Daniel Heider

Our perceptual experience is far from being completed by the operations of the external senses. It is not a simple process through which we perceive isolated ‘sense data’ or discrete psychological atoms, such as colours, sounds, odours and sapours. Beside the external senses, which perceive the proper sensibles, and derivatively also the common and in concreto incidental sensibles, there are several post-sensory operations contributing significantly to the formation, retention and combination of our unified percept. We perceive the sensibles belonging to different modalities in a combined way as belonging to one and the same sensible object. At the level of sensory perception, we recognize agreements and distinctions not only within the sensible qualities of a particular sensory modality such as white and black in the case of sight but also among the sensibles belonging to the different external senses. We perceptually judge that white is not sweet or that what is white, for example, milk is also sweet. Moreover, we often apprehend these combined perceptual wholes with an additional aspect that is expressed in terms of the object’s convenience or inconvenience. We do not perceive objects ‘neutrally’ or from a purely theoretical point of view. In fact, only when perceived as convenient or inconvenient can sensible objects stimulate operations of the sensory appetite and be ‘supervised’ and commanded by the higher appetite, namely the will, and followed by a behavioural response executed by the locomotive power. Accordingly, our perception is frequently ‘tinted’ by practical intentions that are not detected as being separate from the perceived sensible wholes. Such separation can only be performed by the intellect. Concrete sensible wholes are apprehended also according to other aspects. We perceive this white man as Thaddeus and this small girl as Mary. Moreover, not only do we perceive present objects, we are also aware of absent or even impossible objects that do not and cannot exist extramentally.

Having treated the cognition of the sentient part of the soul and of the external senses considered ‘in communi’ (CDA disp. 5–6), in CDA disp. 7 Suárez embarks on the large subject matter of the particular sensory modalities. Unlike the two preceding disputations, CDA disp. 7 also extends its thematic focus to natural sciences, such as optics and anatomy. Despite the scientific catch of this disputation Suárez’s bent remains philosophical. A large part of disp. 7 engages in philosophical topics concerning the issues of nature, subject, cause and kinds of the particular proper sensibles and the media in which these sensibles are spread. This is not surprising considering that Suárez individuates and differentiates the senses especially through reference to their objects. Considerable space in CDA, disp. 7 is also devoted to the topic of the sensible species of the particular sensory modalities and their multiplication in medio. One of the crucial questions raised in this disputation involves the relation of the sensibles’ intentional and natural actions and affections of the media and organs. A significant part of the disputation is dedicated also to Suárez’s denial of Aristotle’s general claim about the necessary existence of a medium interposed between the organ and the objects. This denial brings Suárez close to a theory of tactile introception, namely to a view according to which touch can sense not only the first qualities of external objects but also the internal states of one’s own body called dolorogenic qualities. In general, this disputation zooms in on the particulars and fleshes out what had been presented earlier in the more general disputations.

CDA disputation (disp.) 5 initiates a long segment of five disputations dedicated to cognitive theory. Like his affective theory (CDA disp. 10–12), cognitive theory follows the pattern from a general consideration to a particular consideration, in which various cognitive modalities are discussed according to their specificities. Although in CDA disp. 5 Suárez also occasionally distinguishes the peculiarities of the particular powers, all of its questions are analyzed from a general point of view, that is, indiscriminately of whether a cognition is of the external senses, of the interior senses or of the intellect. This general approach in itself suggests much about Suárez’s philosophy of perception. It is then in the later disp. 6–9 where he ‘descends’ to these cognitive particularities.

A philosophy of perception presupposes many metaphysical assumptions. Leaving aside now those that come from the side of objects, such as the ontological status of the proper sensibles and their representational forms, the general premises on the perceiver’s side, namely the soul, its parts and the powers, are analysed in the first three disputations of CDA called ‘De substantia animae in communi’, ‘De substantia trium animarum in particulari’ and ‘De potentiis animae in communi’. In all of them Suárez starts from the fundamentals of Aristotle’s natural philosophy to which he adds his own twist. Before dealing with these topics, in the Proemium, among other topics, he situates the scientia de anima, which means for him largely scientia de anima rationalis, in the context of other sciences. What is relevant for our topic is his claim that the treatise of the rational soul is absolutely (simpliciter) a part of natural philosophy. Since a soul in general, including the rational soul, is essentially characterized through its ordering to the body, investigating it must belong to the field of natural philosophy. At the same time, however, Suárez is sure that in a certain respect (secundum quid), that is, in respect to its incorporeal, subsistent and immortal character, treating of the soul pertains also to metaphysics. Given this and considering the abovementioned metaphysical framework of the treatise of causality and the categories in DM, his conclusions and theories concerning the topics of the soul, its parts and powers can be indicated as the metaphysical premises of Suárez’s philosophy of perception.

The goal of this book is to reconstruct the complex philosophical theory of sense perception of Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), which is presented in his Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis De anima. There is no such comprehensive and complex study available as yet in international scholarship. This is all the more surprising if we consider that Suárez’s philosophy in general constitutes one of the crucial milestones in the transition from scholastic thought to early modern philosophy and that Suárez is rightly regarded as one of the most important representatives of the remarkable cultural-ideological phenomenon called Second scholasticism, which is confirmed by the large amount of secondary literature that has been published on his philosophy in the last decades and above all in the last several years.

Este artículo trata la cuestión de la concepción suareciana del ser, que prima facie parece oscilar entre una concepción escotista unívoca y una de analogía de atribución intrínseca. El trabajo intenta mostrar que la doctrina de Suárez no puede interpretarse como una defensa de la concepción unívoca, en seis pasos. Primero, se resalta la importancia de la teoría del Doctor Eximio sobre la unidad de los conceptos formal y objetivo del ser. En segundo lugar se pregunta cómo puede el concepto del ser, sin diferencia ni estructura interna, hacer surgir las diferentes relaciones que tiene con las naturalezas que le están subordinadas. En las secciones segunda y tercera esta pregunta se contesta de cara a la crítica que hace Suárez de la concepción escotista, y con ayuda de su teoría de la radical trascendencia íntima del ser. En la cuarta sección se expone la doctrina de Suárez sobre la explicación del concepto de ser. La quinta sección presenta brevemente el significado de esse para la ratio entis. En la última sección el autor sitúa su interpretación dentro del contexto general de las Disputaciones metafísicas.

In this paper I deal with the issues in Second Scholasticism of the nature, genesis and creatability of perfect vital acts of cognition and appetition in vital powers. I present the theories of Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), Raffaele Aversa (1589–1657), and Bartolomeo Mastri (1602–1673) together with Bonaventura Belluto (1603–1676). I show that while for Aversa these acts are action-like items merely emanating from the soul and vital powers and as such cannot be produced from the outside, even by God, for Mastri and Belluto they are absolute qualities proceeding from their principles by efficient causation proper, which is a kind of procession that can be replaced by God. I argue that Suárez’s position attempts to steer a middle ground between these two theories.

This study aims to present a comparative analysis of philosophical theories of universals espoused by the foremost representatives of the three main schools of early modern scholastic thought. The book introduces the doctrines of Francisco Suárez, S.J. (1548-1617), the Thomist John of St. Thomas, O.P. (1589-1644), and the Scotists Bartolomeo Mastri da Meldola, O.F.M. Conv. (1602-1673) and Bonaventura Belluto, O.F.M. Conv. (1600-1676). The author examines in detail their mutual doctrinal delineation as well as the conceptualist tenet of the Jesuit Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza (1578-1641), whose thought constitutes an important systematic point of comparison especially with Suárez's doctrine. The book offers the first comparative elaboration of the issue of universals, in both its metaphysical and its epistemological aspects, in the era of second scholasticism.

In this article I deal with the topic of perceptual self-awareness, focusing on whether a plausible account of sensory self-perception having exterior sensations as its objects requires sensible species representing these acts. I first introduce Aristotle’s two distinct views from On the Soul and On Sleep and Waking as defining the scholastic status quaestionis, then bring in Francisco Suárez’s, Bartholomeo Mastri’s and Bonaventura Belluto’s, and Hugh McCaghwell’s accounts. I show, first, that Suárez’s view, which cannot be substantiated by Scotus’s littera, is rejected by Mastri/Belluto and by McCaghwell in one of his conclusions. Second, I argue that McCaghwell’s second tenet is to be assessed as Suarezian. This shows that Suárez’s philosophy of perception was positively received also by seventeenth-century Scotists.

Jesuit scholastic philosophy of Francisco Suarez is known to have exerted significant influence over scholastic theology in the 17th and 18th centuries. However, the historic philosophical and theological context from which his ideas emerged, marked by his Jesuit contemporaries, is not well known. In the field of philosophical cognitive psychology, especially in the commentaries on Aristotle's On the Soul, this book aims to correct this knowledge gap. Each chapter provides evidence of the theological motivation and theological horizon of the Jesuit cognitive psychology of the last decades of the 16th century and the first decades of the 17th century.

This monograph presents new material on Francisco Suárez’s comprehensive theory of sense perception. The core theme is perceptual intentionality in Suárez’s theory of the senses, external and internal, as presented in his Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis De anima published in 1621. The author targets the question of the multistage genesis of perceptual acts by considering the ontological “items” involved in the procession of sensory information. However, the structural issue is not left aside, and the nature of the relationship due to which our perceptions are mental representations of this or that object is also considered. The heuristic historiographical background includes not only the theories of classical authors, such as Aristotle and Aquinas, but also those of late medieval authors of the fourteenth century. These are headed by John Duns Scotus, John of Jandun, Peter Auriol and Peter John Olivi. Readers will discover the differences between Suárez’s and Aquinas’s views, as well as other sources that may have served as positive inspiration for the Jesuit’s theory. By considering the late medieval philosophy of the fourteenth century, this book helps, to a certain extent, to fill a gap in the historiography of philosophy regarding the link between late medieval and early modern scholasticism. In the first part of the book, the metaphysics of the soul and powers is considered. Chapters on the external senses follow, covering topics such as the sensible species, the causes of sensation, self-awareness, and the ordering of the external senses. A further chapter is devoted to the internal senses and the author argues that by reducing the number and functional scope of the interior senses Suárez deepens the gap between the external senses and the intellect, but he reduces it through emphasizing the unifying efficacy of the soul.This book brings a synthetic and unifying perspective to contemporary research and will particularly appeal to graduate students and researchers in theology and philosophy, especially philosophy of mind.

Este trabajo tiene dos propósitos. Por un lado, el autor advierte de una potencial incoherencia doctrinal en las afirmaciones de Suárez concernientes a la cuestión del sensible propio del tacto. Mientras que en el contexto de su tratamiento del tacto en DA VII, 13-14, Suárez restringe el objeto total del tacto a las cualidades externas, en DA XI, 2, al tratar de las emociones, el autor jesuita incluye también la qualitas dolorifera, i.e. una cualidad inherente al cuerpo de quien percibe. El autor sostiene que esta inconsistencia de Suárez es tanto más apremiante si se comparan sus formulaciones con las de Francisco de Oviedo. En segundo lugar, se indica que la «versión compuesta del dolor» que combina tanto aspectos perceptibles como afectivos en la experiencia unificada del dolor, es un tipo de teoría que podría considerarse como contemporánea en el debate actual entre filósofos analíticos.

En contra la posición de Tomás de Aquino de la distribución de las funciones cognitivas de la distinción real de los sentidos interiores –sentido común, fantasía o imaginación, potencia cogitativa y memoria o reminisciencia–, presento la reducción sustancial del alcance cognitivo del sentido interno simple, llamada fantasía, que realiza Francisco Suárez. Señalo las principales y diversas razones que implica la reducción del número de los sentidos interiores en la teoría de Suárez de la causalidad eficiente del alma y su concepto específico del intelecto y su objeto.

This paper surveys the main issues in Suárez’s theory of visual perception, which in its complexity and systematical ordering has not been explored yet. These questions, exposed in the first five questions of the seventh disputation De sensibus exterioribus in particulari of Suárez’s Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis and in the first two sections of the fifth disputation De potentiis cognoscitivis in communi, are the following: 1) the nature of light; 2) the nature of colour; 3) the formal object of vision; 4) the necessity and the nature of the visual species; 5) the critique of the theory of extramission; and 6) the organ of visual power. The main emphasis is laid on the presentation of the systematical dimension of Suárez’s visual theory.

(From editorial:) This volume aims to refute the disparaging image of scholastic philosophy as a rather homogeneous tradition of commentaries on Aristotle lacking in originality. Although Aristotelianism was, of course, a very important philosophical paradigm among the scholastics, their works also evince many features and tenets of Platonic or Augustinian origin. Several issues characteristic for Platonism and Augustinianism are discussed in this volume – for example, the role of attention in perception, the extramissionist theory of vision, the metaphysics of light, the illumination theory, the fi rst-person perspective, and self-refl ection. The topics investigated primarily in Aristotelianism include the ontology of sensibles, their causal effi cacy, the role of the medium, and the distinction between the internal senses.

_ 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.