, Suárezdeveloped a theory of natural law that has attracted much attentiondespite his consciously attempting to position himself midway betweentwo radically opposed views about natural law. There was, on the onehand, extreme naturalism, which he attributed to Gregory of Rimini(DL II, 6.3). According to extreme naturalism, the moral lawdoes not require an exercise of legislative will by God. The naturalgoodness and badness of actions exhaustively generates all our moralobligations. Even if God had not have given us laws, or even, indeed,if God had not existed at all, on the version of extreme naturalismfavored by Gregory of Rimini, all the presently existing moral dutieswould still apply.

At the other extreme was the voluntarism attributed by Suárez(rightly or wrongly) to William of Ockham and to a lesser extent alsoto Duns Scotus (DL I, 6.4). According to this view, actionshave no intrinsic (pre-positive) goodness or badness (or, even if theyhave some goodness and badness, this does not determine or constrainwhat we ought to do). Obligations come from divine commands resultingfrom the free exercise of God's will. Further, in this view, God isentirely free as to the content of the moral law. Should God commandus to hate him, then this is what we ought to do.

As is characteristic of his general approach to his predecessors,Suárez disagrees with both views without wholly disregardingeither. He agrees that natural law, if it is genuine“law”, requires an act ofimperium, a command bythe legislator expressing his will. Therefore, any obligation fallingunder natural law derives its moral force from God's legislative act(DL I, 5.13). In Suárez's terminology, natural law isnot “indicative”; it is not merely a way of telling usabout what is good and what is morally bad in itself. Rather it is“preceptive”: it creates obligations that would otherwisenot exist.

So far, then, Suárez's position agrees with voluntarism. Healso, however, believes that what is naturally good is necessarilycommanded by God and what is naturally bad is necessarily prohibited.Therefore, thecontent of natural law, unlike its bindingforce, does not have a positive source. Rather, it is dictated bycreated nature itself, to which God's commands respond.

Interpreters disagree on whether Suárez leaves room forpre-positive moral duties (that is, moral duties which do not drawtheir binding force from God's commands) and on whether, if this is infact the case, such duties are compatible with his general account ofnatural law. At the center of the debate is Suárez's assertionthat the performance of an intrinsically bad action constitutessinning and involvesculpa (guilt/blame)regardless of aprohibition from above. According to John Finnis, this amounts topositing the existence of pre-positive obligations incompatible withSuárez's view that all law involves the expression of the willof a superior (Finnis 1980: 46–49). Thomas Pink construesSuárez's theory of natural law in a way that aims to avoid theincoherence produced by pre-positive obligations. On his construal,the expression of a superior's will gives usadditionalreasons to perform an act that is already obligatory by reason of itsintrinsic moral properties (Pink 2005: 42).

Still, thus far Finnis's charge of incoherence remains a threat. Afterall, Suárez does say that the force to oblige (visobligandi) canonly come from an act of will. A solutionis provided by Terence Irwin. In his reading, what intrinsic moralproperties of actions generate are not obligations, but rather duties(debita) (Irwin 2012). Obligations, unlike duties, involve asort of “moral motion”. The idea is that obligationsconstitute an act of imposing an obligation, anobliging.Obliging is the tool the holder of legitimate power has in order tomove those under his command to do some actions and refrain fromothers. As is clear from Suárez's discussions on the influx ofdivine grace, God's grace moves us morally (rather than physically) bymaking the performance of some good actions more attractive to reasonthan they would otherwise be (De Gratia Dei seu de DeoSalvatore, III.41.3, in Suárez,Opera omniaVIII). Intrinsic goodness does not involve an obliging because it isnot impelling us to do anything; unlike the presence of law or theeffect of grace, intrinsic goodness is not a new influx that was notthere before. But this is not to say that intrinsic goodness does notexert a rational attraction on moral agents; it is simply that ournatural tendency to do what is good is not the result of any sort ofmoving or pushing. In this reading, there is no contradiction betweenmaking room for the existence of pre-positive duties and insistingthat obligations only originate in law. The distinction betweenobligations and duties is not merely a verbal one, but points to thedifference between what in Aristotelian terms would be an efficientand final cause of motion.

It emerges, then, that Suárez's theory of natural law is lesscomprehensive than some have thought: it covers,qua lawful,only those “oughts” that result from the command of thesuperior.

4. Political Authority

What, if anything, makes political subjection legitimate? ForSuárez, the question is compelling given that “man is byhis nature free and subject to no one, save only to the Creator”(DL III, 1.1).

As Suárez conceives of the basic position of humanity, theinhabitants of a hypothetical pre-political state would have two mainreasons to try to transcend it. First, families, the basic unit ofhuman organization, are not self-sufficient: they contain withinthemselves neither the offices nor the arts necessary for survival.They simply lack the requisite knowledge. Secondly, evoking the ideaof a state of war, Suárez argues that if families were dividedfrom one another, peace could hardly be preserved among men, nor couldwrongs be duly averted or avenged (Defensio fidei catholicae, etapostolicae adversus anglicanae sectae errores, III.1.4, inSuárez,Opera omnia XXIV). Inhabitants of thepre-political state are thus capable of envisaging a possiblepolitical state, in which cooperation between families exists for somecommon purpose. They can thus realize that power must be vested in oneor some individuals because “nobody can be preserved unlessthere exists some principle whose function is to provide for and seekits common good” (DL III, 1.4–5).

The constitutive act of the community cannot simply be a decision byeach family to live in proximity to each other and interactpeacefully. This would create, at most, a certain familiarity orfriendship, but would fail to generate what Suárez terms a“moral union”. This moral union originates instead in theassumption of the duties and obligations that make political lifepossible. These, in turn, are incurred by an act of “express ortacit pact” between the would-be citizens to help each other,together with their consent to subordinate themselves to a superior(De opere sex dierum, V.7.3, in Suárez,Operaomnia III).^[16]

This view places Suárez very close to the social contractschool. It is a central tenet of this school that the citizenscontract an obligation towards the political authority because theyhave given express, tacit, or hypothetical consent to it. Some ofSuárez's interpreters have resisted this conclusion, arguingthat, for him, although consent creates the state, it does notdirectly cause political obligation. In this interpretation, just asthe right of a person to rule over his body “naturallyresults” (to use Suárez's phrase) from his being a personand is independent from the means by which he was generated (so that,say, anin vitro generated human being would also have theserights), so the right of the ruler(s) to rule over the city naturallyflows from the fact that the city is a city, independently from theconsent that generated it.

Other interpreters, such as Schwartz, argue that, for Suárez,consent directly causes political obligation without the mediation ofthe political community (Schwartz 2008). What the political communitycauses by “natural resultancy” is not the citizens'political subjection to the ruler. Rather, it is the community'soriginal rightful incumbency to the role of the ruler (itsself-mastership). For Suárez, to say that the self-mastershipof the political community emanates by natural resultancy is simply away of saying that this mastership has no external cause (such asGod). The right to self-rule of the political community has the sameorigin as the political community itself: consent. This effect is notmediated by any intervening cause.

Note that for Suárez the ruler's power is not the result of atransfer or alienation of individual self-rule rights. Hence,Suárez's ruler is not, as in Hobbes, the depositary of a partof the citizens' right over themselves. The seat of power remainsalways, if only latently, with the community (Schwartz 2008: 71).

5. Distributive Justice

Suárez's highly original discussion of distributive justice hasbeen unjustly neglected. Its originality resides in the rejection ofsome of the main principles of the Aristotelian conception ofdistributive justice that significantly shaped the modern conception,including that of, for instance, John Rawls. Among these were theprinciples that distributive justice operates only when total fundsare insufficient to meet some ideal or desired standard and that ajust distribution is a justdivision and so presupposes adivisible good and multiple recipients.

His fundamental break with Aristotelianism, however, resulted from hisrejection of the view that distributive justice distinctly aims atproportional allocation. For Suárez, the types of justiceshould be distinguished by the type of right which they oversee ratherthan by the ideal distributional pattern at which they should aim.Distributive justice oversees a rightto the thing, ratherthan a right in the thing (aius ad rem rather than aiusin rem). Theius ad rem was usefully defined by Austinas “a right of compellingyou to pass me a rightinrem” (Austin, 1869: 993). Unlike infringements ofiurain rem, those ofiura ad rem do not call forrestitution. For example, if in a competition for public office, thebest candidate is not chosen, he has an actionable claim against theappointment committee, but he cannot say that he has been deprived ofsomething that was his.

For Suárez, in order to have a distributive justice claim it isnot enough to exhibit the quality that in principle entitles you to ashare. He provides this illustration: if someone works in yourvineyard without your knowledge or consent, this does not mean thatyou owe him wages. Distributive justice requires a background pactbetween the owner of the common stock (the community) and its members.This pact defines the criteria that allow members to have actionableclaims to the receipt of a share of the common stock.

Although this pact creates rights, the rights have pre-positivefoundations. In order to ground a debt to a reward an action must beof a value commensurate to the reward. Not all posited conditionsindebt the promisor as a matter of justice, but only those thatcorrespond to a pre-contractual fittingness or commensurabilitybetween the reward and the action or personal quality.

Distributive justice, insofar as it is the sovereign's justice,governs also the enjoyment of property rights. The sovereign (in thepolitical case, the community or its appointee) retains a form ofsuperior ownership (which he terms “supreme dominium”)over private possessions (Disputatio de Iustitia 1.12, inSuárez,Opera omnia XI). This means that the sovereigncan withdraw your property rights, say over your car, and transferthem to someone else (say, to be used for security patrols). You couldlodge a complaint that your private ownership of the car was moreconducive to social utility (say, because you are a doctor). Bylodging this complaint, however, you would not be claiming a violationof your property rights (as in the case of theft), but rather, of yourrightto property rights under agreed, public criteriaregulating their allocation.

6. Just War

Suárez extended his conception of justice to the arena of war,writing one of the most exhaustive and lucid treatments of the justiceof war available in the scholastic corpus. It covers justiceadbellum,in bello and, also,post bellum.

The discussion ofad bellum justice concerns the fundamentalsof just war theory, including: the moral permissibility of war; thedifference between defensive and offensive war; legitimate authorityto declare war; the requirement of a reasonable hope of victory; theconstraints imposed by charity in any resort to war; and the moralimplications of the domestic costs of wars which are in principlejust. It also contains a compelling discussion of the duty ofparticipants in war to investigate the presence of a just cause, as itapplies to decision-makers, advisors, and various types of combatants,including mercenaries.

His discussion ofius in bello considers, among other things:the category of “innocents” and their immunities; the“doctrine of double effect” as applied to war; theself-defence rights of collateral victims; the attendant possibilityof a war that is just on both sides (if the collateral victims decideto defend themselves); and the peculiarities of civil war and thepermissibility of deceiving the enemy. It also dwells on topics thatare not typically discussed by today's just war theorists. Theseinclude the difference between participating in highly risky missionsand using suicide as a weapon, the justice of concerted confrontations(both mutually agreed and forced by one of the parties), thepermissibility of military alliances with infidels, the rights ofsoldiers against the sovereign, and justice in the distribution ofbooty.

Interwoven in these discussions one can find topics that today wouldbe classed in theius post-bellum category, in particular, onwhether victory, regardless of its justice, confers rights, and on therights of just victors to the property found in enemy territory. Here,to appreciate the basic tenor of his approach, we may survey thead bellum just cause requirement.

A just cause of war is “a grave wrong which cannot be avenged orrepaired in any other way” (DDB 4.1).^[17] Examples are the unjust seizure of property of the prince orsubjects, violations to the rights of nations, and, controversially,grave injuries to the honor or reputation of the prince or thesubjects (DDB 4.3).

Suárez places significant moral weight on the distinction, onlytacitly present in Thomas Aquinas's treatment, between defensive andoffensive or aggressive war. The defensive use of force aims to foilan attempt to inflict a wrong. The offensive use of force, bycontrast, aims at obtaining some form of satisfaction for wrongfulharms that have been already perpetrated (DDB 1.6).Suárez devotes some attention to cases in which applying thisbinary distinction becomes complicated. Because aggressive oroffensive war seems morally more problematic, it was natural forSuárez to devote the most attention to it. Offensive war is anessentially apunitive response to the refusal to redresspast wrongful harms. In the same way that domestic peace requiresempowering the republic to punish domestic wrongs, so internationalpeace requires that someone be vested with the power to punishinternational wrongs. Suárez reasons that, given the absence ofa commonly acknowledged superior, this power must belong to eachsovereign. Sovereigns thus assume the role of judges. A just offensivewar is therefore the meting out of just punishment (DDB4.5).

Justice, however, is not likely to be served if the judge is also aparty to the dispute. Suárez is well aware of this problem buttries to downplay it. He notes that rulers are less inclined thanprivate persons to act on emotion and the thirst of vengeance.Moreover, they are regularly assisted by the more temperate opinion oftheir expert advisors. Recognizing that this may not be enough tosurmount the problem, Suárez candidly says that once we acceptthat someone must have the power to punish in the international arena,for all their faults, there are simply no better candidates for thisrole than sovereigns (DDB 4.7). Furthermore, the unjust partyhas only itself to blame for the judge's partiality since, by refusingto give satisfaction, it exposed itself to sentencing by a biasedjudge. The argument comes across as flawed, since whether or notsatisfaction was due is precisely part of what is at stake.

The presence of a just cause of war is not always sufficient to makewar morally permissible. Some wars may be just but neverthelessviolate other moral injunctions. This may happen, for instance, when awealthy and prosperous country demands satisfaction for a wrong doneby a poor country, knowing it is impossible for it to do so withoutfalling into utmost deprivation. In these circumstances, resorting towar may be just but nevertheless uncharitable. However, violations ofthe duties of charity do not impose a posterior duty to restitute, solong as justice has not been infringed (DDB 4.8).

There is another sense in which the presence of a just cause is notsufficient to make war morally permissible. While making decisionsabout war, the ruler must consider not only whether his cause is just,but also whether its prosecution by the sword is beneficial to therealm's subjects. A war may pursue a just cause and yet involveinjustice towards the subjects of the warring country if it manifestlyharms the subjects' common good. In such cases, the ruler acts astyrant; the subjects are merely treated as means to avenge wrongs doneto him, while they themselves suffer serious loss (DDB4.8).

For war to be morally permissible, is it necessary that, in additionto having a just cause, it is also certain that the just cause will beachieved? The Renaissance Thomist commentator, Cardinal Thomas de Vio,known as Cajetan, thought so.^[18] Suárez considered such absolute certainty to be unachievable,and requiring it to be undesirable: waiting to attain this degree ofcertainty could result in a dangerous postponement of the business ofjustice. In addition, he thought that this requirement discriminatedagainst weaker countries by making it more difficult for them topursue justice as compared to stronger countries (DDB4.10).

Bibliography

Latin Editions of Suárez's Works

• Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis‘De anima’, Salvador Castellote Cubells (ed.),Madrid: Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones, 1978–1991.
• Conselhos e Pareceres, 3 vols, Coimbra: Biblioteca Geralda Universidade de Coimbra, 1948–1952.
• Opera omnia, M. André and C. Berton (eds). 28vols. Paris: Ludovicus Vivès, 1856–1878.

Suárez in English Translation

See Sydney Penner's excellent website:Suarez in English Translation.

Works Cited and Secondary Literature in English

• Agostini, Igor, 2008,L’infinità di Dio: IlDibattito da Suárez a Caterus (1597–1641), Rome:Editori Riuniti.
• Aho, Tuomo, 2007, “Suárez on CognitiveIntentions”, inMind Cognition and Representation: TheTradition of Commentaries on Aristotle's “De anima”,Paul J.J.M. Bakker and Johannes M.M.H. Thijssen (eds), Aldershot:Ashgate, pp. 180–202.
• Åkerlund, Erik, 2009, “Suárez on Forms,Universals and Understanding”, Studia Neoaristotelica,6: 159–182.
• –––, 2010, “Suárez's Ideas onNatural Law in the Light of His Philosophical Anthropology and MoralPsychology”, inThe Nature of Rights: Moral and PoliticalAspects of Rights in Late Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy,Virpi Mäkinen (ed.), Acta Philosphica Fennica [87], Helsinki, pp.165–196.
• Álvarez Gómez, Mariano, 2000, ‘La omnipotenciade Dios y el principio de contradicción en FranciscoSuárez’, inPotentia Dei. L'onnipotentia divina nelpensiero dei secoli XVI e XVII, Guido Canziani, MiguelÁngel Granada, and Yves Charles Zarka (eds.), Milan: F. Angeli,173–93.
• Ariew, Roger, 2012, “Descartes and Liebniz as Readers ofSuárez: Theory of Distinctions and Principle ofIndividuation”, in Hill and Lagerlund 2012: 38–56.
• Arp, Robert, 2002, “An Analysis of Freedom in the PoliticalDoctrines of Suárez and Filmer”,PhilosophicalInquiry, 26: 53–82.
• Ashworth, E.J., 1995, “Suárez on the Analogy ofBeing: Some Historical Background”,Vivarium, 33:50–75.
• Austin, John, 1869,Lectures on Jurisprudence, London:Murray.
• Brandão, Mario, 1974, “Nota ao etudo ‘Alivraria do Padre Francisco Suárez’”, in hisEtudos varios, Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra.
• Brett, Annabel, 1999, “Individual and Community in the‘Second Scholastic’: Subjective Rights in Domingo de Sotoand Francisco Suárez”, inPhilosophy in the Sixteenthand Seventeenth Century, Constance Blackwell and Sachiko Kusukawa(eds), Aldershot: Ashgate.
• Burlando, Giannina, 2006, “Suarez on IntrinsicRepresentationalism”, inIntellect et imagination dans laphilosophie médiévale, III, Turnhout: Brepols, pp.1941–1957.
• Burns, Patout, 1964, “Action in Suárez”,New Scholasticism, 38: 453–73.
• Cajetan [Thomas de Vio], 1540–41,Sancti ThomaeAquinatis Doctoris Angelici Opera Omnia iussum pensaque Leonis XIII,cum commentariis Thomae de Vio Caietani Ordinis Praedicatorum,Rome: Typographia Polyglotta, vol. 8, 1895.
• Cantens, Bernardo J., 2000, “The Relationship between Godand Essences and the Notion of Eternal Truths according to FranciscoSuarez”,The Modern Schoolman, 77: 127–143.
• –––, 2003, “Suárez on Beings ofReason: What Kind of Beings (entia) are beings of Reason, andWhat Kind of Being (esse) Do They Have?”,AmericanCatholic Philosophical Quarterly, 77: 171–187.
• –––, 2012, “Suárez's CosmologicalArgument for the Existence of God”, in Schwartz 2012a:89–14.
• Castellote Cubells, Salvador, 2015,Francisco Suárez,Teoría sobre el espacio: de la inmensidad a la infinidad deDios, al “espacio imaginario” y los “mundosposibles”, Valencia: Facultad de Teología SanVicente Ferrer.
• Cronin, Timothy J., 1966,Objective Being in Descartes andSuárez, Rome: Gregorian University Press.
• Cross, Richard, 2005, “Duns Scotus and Suárez at theOrigins of Modernity”, inDeconstructing Radical Orthodoxy.Postmodern Theology, Rhetoric and Truth, Wayne J. Hankey andDouglas Hedley (eds), Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 65–80.
• Daniel, Stephen H., 2000, “Berkeley, Suárez and theEsse-Existere Distinction”,American CatholicPhilosophical Quarterly, 74: 621–636.
• Descartes, René, 1984,The Philosophical Writings ofDescartes (vol. 3), J. Cottingham et al. (eds), Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
• Daniel, William, 1968,The Purely Penal Law Theory in theSpanish Theologians from Vitoria to Suárez, Rome:Gregorian University Press.
• Des Chene, Dennis, 1996,Physiologia. Natural Philosophy inLate Aristotelian and Cartesian Thought, Ithaca and London:Cornell University Press.
• –––, 2012, “Suárez on Propinquityand the Efficient Cause”, in Hill and Lagerlund 2012:89–100.
• Doig, James C., 1977, “Suárez, Descartes and theObjective Reality of Ideas”,The New Scholasticism, 57:350–371.
• Doyle, John P., 1982, “The Suarezian Proof for God'sExistence”, inHistory of Philosophy in the Making: ASymposium of Essays to Honor Professor James D. Collins on his65^th Birthday, Linus Thro (ed.), Washington DC:University Press of America, pp. 105–17.
• –––, 1984, “Prolegomena to a Study ofExtrinsic Denomination in the Work of Francis Suárez,S.J.”,Vivarium, 22: 121–160.
• –––, 1987, “Suárez on Truth andMind-Dependent Beings: Implications for a Unified Semiotics”, inSemiotics 1983, Jonathan Evans and John Deely (eds), NewYork: University Press of America, pp. 121–133.
• –––, 1999, “Francisco Suárez on theLaw of Nations”, inReligion and International Law,Mark Janis and Carolyn Evans (eds), The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, pp.103–144.
• –––, 2000, “Suárez on the Truth ofthe Proposition, ‘This is my Body’”,ModernSchoolman, 77: 145–163.
• –––, 2011,Collected Studies on FranciscoSuárez S. J. (1548–1617), Victor Salas (ed.),Leuven: Leuven University Press.
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