Daniel Heider

The paper deals with the issue of the common nature (extramental universal) and universal unity (logical universal) in the theories of two of the foremostScotists in the Baroque Era, the Italian Conventual Bartholomew Mastrius and the Irish Observant John Punch. They are in the scholarly community well-known for their antagonistic interpretations of the teaching of Duns Scotus. On the basis of the exposition of two representative places from Scotus’s Ordinatio and Questions on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, I claim that it is Mastrius’s theory, which follows Scotus’s model more tightly. Punch’s theories are doctrines which are syncretically inspired by un-Scotist’s sources (above all “Suarezian,” “Thomistic,” and “Ockhamistic”). The hermeneutical advantage of Punch’s theory is that it remarkably mirrors the “Zeitgeist” of early modern academic philosophy, substantially determined by the Jesuit’s exposition of Aquinas.

This paper analyzes the theories of three representatives of Second Scholasticism, namely Francisco Suárez, sj, John Poinsot, op, and Francisco de Oviedo, sj, on the issue of the intuitive and abstractive cognition of the external senses. Based on a comparison of their theories, linked to the historical starting point of the debate in the first decades of the fourteenth century, the paper argues that the doctrinal and argumentative matrix of these authors’ texts is significantly ‘present’ in the Second Scholastics as well. 1) As far as naturally produced sensation is concerned, all these authors, including Poinsot, follow the Scotistic justification of the natural infallibility of the external senses; 2) regarding the possibility of supernaturally caused objectless perception, Poinsot’s position can be labelled, surprisingly, Scotistic; 3) Suárez’s theory, although partly similar to the doctrine of the late Ockham, is an idiosyncratic stance; 4) Oviedo’s conception, even more distant from that of Ockham, can be characterized as ‘Auriolian’ and ‘Chattonian’.

The article examines the first fruit of Leibniz´s philosophical endeavour, which is his baccalaureate thesis Disputatio metaphysica de Principio Individui, on thebackground of the comparison with Suárez´s conception of individual unity in his Disputationes Metaphysicae. Despite Suárez´s more differentiated attitude to the issue of individuation in general, the author is convinced that one can find strong parallels between both authors, namely the following: purely ontological treatment of the problem of the principle of individuation; search for a single principle which is common both to material and nonmmaterial substances; nominalist tendency, which is apparent not only in the positive statements of the two authors, but also in their criticisms of rival solutions in general, and theScotist conception in particular. The similarities are not limited only to the principle of individuation or to the problem of individual unity in general but they also extend to the problem of the distinction between essence and existence, the conception of transcendental unity and its relation to ens, or to the problem of reification of hylemorphic components of material substances.

_ Source: _Page Count 31 This paper analyzes the theories of three representatives of Second Scholasticism, namely Francisco Suárez, SJ, John Poinsot, OP, and Francisco de Oviedo, SJ, on the issue of the intuitive and abstractive cognition of the external senses. Based on a comparison of their theories, linked to the historical starting point of the debate in the first decades of the fourteenth century, the paper argues that the doctrinal and argumentative matrix of these authors’ texts is significantly ‘present’ in the Second Scholastics as well. 1) As far as naturally produced sensation is concerned, all these authors, including Poinsot, follow the Scotistic justification of the natural infallibility of the external senses; 2) regarding the possibility of supernaturally caused objectless perception, Poinsot’s position can be labelled, surprisingly, Scotistic; 3) Suárez’s theory, although partly similar to the doctrine of the late Ockham, is an idiosyncratic stance; 4) Oviedo’s conception, even more distant from that of Ockham, can be characterized as ‘Auriolian’ and ‘Chattonian’.

In this paper I present Suárez’s conception on material substance in connection with two main aspects of his theory. The first aspect is “reification” of the intrinsic principles of a composite, which has led some interpreters to the claim that Suárez significantly prepared the way for the accession of Cartesian anthropological dualism. The second one is Suárez’s emphasis on the substantial unity of material composites. The analysis of the second aspect is conceived as a counterbalance to some uncharitable interpretations of Suárez’s hylemorphism. In the second part of the paper the relevance of Suárez’s arguments to contemporary debates on the ontological constitution of individuals is presented

The paper presents seven basic features of Francisco Suárez’s metaphysics. They are as follows: “Univocalization” of the concept of being and transcendental properties, “reification” of the act-potency doctrine, “ontologization” of individuality, “conceptualization” of the Scotist perspective, “existential” character of the concept of being, “epistemologization” and “methodologization” of metaphysics. Whereas the first five are indicated as remaining in the preserve of the traditional scholastic philosophy, the last two are taken as portending the methodological priority of the subjective states of affairs of early modern “main-stream” philosophy.

This article deals with the question of Suárez’s conception of being, which prima facie seems to oscillate between a Scotistic univocal conception anda conception of being according to the analogy of intrinsic attribution. The paper intends to show that Suárez’s doctrine can in no way be interpreted as representative of the univocal conception, and proceeds in six steps. First, it highlights the importance of the Uncommon Doctor’s theory of the unity of both the formal and the objective concepts of being. In the second part, the paper asks how the concept of being can, without any internal differentiation and structure, give rise to the different relations that it has to the natures subordinated to it. In the second and the third parts, this question receives an answer against the backgroundof Suárez’s critique of Scotus’s conception, and with the help of his theory of the radical intimate transcendence of being. In the fourth section, there follows anexposition of Suárez’s doctrine on the explication of the concept of being. The fifth section offers a brief presentation of the significance of esse for ratio entis. Inthe last section, the author places his interpretation in the general context of the Metaphysical Disputation.