Talk:Francisco Suárez

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Suárez is definitely important within the history of philosophy, but to call him the greatest scholastic philosopher after Aquinas seems a bit of a stretch; surely John Duns Scotus or William of Ockham are worthier of that honorific.

Be bold and correct it in the article. --Pjacobi 08:07, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, no, don't; this is a very common claim, found in a wide variety of sources. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:08, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn´t consider nominalism as representative of scholastic tradition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.114.164.15 (talk) 19:24, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

god or God

I just edited the page to change "god" to "God". The sentence in which the word is used includes "argued Suarez", and certainly he would have used "God". If the use of the word implied some position on the question of whether God actually exists, there might be a more debatable issue. Given that it is merely reflecting Suarez's own usage, it seems to me anachronistic and ideological to use "god". ChrisWolfe49 20:21, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

essence and existence

This passage is a little confusing (I've italicized the problem areas.): "He held (along with earlier scholastics) that essence and existence are the same in the case of God (see ontological argument), but disagreed with Aquinas and others that the essence and existence of finite beings are really distinct. He argued that in fact they’re merely conceptually distinct; rather than being able to exist separately, they are conceivable separately. That is, rather than being logically separable, existence and essence are epistemically separable."

The beginning is alright, but the end is a little troublesome.

1. rather than being able to exist separately... Essence existing separately from existence seems like an odd notion. Indeed, existence existing is odd too. I know Suarez maintains that there is no real distinction between essence and existence, only a conceptual one, but saying this distinction doesn't "exist" obfuscates the matter. Maybe we should avoid the use of the word exist here, since it has a rather technical meaning in Scholasticism.
2. rather than being logically separable, existence and essence are epistemically separable It's hard to understand what the author is getting at in this distinction because of many different notions of epistemology and logic that have been held over the centuries. In fact, logic has been considered a field of epistemology at times. Perhaps this should be rephrased in less weighty terms. BrokenToilet 20:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Americo Castro

Americo Castro is not at all a good source to cite in regards to having Jewish ancestry. If you take a quick look at the guys page it shows he's obviously working with an agenda and shouldn't be considered reliable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HBBorges (talk • contribs) 05:06, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

section on law

The page is almost entirely mistaken on Suarez's political views and views on the "philosophy of law." It is a complete mess.

One example from the section: "He argued against the sort of social contract theory that became dominant among early-modern political philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke." First objection: how on earth could Suarez be "[arguing against]" a theory of political society that had scarcely been invented--the concept of "social contract" was simply not developed at that time, even if some of its apparatus (the state of nature) had began to grow in influence among Thomists like Suarez (and in a line of reformation and counter-reformation thinkers before and after him)

Some will argue that even if the idea of the social contract had not been invented yet, Suarez can still be said to have been on the opposite side of the fence. They are incorrect. On the contrary, if anything Suarez can be shown to have anticipated theorists like Locke and Rousseau, if the word "anticipate" can be used without distorting history. Suarez theorized a state of nature and imagined a constitutive act with which a corporate body of people consented to government. "Man is by his nature free and subject to no one, save only to the Creator." Further argument is not even necessary with the next quotes, from Suarez:

People in his world without government can "gather together by common consent into a single political body through a single bond of society and for the purpose of helping each other mutually to attain for all of them a single political end." Also, a governor "acquiring power may after all be said to include, in a certain sense, the consent of the commonwealth." "The holding of civil power in any way, if it is to be rightful and legitimate, must result either from a direct or an indirect grant from the community, and cannot otherwise be justly held at all."

Suarez in imagining this pre-political society goes further in explicitness than Locke; the idea that he is "arguing against Locke" is ahistorical and on its face untrue. I am not stating that Suarez is "aligned" with Locke in all respects, or that he outdid him in his thinking. On the contrary, he departs in nearly all respects. I am stating that the current description of his position in the firmament of political philosophy is startlingly wrong.

Ens per essentiam and ens per participationem

The current article is the unique in the whole encyclopedia to mention this basic distinction for the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. So it was unavoidable to point out that this distintion had not been discovered by Suarez.

It is the fundament of the Christian doctrine of the Communion of saints and of the Mystical Body of Christ whose condition is the analogia entis between the Son of God and His human creatures. The doctrine says that Jesus is from ever and for ever, immutably and without any external cause or condition, the head of a body which any human creature can became part of, if he/she will get saved. Thhe saints, who are the bodiless angels of God and the souls and the bodies of the human creatur who will be resurrected, are part of, particpate of the divine Body of Jesus. Therefore, saints are called entities for participation to what Jesus Christ God is by essence.

This basic distinction has hopefully to be mentioned in Thomism#Ontology.