According to the Aristotelian doctrine of science, the subject of a real science requires real attributes that can be demonstrated directly and per se about this subject, as well as requiring principles and causes, by which their necessary connection with the subject can also be demonstrated. In these regards, the science about being as being encounters two difficulties.36 First, being as such cannot have real attributes different from itself because beyond being there is only nothing; the ratio of being is intrinsically and essentially included in every real attribute. However, according to the Aristotelian doctrine of science, which is guided by the categorical order, the subject cannot be included inter-nally and essentially in its attribute.37 Second, there is a being, namely God, that has no principles and causes; therefore, being as being must not necessar-ily have principles and causes.
Suárez solves the first difficulty by adapting the Aristotelian terminology—
oriented towards the categorical forms of being—to the conditions of a theory of being as such, which transcends all the categories in the direction of the common (commune), and may thus be called ‘transcendens’ (‘transcendental’) in the pre-Scotist sense of what runs through all the Aristotelian categories.38 Section 1.1 shows the baseline of the solution, and its elaboration follows in section 3.1. The decisive point of Suárez’s analysis consists in separating two questions that had been tied together and melded in the Scotist tradition of the scientia transcendens: (a) ‘whether the attributes of being qua being are real beings or mere beings of reason’, and (b) ‘whether they are only conceptu-ally or also reconceptu-ally distinct from being as such’.39 Suárez’s analysis is directed explicitly against the Scotist assertion of a formal-real distinction between the attributes of being (passiones entis) and being as such.40 In the sequel, the case that was inconceivable for Scotus becomes conceivable as they are considered real attributes, so that metaphysics is possible as a scientia realis, even though
41 dm 3.1.6 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 104): “…optime […] fieri potest ut [huiusmodi attributa] sint realia, quamvis non re, sed ratione distinguantur.”
42 See Aertsen, Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendentals. The case of Thomas Aquinas (Leiden, 1996), esp. pp. 25–70; Jorge Gracia, “The Transcendentals in the Middle Ages: An Introduction,” in The Transcendentals in the Middle Ages, Topoi 11, No. 2, ed. Jorge Gracia (1992), pp. 113–20; Jorge Gracia, “Suárez and the Doctrine of the Transcendentals,” ibid., pp. 121–133.
43 dm 3.2.3 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 108): “…dicendum est […] tres tantum esse proprias passiones entis, scilicet unum, verum et bonum.” In a detailed discussion, Suárez rejects the Scotist doctrine of the disjunctive passiones entis as well as the Thomist doctrine, which considers res and aliquid (aliud-quid) as passions entis. With regard to this discussion, see Darge, Suárez’ transzendentale Seinsauslegung und die Metaphysiktradition, esp. pp. 139–182.
44 Aristotle, Metaphysics, 4.2.1003b22-24.
45 dm 3.1.11 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 106): “…ita videtur rem hanc plane exponere D. Thomas […].”
46 Thomas Aquinas, In IV Metaph., lect. 2, n. 560, ed. Marietti (Turin, 1964), p. 156: “[…] super-addens indivisionis rationem, quae cum sit negatio vel privatio, non ponit aliquam naturam enti additum.” Regarding Aquinas’s conception of the one as transcendental, see Aertsen, Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendentals, esp. pp. 201–242.
47 Ibid., lect. 2, n. 560, p. 156: “…negatio vel privatio non est ens naturae sed rationis.”
they do not constitute positive real properties that are really distinct from being qua being.41 In his answer to (a) and (b) Suárez follows the mainline scholastic doctrine of the transcendentals. Since Philipp the Chancellor’s (ca.
1230) Summo de bono, the one (unum), the true (verum), and the good (bonum) have passed for these attributes42; beyond these three, according to Suárez, no further attributes of being qua being have to be assumed.43
Concerning their relation to being qua being, Suárez’s view joins the pre-Scotist tradition of the doctrine of the transcendentals, which is guided by an Aristotelian explanatory model. In the fourth book of the Metaphysics, having explained that the subject matter of metaphysics is being qua being, Aristotle turns to ‘the one’ as a per se attribute of being, and explains its relationship to being as follows: “being and the one are the same and one single nature in the sense that they follow upon each other […] but not in the sense that they are determined by one concept.”44 According to this assertion, the relationship between being and the one is characterized by two features: real identity and conceptual difference. In the pre-Scotist tradition of transcendental thought, the two were correlated in the sense of a conceptual explication without any real difference. This view is represented by an exposition of Thomas Aquinas that Suárez mentions in this context.45 According to this exposition, the one adds to being only a conceptual determination, the negation of division.46 Although this conceptual addition—just like any other negation—is a being of reason,47 the one as such is not a being of reason, for ‘one’ signifies not only
48 Ibid.: “…unum […] ipsum ens designat, superaddens indivisionis rationem;” ibid., n. 553, p. 155: “…est enim unum ens indivisum.”
49 Ibid., n. 553, p. 155: “[…] significant omnino idem, sed secundum diversas rationes.”
50 dm 3.1.11 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 106): “Hanc conclusionem indicasse mihi videtur Arist., 4 Metaph., cap. 2, simul dicens, ens et unum eamdem dicere naturam, et nihilominus non idem formaliter significare; quia nimirum unum de formali addit negationem, quam non dicit ens; per eam vero nihil aliud explicatur, quam ipsamet natura entis.”
51 Ibid. (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 106): “Similiter autem dicendum est de vero et bono, et si quae sunt alia huiusmodi attributa; haec enim formaliter, et in ordine ad conceptionem nos-tram non dicunt idem quod ens.”
52 Ibid. (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 106): “…significant […] ens sub quadam habitudine ad aliud, scilicet quatenus in se habet unde ametur aut vere cognoscatur.” Suárez takes the basic idea of an inner explication of being by its transcendental attributes from Thomas Aquinas, but, because of his different understanding of the meaning of ‘being’, does not follow his concrete explication of the one, the true, and the good. Rather, he looks for a new interpretation that brings together his own quidditative concept of being—inspired by Scotus—and the traditional Pre-Scotistic conception of the transcendental attributes of being; see my conclusions in Suárez’ transzendentale Seinsauslegung und die Metaphysiktradition, pp. 387–405.
53 Ibid., 3.1.10 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 106): “…quamvis enim mens nihil de rebus cogitet, aurum est verum aurum, et est una determinata res distincta ab aliis; et similiter Deus est unus et bonus etc.”
the indivision of a thing but also the substance of a thing, together with its indivision; it means the undivided being or, said differently, being insofar as it is undivided.48 Thus, by adding it to the ratio entis—which it essentially includes as a general aspect, but conceptually differs from being as such49—
the one gives a sort of explication of the nature of being qua being. Suárez explains the Aristotelian text in the same sense as Thomas.50 Like Thomas, Suárez takes the structure of the one to be representative of the true and the good51: these, too, include the ratio of being, and thus are in substance or essentially the same as being. However, they also add to being qua being a con-ceptual aspect, which is not yet expressed by the word ‘being’. Accordingly, the true and the good give an inner explication of the nature or perfection of being qua being. ‘The true’ thus signifies being insofar as it forms the basis for a cog-nitive act that conceives something as it really is. ‘The good’, on the other hand, signifies being insofar as it includes or founds a relation of convenience, by which it is able to attract an aspiration for it.52
But every being independently from the intellect—immediately by its own entity—is undivided, and is likewise a possible object of a true act of cognition and is, in a way, convenient and therefore attractive.53 The conceptual addi-tions are, consequently, not based on ficaddi-tions of our intellect, but are due to the
54 Ibid., 3.1.6 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 104): “…distinctio rationis, quae oritur ex praecisione intel-lectus, non est per conceptionem alicuius fictae entitatis, quae non sit in re, sed per modum solum inadaequatum concipiendi veram rem; potest ergo esse attributum reale quamvis modus attributionis et distinctionis sit solum per rationem.”
55 Ibid., 3.1.12 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 107): “…quia de formali dicunt aliquid, quod suo modo in rebus, et vere ac simpliciter potest enti attribui.”
56 Ibid., 3.1.10 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 106): “…metaphysica, quae est realis ac vera scientia, haec demontrat de ente; non autem demonstrat aliquid ab intellectu fictum;” see also ibid.,1.1.28 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 11).
57 See Aristotle, Metaphysics, 4.3.1005a30-b35.
58 See dm 1.1.29 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 12).
59 Ibid., 3.3 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 111): “Quibus principiis demonstrari possint passiones de ente, et an inter ea hoc sit primum ‘Impossibile est idem esse et non esse’.”
fact that our finite intellect grasps the real thing by means of an inadequate abstraction.54 For this reason, these attributes have to be understood as real, even if what they express in addition to ‘being’ is only a conceptual aspect.55 And this, moreover, satisfies the requirements of a science as defined in the Posterior Analytics. Metaphysics, by immediately and per se giving evidence of these attributes from the nature of being as such, deals not with mere beings of reason, but accomplishes its task as a real demonstrative science of being qua being.56
A second question remains, namely, whether this subject has principles and causes. Suárez solves this problem with an analysis of what can be regarded as a principle within the scope of a demonstrative science. He distinguishes two kinds of principles: (a) basic propositions, from which demonstrations proceed;
and (b) grounds of being, which in the framework of a syllogistic demonstra-tion are represented by simple concepts—more precisely, by the middle-term (medium), which joins the major and minor premises. Evidently, metaphysics is not deficient in principles of the first kind, and one of its primary tasks, accord-ing to Aristotle, consists of formulataccord-ing and explainaccord-ing the first principle of demonstration, namely, the principle of non-contradiction.57 In his exposition, Suárez follows Aristotle for the most part.58 Among the principles of knowledge from which the demonstration of the transcendental attributes of being pro-ceeds, the principle of non-contradiction is the first and most fundamental one.
Therefore, according to Suárez, it must be considered systematically in the con-text of the foundation of a general theory of the passiones entis.59
The ontological grounds are further divided into causes, which are in reality distinct from their effects and principles of being, and which are only concep-tually distinct from the principatum. As the objection proves, the subject of metaphysics has no principles of the first kind, though such principles are not
60 Ibid., 1.1.29 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 12); and ibid., 4.1.21 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 121); see the analy-sis of Suárez’s concept of the transcendental unity in Darge, Suárez’ transzendentale Seinsauslegung und die Metaphysiktradition, pp. 197–261.
61 Ibid.,1.3.1 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 22): “Sub qua ratione definiri potest, metaphysicam esse scien-tiam quae ens, in quantum ens, seu in quantum a materia abstrahit secundum esse, contem-platur;” ibid., 1.2.13 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 16): “Metaphysica vero dicitur abstrahere a materia sensibili et intelligibili, et non solum secundum rationem sed etiam secundum esse.”
62 The question arises whether this determination presupposes the actual or at least the possible existence of immaterial beings and their knowability for us; according to M.
Forlivesi, the existence of spiritual beings is presupposed in Suárez’s concept of real being: M. Forlivesi, “Impure Ontology. The Nature of Metaphysics and Its Object in Francisco Suárez’s Texts,” Quaestio 5 (2005): 559–86, esp. 563–568. In any event, Suárez’s reflections on the subject of the First Philosophy at the beginning of the Disputationes must not to be confused with the quest for the presuppositionless inception of philo-sophical thought.
required for the status of metaphysics as demonstrative science. In order to prove the attributes of being qua being, it suffices to reveal their ontological grounds within the nature of being qua being—even if these grounds are not really but only conceptually distinct from them—due to the different aspects under which being is conceived. So for instance, unity is accounted for by the essential perfection every being possesses immediately in and through its own entity. Being is one insofar as it is undivided in itself, in the sense that its entity is not a plurality of completely determined real essences60; the one adds to being—which it is essentially itself—only a conceptual aspect, namely, the negation of a manifoldness of perfect determinations of essence. In this case, the ontological ground and the grounded are not really but only conceptually distinct from each other.