Jacob Tuttle

In the Categories Aristotle defined substance as that which is neither predicable of nor in another. In saying that a substance is not predicable of another, Aristotle meant to exclude genera and species from the category substance. Aman is a substance but not man. In saying that a substance is not in another, Aristotle meant to exclude property particulars from the category. A man is a substance, not his color. The Categories treats substances as simples. Though a particular substance, Bucephalus the horse, has parts, it is nevertheless a single entity in the category substance and, hence, incomplex in the way a black thing or a running man are not. Black things and runners are complex because they are aggregates of substances and property particulars. Even if a horse is one substance and, thus, an entity, a horse is made of parts and one may wonder how it is related to its parts, as well as how its being made of parts coheres with the definition of substance given in the Categories.

The late scholastic philosopher Francisco Suárez articulates and defends an extraordinarily detailed account of efficient causation. Some of the most interesting and difficult questions connected with this account concern the particular types of efficient causation he acknowledges. This paper clarifies one of the most fundamental distinctions Suárez employs in the course of his treatment of efficient causation—namely, that between motion or change, on the one hand, and creation ex nihilo, on the other. The paper shows that, although motion and creation differ in systematic and important ways, they nevertheless can both be captured by Suárez’s general theoretical model of efficient causation. Moreover, the paper shows that creation serves as a kind of limit case of efficient causation, and accordingly that it informs how Suárez understands motion or change as well.

This paper examines an important but neglected topic in Suárez’s metaphysics–—namely, his theory of efficient causation. According to Suárez, efficient causation is to be identified with action, one of Aristotle’s ten highest genera or categories. The paper shows how Suárez’s identification of efficient causation with action helps to shed light on his views about the precise nature of efficient causation, and its role in his ontology. More specifically, it shows that Suárez understands efficient causation to be a distinctive or sui generis type of entity, and that he thinks we must adopt this view in order to account for the facts of efficient causation. The paper also examines several objections to Suárez’s account.

In the last several years, there has been an uptick of scholarly interest in Aristotelian theories of efficient causation. Much of this interest has focused on the late scholastic figure Francisco Suárez (1548-1617). This paper clarifies an important but neglected aspect of Suárez's theory of efficient causation—namely, his account of active causal powers. Like other Aristotelians, Suárez understands active causal powers as features that enable their subjects to perform certain sorts of actions. For example, a fire is able to heat in virtue of its power or capacity for heating. However, it is not immediately clear which items in an Aristotelian ontology perform the role of an active power. The paper explains and motivates Suárez's answer to this question, and shows how this answer influences his position in a scholastic controversy about the causal roles of substantial and accidental forms in substantial change.