Comparación del cuervo de la Sima del Elefante con especies de cuervo extintas

repre-sentationalist position is that of the two (out of the three) senses of existence—the aptitudinal and the potential (the third being the ac-tual). These senses (which we have referred to often) are pointedly distinguished by Suárez, but confused by the representationalists.

Aptitudinal (or precisive) existence, as we have frequently noted, merely prescinds from, but does not exclude, the actual exercise of ex-istence; potential existence, however, excludes that exercise and signi-fies what is actually nothing. In other words, aptitudinal existence is existence as presented to intra-mental awareness and not as posited in extra-mental reality; potential existence negates extra-mental reality as long as the existence remains potential. Hence, as Suárez points out, aptitudinal existence can be predicated of God, while the pos-sible or potential existence cannot. But in representationalist thinking

“aptitudinal” and “possible” mean the same thing: “being has been re-duced to possibility, itself defined by thinkability, that which Leibniz would call cogitabilitas.”⁸⁹ Suárez is declared to be the forerunner of Wolff, who said that “that which can exist is that which does not imply contradiction.”⁹⁰

In other words, “ realitas is no longer defined by reference to exis-tence which actualizes it, but by opposition to nothing… that is to say to the unthinkable.”⁹¹ However, for Suárez, the truth is the exact contrary. Reality is nothing but reference to existence, for esse enim et existere idem sunt;⁹² ens in quantum ens ab esse dictum est⁹³; esse aeque 88 DM 2: 4: 5 [25: 89]: si ens sumatur prout est significatum huius vocis in vi nominis sumpti, eius ratio consistit in hoc, quod sit habens essentiam realem, id est non fictam nec chymericam, sed veram et aptam ad realiter existendum.

89 AUBENqUE, “Suárez et l’avènement,” p. 19.

90 Ibid., p. 17.

91 Ibid.

92 DM 2: 4: 1 [25: 88].

93 DM 31: 1: 1 [26: 224].

patet ac ipsum ens;⁹⁴ and existentia ut existentia correspondet enti ut sic, estque de intrinseca ratione eius...⁹⁵

It may be that Suárez absolutizes essence, but he does it through absolutized existence:

That essence or quiddity be in fact real, cannot be understood without reference to existence and real actual entity: for we do not otherwise conceive of any essence, which does not actually exist, to be real, unless it be such that being an actual entity—which it has by actual existence—is not repugnant to it. Although to exist in actuality is not of the essence of a creature, however the reference to existence, of the aptitude to exist, pertains to its intrinsic and essential concept.⁹⁶

For the representationalists, Suárez is the forerunner not only of the dogmatist Wolff, for whom quod possibile est, ens est;⁹⁷ but of the criti-cal KANT (1724-1804) himself.

For Suárez, as later for Kant, the realitas, which is opposed to noth-ing, but which includes nothing more than the simple thinkability, does not in any fashion imply existence, which does not increase in anything the “reality” of a thing. According to Kant’s famous ex-ample, who is Suarezian even in terminology, there is nothing more to the concept in a hundred existing (wirklich, actuales) thalers than in a hundred possible thalers, since the latter have the same reality (Realität, realitas), whether they be existent or not.⁹⁸

There is more:

For Kant, as for Suárez, the opposition possibility-existence is sup-ported by reference to the determining act of the thought which establishes reality. Kant like Suárez wishes to say that the existence 94 DM 31: 7: 2 [26: 251].

95 DM 50: 12: 15 [26: 969].

96 DM 2: 4: 14 [25: 92]: Quod vero essentia aut quidditas realis sit, intel-ligi non potest sine ordine ad esse et realem entitatem actualem; non enim aliter concipimus essentiam aliquam, quae actu non existit, esse realem, nisi quia talis est, ut ei non repugnet esse entitatem actualem, quod habet per actualem existentiam; quamvis ergo actu esse non sit de essentia creaturae, ta-men ordo ad esse vel aptitudo essendi est de intrinseco et essentiali conceptu eius.

97 DM 31: 2 10 [26: 232].

98 AUBENqUE, “Suárez et l’avènement,” p. 17.

adds nothing to the concept, since that is entirely constituted—and drawn out of nothing—by its reality (realitas).⁹⁹

An irreconcilable difference in principle exists between the thought of Suárez and that of Kant, notwithstanding any formal similarity in their terminology.¹⁰⁰ Suárez refers to extra-mental existence, Kant chiefly to human understanding—to sensible intuition, perception and sensation. For Suárez, actual existence is a predicate only in the necessary being, not in finite or contingent beings; it is not a deter-mination that is constitutive of creaturely reality. Thus the essential content of a hundred possible thalers is in no way different from the essential content of a hundred actual thalers; actuality adds no essen-tial content, but only a whole new—existenessen-tial—dimension. How-ever, Suárez notes that:

although actual existence may not be of the creature’s essence, how-ever, reference to existence, or the aptitude to exist, belongs to its intrinsic and essential concept; and in this way being is an essential predicate.¹⁰¹

Furthermore, the two philosophers have different points of reference.

That of Suárez is possibility and actuality in relation to causality, and ultimately to the causality of the omnipotent God. Causality is exis-tential, for existence is determined by causes. And existence for Suárez is foundational to all thought, and not just an aspect of some concep-tual category. Kant’s point of reference is not causality but his four categories of thought (quantity, quality, relation and modality), the a priori principles grounded in the mind’s own structure through which it acquires knowledge. Reality (and its opposite, Negation) is for him

99 AUBENqUE, “Suárez et l’avènement,” p. 17, footnote 17.

100 H. Seigfried, “Kant’s Thesis about Being Anticipated by Suárez?” in L.

W. BECk (ed.), Proceedings of the Third International Kant Congress, Dordre-cht, 1972, pp. 510-520.

101 DM 2: 2: 14 [25: 92]: Quod vero essentia aut quidditas realis sit, intel-ligi non potest sine ordine ad esse et realem entitatem actualem; non enim aliter concipimus essentiam aliquam, quae actu non existit, esse realem, nisi quia talis est, ut ei non repugnet esse entitatem actualem, quod habet per actualem existentiam; quamvis ergo actu esse non sit de essentia creaturae, ta-men ordo ad esse, vel aptitudo essendi est de intrinseco et essentiali conceptu eius; atque hoc modo ens praedicatum est essentiale.

a variety of the category of Quality. Possibility and Impossibility, Exis-tence and Non-exisExis-tence, are varieties of the category of Modality.