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chapter 2

Fundamentals in Suárez’s metaphysics:

transcendentals and categories
Jorge J. E. Gracia and Daniel D. Novotný

We think about the world in more or less general terms. Among the less
general are terms such as “cat” or “red,” and among the more general,
“animal” or “color.” Part of what philosophers do is to establish an order
among the levels of generality expressed by these terms and determine their
relations. The task is not very difficult at lower levels. It is easy to under-
stand that red is a kind of color and therefore that “color” expresses a higher
level of generality than “red.” But metaphysicians go beyond these lower
levels of generality and try to establish an ordered list of the highest levels,
turning to items such as substance, quality, being, and unity, and asking
questions such as: How many of these most general levels are there? What
are their members? And how are they related to each other and to lower
levels? For example, they might ask whether substance and being belong to
the same level of generality, and about the identity of the level or levels to
which they belong. And they might do the same with unity and being, or
quality and substance. Once metaphysicians find answers to these ques-
tions, they turn to more specific levels, such as red, color, cat, and animal,
and inquire into how they are related to the more general ones.1
Following the example of Aristotle, scholastic philosophers tried to
establish a map of the most general levels of generality, while determining
their interrelations, status, distinction, and the disciplines where they
should be explored. During the Middle Ages and in the early modern
period, two levels of generality in particular became the subject of consid-
erable attention: transcendentals and categories. Most often scholastics
thought of transcendentals as being and its properties and placed them at
the top. Below this level, scholastics placed categories, which they under-
stood to be divisions of being.

* Novotny’s work on this paper was supported by the the Grant Agency of the AS ČR (no. IAA
908280801) and the Czech Science Foundation (no. P401/11/P020).
1
Gracia 1999: ch. 9.

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20 jorge j. e. gracia and daniel d. novotný

In this chapter, we examine Suárez’s view of transcendentals and cat-
egories as explored in his most significant work, Metaphysical Disputations.
Even a glance into the contents of this work reveals that both transcenden-
tals and categories lie at the center of Suárez’s metaphysics. Disputations 2
to 11 deal with transcendentals (being, unity, truth, good, and the opposites
of the last three, namely, distinction, falsity, and evil; nonbeing, the
opposite of the first, is treated in Disputation 54), and Disputations 32 to
53 concern categories of finite being (substance, accident, and the nine
highest genera of accidents). By formulating and defending a comprehen-
sive and purely systematic theory of transcendentals and categories, Suárez
pushed metaphysics to a new level of sophistication and precision. His
influence on subsequent early modern and scholastic philosophy was
uniquely significant and is a well-established historical fact.2
In this chapter, we turn first to transcendentals, asking what they are
and about their identity, number, and order. Second, we take up categor-
ies, what they are and their identity, number, and relations. And, third,
we add a brief discussion of unreal transcendentals and categories.

2.1 transcendentals
Among the many questions that an inquiry into the transcendentals
should address are the following three:
(1) What is a transcendental?
(2) What transcendentals are there?
(3) What order is there among transcendentals?
These questions help us understand the issues at stake in our inquiry.
We address them through an analysis of transcendentality, and the identity,
number, and order of the transcendentals. We begin with transcendentality.

2.1.1 Transcendentality
Suárez discusses transcendentality only briefly and somewhat indirectly
in section 5 of Disputation 2 (“On the Essential Notion or Concept
of Being”). The section is entitled “Whether the notion (ratio) of
being (ens) transcends every notion . . . of inferior beings, so that it is
2
Pereira 2007. This does not mean, however, that later scholastics of the baroque era are mere
“Suarezians.” Suárez brought metaphysics to a new level of sophistication but subsequent authors
tried to develop original systems of their own. See Novotný forthcoming.
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Fundamentals in Suárez’s metaphysics 21

included . . . in them.” From this title and from the subsequent elabor-
ation, we gather that Suárez subscribes to the following understanding of
transcendence and transcendentality:
X transcends Y iff the notion of X is included in the notion of Y.
Thus, for instance, “animal” transcends “horse.” This in turn provides us
with the conditions transcendentals are required to satisfy:
X is a transcendental iff its notion is included in the notion of every being.
Or, to put it differently, the notion of being is implied by the notion of
every being, such as, for instance, those of cat, tree, white, and Socrates.
That the notion of being is included in the notion of every being can be
demonstrated “inductively,” according to Suárez, by considering that
every substance and every accident must include it, because to be a
substance or an accident implies having a real essence capable of actual
existence.3 Because the transcendentals are included in the notions of
every being, they are said “to transcend” the Aristotelian categories in
the sense that they are not circumscribed to any one, or any group, of
them, but extend to all.
Suárez’s view of transcendentality and transcendentals might be char-
acterized as intensional (conceptual, notional) and differs from the view
that characterizes them in extensional terms. For the extensional view,
X is transcendental if the extension of its notion includes the extensions of the
notions of every being.
The extensional view seems to be prevalent in the Middle Ages and so it is
possible that Suárez’s intensional view is innovative. However, Suárez
does not explicitly raise the issue of extension vs. intension, and this
makes the nature of his contribution unclear.4
Now that we know what transcendentality is, we may ask what items
qualify as transcendentals. Being qua being does so trivially insofar as the
notion of being is obviously included in the notion of every being. But
being qua being has properties (passiones, proprietates, attributi), and these
are transcendental too.5 Suárez discusses these in Disputation 3 (“On the

3 4
DM ii.5.16. Gracia 1992b.
5
Suárez uses the terms “proprietas” (property), “attributum” (attribute), and passio interchangeably,
although in DM iii.1.5 he seems to suggest a possible terminological distinction between passio/
proprietas and attributum, where passio/proprietas is understood more narrowly as a true and real
attributum. In what follows we adopt the term “property” to refer to all these for the sake of
simplicity and economy.
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22 jorge j. e. gracia and daniel d. novotný

Properties of Being in General and its Principles”). Apart from questions
concerned with pertinent epistemic principles (section 3), Suárez raises
three nonepistemic issues that are relevant here:
(1) Whether being qua being has any properties.6
(2) What those properties are.7
(3) What relations (ordo) those properties have among themselves.8
Before these questions can be answered, it is necessary to understand
what a property is. So Suárez begins by setting out four minimal condi-
tions required of something (X) to be a “true and real property of
a subject” (Y):9
(C1) X is (a) thing (res).
(C2) X is distinct ex natura rei from Y.
(C3) X is convertible with Y.
(C4) Y is not intrinsically and essentially found in X.
That a property is a thing means that it is something real. That it is distinct
ex natura rei means that “[i]t is found in nature prior to any activity of the
mind, but it is not so great as the distinction between altogether separate
things or entities,”10 the reason why it is considered to be real. That it is
convertible means that the terms in question are coextensional – whatever
is one is also the other – although not cointensional – they are not the
same thing. And that the property is not intrinsically and essentially found
in the thing of which it is the property means that it is not included in its
definition. In an example, for the capacity to laugh to be a property of a
human being, it has to be something real, distinct from the human being,
After stating conditions C1–C4, Suárez reports some arguments in
their favor:
(A1) X must be a thing, since otherwise it would have to be nothing and
nothing could hardly be a real property.
(A2) X must be distinguished in some way ex natura rei from Y, for if
X were the same in reality with Y, X would be the essence of Y, or a
part of Y, rather than a property of Y.
(A3) X must be convertible with Y, for science (demonstrative know-
ledge) is about the properties of its object.

6 7 8
DM iii.1.1–13. DM iii.2.1–7; DM iii.2.10–14. DM iii.2.8.
9 10
DM iii.1.1. DM vii.1.16.
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Fundamentals in Suárez’s metaphysics 23

(A4) Y cannot be included intrinsically and essentially in the intrinsic
nature or essence of its property X, for this would be an “open
contradiction.”
The crux of the scholastic controversy, as Suárez understands it, lies in C1:
If X is a thing, then it cannot be either “a complete nonbeing” (omnino
non ens) or “a mere being of reason” (solum ens rationis). Hence, it is
intrinsically and essentially a real being (ens reale). This conclusion,
however, seems inconsistent with conditions C2–C4 and even leads to
an infinite regress, for the following reasons:
(R1) That Y, as a real essence or real being, is intrinsically and essentially
included in X (a real being) violates C4.11
(R2) That X, as a real being, cannot be ex natura rei distinguished from
Y (another real being) violates C2.
(R3) That X, as a real being, is not being in general (ipsum ens in
communi), and hence is subsumed under being (inferius ad ens)
and, consequently, not convertible with Y, violates C3.
(R4) That X, as a real being, has its own properties, which in turn have
properties, and so on, leads to an infinite regress.
Suárez considers three standard views on the properties of beings, two of
which violate one or more of the conditions C1–C4 with which he began.
The first, which he ascribes to Scotus, holds the following: (a) being qua
being has real and positive properties, (b) which are ex natura rei distinct
from it, but (c) which are not intrinsically and essentially beings – this
means that Scotus rejects the troublesome consequence of C1.12 The
second position, which Suárez ascribes to some unnamed Thomists,
accepts (a) and (b), but rejects (c). According to that, properties are
intrinsically and essentially beings, and this entails a rejection of C4
insofar as being qua being can be included in its properties.13
Suárez attributes the third position he presents to Thomas Aquinas,
among others. According to that, the properties of being qua being are
not real and positive, but rather each of them adds to being only a
negation or a relation of reason.14 Suárez is not entirely happy with this
formulation, however, noting that, although it is substantially correct, it
needs some explanation.

11
This problem follows if X is being (an example Suárez has in mind) for then every subject, e.g.
a man or a rose, would be a being and hence included in X.
12 13 14
DM iii.1.2. DM iii.1.3. DM iii.1.4.
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24 jorge j. e. gracia and daniel d. novotný

He begins the explanation by introducing three distinctions. The first is
a distinction between predicates that are true and real properties of a
subject on the one hand, and predicates which are the result of the way we
conceive or explain the subject on the other. For example, when we speak
of quantity as having the property of “being the foundation of equality or
inequality,” such a property is the result of the way we think about
quantity, which in reality is nothing but quantity itself. Suárez points
out that conditions C1–C4 need to be satisfied only by the properties
in the first, strict sense, i.e., as “true and real,” and not in the second,
loose sense.15
The second distinction that Suárez introduces holds that it is one thing
for properties to be real beings or beings of reason and another for them to
be distinguished really or only by reason. Thus, it is possible for real
properties to be distinguished only by reason (although it is impossible for
properties of reason to be really distinguished). In our context, it is
possible for a real attribute to be distinguished from its subject only by
reason, thus violating C2.16
Finally, Suárez distinguishes between two senses of “being” (ens). In
one sense “being” means, properly and strictly, the entity of a thing. But
in another sense “being” means anything that can be affirmed of a thing
even in cases where what is affirmed does not refer to any being in the first
sense. According to Suárez, the being that can be affirmed of a thing, even
though what is affirmed refers to no being, comes in two varieties. One
consists of negations and privations, as when we say, for example, that a
thing is indivisible, that an act is evil, or that a man is blind. Another
consists of extrinsic denominations taken from things themselves, as when
God is said to be a “creator in time” in relation to creatures, and a wall is
said to be “seen” in relation to someone that sees it.17
With these distinctions in mind Suárez is ready to present the three
main tenets of his view. The first takes into account the first distinction:
(T1) Being qua being cannot have “true and completely real [and] posi-
tive” properties distinct ex natura rei from it.18
Being qua being cannot be found outside the essence of any being, and
therefore no property of being qua being can be real without being
included in being. Thus, no property of being qua being can be ex natura
rei distinct from being qua being. To this Suárez adds that being
qua being cannot have “completely real [and] positive” (omnino reales
15 16 17 18
DM iii.1.5. DM iii.1.6. DM iii.1.7. DM iii.1.8.
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Fundamentals in Suárez’s metaphysics 25

[et]positivas) properties, for, as we shall see below, there is a sense in which
being qua being does have real properties, although not in a positive sense.
The second tenet of Suárez’s view takes into account the second
distinction:
(T2) Being qua being has properties that are not mere products of the
mind, but are truly and really predicated of it.19
To be a mere product of the mind for Suárez is to be a fiction, purely
concocted by the mind and resulting only from mental activity. The
properties of being qua being, however, are not like this, for they can be
truly predicated of it. Thus, Suárez points out, if a being of reason is
understood strictly as what has being only objectively in the mind, that is
as a mental object, the properties of being qua being are not beings of
reason. For, unlike beings of reason, they do not depend on the activity of
the mind, but apply to being absolutely and before any kind of mental
consideration. Nonetheless, they can be called beings of reason if “being
of reason” means anything that (1) does not posit in the thing to which it
is attributed something real, positive, and intrinsic, over and above what
calling it “a being” posits, (2) is distinguished from real being, which has
true and intrinsic entity, or (3) is such that the intellect, in order to
conceive clearly and predicate these properties, finds in them the basis
to construct some beings of reason in the strict sense.
But, one may ask, if the properties of being are neither true and
completely real properties distinct ex natura rei from being, nor mere
figments created by the mind, what are they, and how are they to be
distinguished from being qua being? Suárez answers this question in the
third tenet, making use of the third distinction mentioned above:
(T3) The properties of being formally add [to being] either a negation or
a denomination taken from a relation to something extrinsic.20
The properties of being, then, differ from being qua being in that they
involve negations or denominations taken from extrinsic relations of
being, and as such they are neither something real over and above what
being is nor formally the same as being. That they are not something real
over and above being means that, unlike such properties as the capacity to
laugh, which is a reality distinct from the subject that possesses it, say
Socrates, the properties of being are not realities distinct from being.

19 20
DM iii.1.10. DM iii.1.11.
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However, that the properties of being are not formally the same as
being means that the intensions of the terms that name them are neither
part of, nor equivalent to, the intension of “being.” In this they are
different from such features as rationality, which is included in the essence
of the entity Socrates, which has it, and thus is a part of the definition of
human being. As Suárez put it, the properties of being are “not synonym-
ous with being.”21
This way of understanding the transcendental properties of being does
not completely satisfy all the conditions of true and real properties as
specified by Suárez at the beginning of Disputation 3. C3 and C4 are fully
satisfied: C3 is satisfied because these properties, as understood by Suárez,
are convertible with being insofar as they always and necessarily accom-
pany it; and C4 is satisfied because they are not part of the essence of
being. C2, however, is only satisfied in part, for the transcendental
properties of being are distinct from being only by reason, not ex natura
rei. Finally, C1 appears to be not at all satisfied, for the properties are
not things.
Suárez’s answer to the last difficulty is to grant that the transcendental
properties of being are not strictly and rigorously real but, he claims, “they
can still be called real because they formally express something which in
its own way is found in reality and can be attributed truly and without
qualification to being, whether as a privation or as a real denomination”.22
Negations and privations, similarly to extrinsic denominations, have in
Suárez’s metaphysics a double status: insofar as they are real and insofar as
they are fictitious constructs of the mind. In the first, the mind may arrive
at truth or falsity regarding reality through them, for “negations and
privations can be truly and absolutely predicated of a thing without
involving any kind of intellectual fictions.”23 In this sense, Suárez holds
that the properties of being are to be conceived as real negations or
privations. They are not real in the sense in which such properties as
the capacity to laugh are positively and intrinsically real, but nonetheless
they are not fictitious. Suárez uses two senses of “real,” then, which allow
him to say that some properties of being are both real (i.e., nonfictitious)
and not real (i.e., neither actual nor possible) without contradiction. The
properties of being, just like negations and privations, have extramental
(nonfictitious) status, but they are not real in the sense in which actual
beings, such as Socrates and his laugh, are.

21 22 23
Ibid. DM iii.1.12. DM liv.5.5.
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Fundamentals in Suárez’s metaphysics 27

Not all properties of being, however, are to be conceived as negations
or privations. Indeed, only unity functions in this way. Other properties
have the status of real extrinsic denominations.24 In order to complete the
understanding of Suárez’s view of the properties of being, we must look
briefly into extrinsic denominations.
Stated simply, “to denominate” means “to name a thing derivatively.”
More precisely, a denomination is the substitution of the name N2 of a
thing T2 for the name N1 of another thing T1 to which T2 is somehow
related. Denominations can be intrinsic or extrinsic. For instance, Socra-
tes (T1) is denominated as “the white” (N2) – instead of “Socrates” (N1) –
because he is intrinsically related to whiteness (T2). But Socrates (T1) is
denominated as “the seen” (N2) – instead of “Socrates” (N1) – because he
is extrinsically related to being seen (T2). What is this “being seen”? It is
the thing or, as the scholastics put it, the form derived from the founding
relation of sight (R) that somebody has toward Socrates (T1). Hence, we
may say that an extrinsic denomination involves four basic elements:
denomination (N2: “the seen”), the thing denominated (T1: Socrates),
the denominating form (T2: being seen) and the relation founding the
denomination (R: somebody’s seeing Socrates). Central to Suárez’s claim
is the view that (normally) extrinsic denominations are real, hence they are
not sufficient conditions of beings of reason.25
When applied to being and its transcendental properties, true and
good, we end up with the following:

True Good

thing denominated (T1): being being

denominating form (T2): act of intellect (being act of will (being desired)
thought about)
denomination (N2): true good
founding relation (R): understanding of being desiring of being by will
by intellect

Thus Suárez can say that being, true, and good, are coextensional and yet
not cointensional, for whatever is a being is capable also of being the term
of a real relation from an intellect or a will to being itself. Such a relation
does not affect being, nor do the transcendental properties true and good
refer to a form in being really distinct from it. True and good express
24 25
DM iii.2.7. DM liv.2.
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28 jorge j. e. gracia and daniel d. novotný

extrinsic denominations of being founded on relations of an intellect or a
will to being. As such, true and good are neither real properties of being
strictly speaking, nor real or mental relations of being to something else. If
they were real properties or real relations, it would imply a kind of
distinction between being and them, or their foundation (in the case of
real relations). If they were mental relations, it would imply that true and
good are exclusively the result of mental activity, and therefore fictitious.
And neither of these consequences is acceptable.
The question about the distinction between being qua being and
transcendental properties and among particular transcendentals them-
selves is taken up briefly in Disputation 3. It is obvious from what has
been said above that there are no real distinctions among them, but only
distinctions of reason. In subsequent discussions of unity,26 truth,27 and
goodness, Suárez comes back to these questions and discusses them in
greater depth.28

2.1.2 Identity, number, and order

Having identified necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be
a transcendental, we need to ask what satisfies these conditions. This
involves their identity, number, and order. Suárez discusses this question
in section 2 of Disputation 3.

Identity and number

He begins with what seems to be a traditional list of trancendentals: being
(ens), thing (res), something (aliquid), one (unum), true (verum), good
(bonum). He notes two kinds of difficulties with this list. First, are there
not too many items on it? For instance, thing and something seem to be
just what being is.29 Second, are there not too few items? Suárez mentions
several other candidates for the status of transcendentals: (a) duration,
location, and other properties “necessarily applying to all beings” (Suárez
probably means “finite beings”)30; (b) finite/infinite, actual/potential,
and other disjunctive properties; and (c) various properties such as self-
identity, possibility, desirability, and intelligibility.31
Nevertheless, to Suárez it is obvious that there are only three transcen-
dental properties for several reasons.32 First, there is a universal agreement
on this point among the “authors writing on this subject-matter.” Second,
26 27 28 29
DM v–vii. DM viii–ix. DM x–xi. DM iii.2.1.
30 31 32
DM iii.2.2. Ibid. DM iii.2.3.
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Fundamentals in Suárez’s metaphysics 29

because one (unum) adds to being (ens) the notion that it is not multiple,
truth (verum) adds a relation to the intellect, and good (bonum) adds a
relation to the will. These are clearly distinct meanings, which is not the
case for other items on the traditional list, such as thing and something.33
Furthermore, Suárez finds textual evidence that Aquinas held this view,34
and points out that in common usage “being” and “thing” are “almost
synonyms.”35 ‘Something, depending on one’s preferred etymology, is
either synonymous with “one” or with “being.”36
With respect to the other challenge, namely that there could be more
transcendentals, Suárez remains firm. Duration and location are categor-
ies or modes; disjunctive properties are not properties of beings, but rather
divisions of being (finite/infinite) or its status (actual/potential);37 and
properties such as self-identity and desirability can be reduced to others,
for instance self-identity to unity and desirability to goodness.38 Hence, it
is clear that Suárez abandons the traditional list of transcendentals.
Some of the arguments that Suárez provides in this section are sketchy,
but he occasionaly points out that more will be “said below.” And, indeed,
he takes up the problem with duration in Disputation 50 (“On the
Category of When”), the problem of location in Disputation 51 (“On
Where”), the question of what is real and fictitious in Disputation 54
(“On Beings of Reason”), and so on with others. Suárez’s approach to
metaphysics is holistic: everything is connected to everything else.

Order
Suárez also deals briefly with the question of “order” among the properties
of being. First among them is unity, because it is nonrelational insofar as it
follows from being intrinsically, even if negatively.39 Second come truth
and goodness, which are relational insofar as truth is related to the intellect
and goodness to the will. Truth precedes goodness because before we can
will something we need to know it.40 But what kind of order does Suárez
have in mind? Prima facie it would seem to be an order of perfection.
However, Suárez explicitly rules out this possibility, so it remains unclear
what he has in mind. One possibility is epistemic to the extent that
establishing any order among the properties of being requires that we
first know unity, then truth, and finally goodness.

33 34 35 36
Ibid. DM iii.2.4. Ibid. See also DM iii.2.12–13. DM iii.2.5.
37 38 39 40
DM iii.2.11. DM iii.2.14. DM iii.2.8. DM iii.2.9.
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30 jorge j. e. gracia and daniel d. novotný

2.2 categories
Suárez did not write a commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, but categor-
ies play a crucial role in his Metaphysical Disputations. The most extensive
general discussion of this topic is found in Disputation 39 (“On the
Division of Accidents into Nine Genera”). The main purpose of the
Disputation is to defend the traditional list of categories found in Aris-
totle, namely (in Suárez’s order): substance, quantity, quality, relation,
action, passion, when, where, position, and habit. The text has three
sections that address the following issues:
(1) Whether accidents in general are immediately divided into the highest
genera of accidents.41
(2) Whether the division of accidents into nine genera is sufficient.42
(3) Whether the division is univocal or analogical.43
Besides these questions, however, there are several other, fundamental,
questions we would like to raise. One of them concerns highest genera:
the scholastics held that, corresponding to the categories, there are ten
highest genera. Suárez mostly uses the expressions “supreme genus”
(supremum genus) and “category” (praedicamentum) interchangeably, but
not always. In order to understand categories, then, we need to determine
the kind of distinction that holds between categories and highest genera,
if any.

2.2.1 Categoricity
The ten highest genera, Suárez tells us in the Introduction to Disputation
39, are treated not just by the metaphysician, but also by the logician,
although “more deeply they . . . pertain to first philosophy [that is,
metaphysics] . . . because the logician does not consider the ten highest
genera of beings in order to establish exactly their natures and essences.”
Logic is merely “a certain art directing operations of the intellect.” Its
object consists of “mental concepts insofar as they are subject to direction
by an art.”44 This fact, Suárez continues, has led some authors to consider
categories to be names, and only names. This mistake arises because they
41 42 43
DM xxxix.1. DM xxxix.2. DM xxxix.3.
44
DM xxxix.intro.1. Suárez’s claim that logic deals with mental concepts should not be
misunderstood. Logic is not some kind of mental game in that “mental concepts concern things
and are founded in them” (DM xxxix. intro.) Logicians deal with reality indirectly via the ordering
of concepts.
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Fundamentals in Suárez’s metaphysics 31

look at categories only from the point of view of the logician, and the
logician qua logician is not concerned with “placing things into categories
on the basis of their reality, but on the basis of their name.”45
In contrast with the logician, the metaphysician deals with the division
of the highest genera directly in order to inquire upon “the proper
character and essences of things.” This involves not just dealing with
more abstract and “immaterial” genera, but also with more material
(and, we might say, concrete) ones.46
From this it follows that, for Suárez, highest genera are real, that is,
nonmental. This is why they are studied in metaphysics rather than logic.
But this does not make clear what he thinks categories are. Unfortunately,
Suárez does not take up this question explicitly, although in passing he
tells us that:
From the logical point of view, a category is nothing other than the appropriate
disposition of genera and species from a supreme genus to individuals.47
This text distinguishes between the notions of category and supreme
genus. A category is said to be a “disposition,” but probably this should
not be understood in the sense in which disposition is a species of quality
(after years of driving, for example, I have the disposition to engage in
certain actions when I sit in the driver’s seat of an automobile). Rather, it
should be taken in the more basic sense of dis-positing: that is, of placing
something in the proper order.48 Suárez has another text that is useful for
determining his understanding of a category:
a category is nothing other than the appropriate disposition and coordination of
essential predicates, of which those which are predicated essentially of the
individual are placed above it, in a direct line, going up from the lower to the
higher; and this line begins with the lowest, that is the individual, and ends with
the highest genus.49
Here, Suárez adds another term to describe categories, namely “coordin-
ation.” A category is not properly speaking a genus, but rather the
coordination, or we might say arrangement, of genera according to a
pattern of essential inclusion in which each genus includes the essence of
the members of the genera below it, going from the lowest to the highest.

45 46 47
DM xxxix.intro.1. DM xxxix.intro.2. DM xxxix.intro.1.
48
An alternative reading, namely that categories are dispositions in the sense of qualities in the minds
of logicians which enable them to coordinate species and genera, is also possible but seems less
likely.
49
DM xxxix.2.30.
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32 jorge j. e. gracia and daniel d. novotný

Note that in this text Suárez speaks of predicates rather than genera. All
the same, we are on safe ground if we interpret him as speaking about
genera, because the term “predicate” was used ambiguously by scholastics,
and also by Suárez. Often they meant to refer to linguistic terms (as many
of us do today), but at other times they meant to refer to the denotations
or connotations of those terms. “Predicate,” in this context, can very
well stand for what a term denotes or connotes, which for our purposes
is a genus.
Now, we can say that this coordination of genera goes according to a
pattern of essential inclusion which extends from the lowest to the highest
genera. By this Suárez seems to mean that such categories as quantity or
quality: for example, are not themselves genera, but ways in which genera
are coordinated or arranged. A category, then, may be characterized as
follows:
X is a category iff it is an arrangement of essential predicates (species and genera)
in a tree-like structure beginning with the lowest (individual) and ending the
highest genus.
Since the term “category” originally means any kind of predicate, Suárez
sometimes calls supreme genera categories, for they are the paradigmatic
(most general) kinds of predicates. In a narrower sense, however, categor-
ies are not just the highest predicates (supreme genera), but the different
overall kinds of arrangements of predicates.50
From this one could infer that the highest genera (and lower genera, if
necessary) are studied in metaphysics, whereas categories are studied in
logic, for it is in logic that the arrangement among essential predicates is
carried out. But this way of expressing the point would have to be taken
metaphorically, in that logic for Suárez is an art and not a science.
Metaphysics deals with essential predicates and logic helps to organize
them in the mind.
A frequently posed question concerning categories asks whether they
are arrangements of names, concepts, or things. In other words, what does

50
Antonio Rubio (1548–1615), who seems to hold many views in common with Suárez (see Novotný
2010), states this explicitly: “Although the Greek word ‘category’ in its primary imposition means
predication or a predicate, there is a consensus among the logicians and philosophers that it is to be
taken for the entire ordination of essential predicates. The word ‘predicamentum’ has the same
meaning. We may describe it as follows: A predicamentum [i.e. a category] is a disposition of
essential predicates, higher and lower, under one genus above which there is no higher, ending with
an individual, under which there is no lower.” See Antonio Rubio, Commentarii in Universam
Aristotelis Dialecticam (Cologne: Arnold Birckman, 1605), p. 144.
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Fundamentals in Suárez’s metaphysics 33

“predicates” mean in our characterization? The crucial text, to which
reference was already made above, reads as follows:
[B]ecause mental concepts are about real things, and are founded on real things,
[the logician also] treats of real things, although not to establish their essences
and natures, but only in order to coordinate the concepts in the mind; and in
this sense he deals with the ten [supreme] genera in order to establish the
ten categories.51
Here Suárez is concerned with the subject matter of logic, that is, the
kinds of things that the logician studies. He tells us that the logician deals
with the ten highest genera in order to establish the ten categories. This
seems to make clear the place where the ten categories are found, which is
not the world, but rather the logician’s mind. Categories are mental in the
sense that they are the ways in which we think of the relations among
genera. Categories are mental, not extra-mental or linguistic entities, and
for this reason the logician properly treats of them, for categories are ways
in which concepts are appropriately arranged in the mind. However,
because these concepts reflect the ways things are outside the mind, that
is, the natures and essences of things in the world, the logician also deals,
albeit only indirectly, with natures and essences to be able to introduce the
proper order among them in the mind.
Considerations relevant to this question come up also in the context of
the distinction among highest genera. For Suárez holds that the distinc-
tion is conceptual but has a foundation in reality. This coheres well with
what we have said, namely that the categories and the highest genera are
something in the mind, but have a foundation in reality.52

2.2.2 Identity, number, and relations

The traditional Aristotelian division of categories was widely accepted by
scholastics and constituted the basis for the discussion of their identity,
number, and relations. But Suárez raises three challenges to it. The first is
the problem of immediacy: Can there be more immediate and basic
divisions than the traditional ten-membered division of categories, with
fewer members in each? The second is the problem of exhaustivity: Are all

51
DM XXXIX.intro.1.
52
Suárez lays stress on concepts. In his view, logic deals primarily with words/concepts and hence also
with things. But this was not a universally accepted view. Rubio, for example, is more Thomistic.
In his view, logic is both a science and an art, and therefore it deals primarily with things. See
Rubio, Commentarii in Universam Aristotelis Dialecticam, p. 144.
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34 jorge j. e. gracia and daniel d. novotný

categories included in the division? And the third is the problem of
distinction: What is the distinction among categories? The first problem
is taken up by Suárez in section 1 and the other two in section 2.

Immediacy
Suárez points out that being can be divided in many ways other than in
the ten proposed by Aristotle: complete/incomplete,53 primary-individual/
secondary-universal,54 forms/modes,55 spiritual/material, permanent/suc-
cessive, intrinsic/extrinsic, and so on.56 All these seem to be more general
than the traditional division into ten, and hence deserve to be considered
more immediate to being. But Suárez goes on to defend the traditional
division by noting that the ten highest genera are immediate as diverse
genera of beings, even if it is possible to come up with divisions with less
than ten members.57 Divisions based on other kinds of predicates,
although possible, do not qualify as the division of genera of beings.58

Exhaustivity
Suárez likewise builds a powerful case against the traditional division of
categories based on exhaustivity. The objection is that the division into
ten seems to leave out many candidates, such as extrinsic denomin-
ations,59 place, cloth, and others,60 artificial and moral denominations,61
movement and other causal relations,62 accidents of angels,63 properties of
categories,64 and postpredicaments.65 Suárez reviews the major historical
attempts at deriving the ten categories, i.e., showing that there must be ten,
and only ten, of them. He explicitly discusses the views of some ancient
philosophers, Augustine, Aquinas, “certain Scotists,” and Ockham, but in
the end he rejects them. Suárez’s own view, which he attributes to
Avicenna, is that “by proper reasoning one cannot demonstrate that there
is that given number of highest genera [i.e., ten] and neither more nor
less . . . This is why Aristotle did nowhere attempt to demonstrate it, but
always assumed it to be certain.”66 Suárez then makes an empirical
argument in favor of the view he adopts: “the sufficiency [i.e., exhaustiv-
ity] cannot be known by us otherwise than as the fact that . . . in our
experience we do not notice more genera of being.”67 In Suárez’s view, the

53 54 55 56
DM xxxix.1.1. DM xxxix.1.2. DM xxxix.1.3. DM xxxix.1.4.
57 58 59 60
DM xxxix.1.6–7. DM xxxix.1.8. DM xxxix.2.34–5. DM xxxix.2.36.
61 62 63 64
DM xxxix.2.37. DM xxxix.2.38–40. DM xxxix.2.41. DM xxxix.2.42.
65 66
DM xxxix.2.43. DM xxxix.2.18. This is also Scotus’s view; see Gracia and Newton 2008.
67
DM xxxix.2.18.
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Fundamentals in Suárez’s metaphysics 35

exhaustivity of the division of the categories into ten is indemonstrable,
and its only justification comes from experience.

Distinction
Like his scholastic predecessors, Suárez holds that categories are primarily
diverse, which means that they share no property or genus. Naturally, this
view gives rise to the question as to the source and nature of their
diversity. Suárez rejects two opinions with respect to this issue. According
to one, the diversity involves a real distinction.68 Against this view he
points out that only quantity and quality are really distinct from sub-
stance, so if this position were accurate, the highest genera would be
reduced to three.69 According to another opinion, the diversity involves a
modal, actual, and ex natura rei distinction which precedes in reality the
operation of the mind.70 Against the modal distinction, which is a “true
actual distinction ex natura rei anteceding in reality an operation of the
intellect,” he argues that this distinction could apply at best to quantity,
quality, action, and some relations, not to other categories. For instance,
time (duratio) is not really distinct from motion, being clothed (habitus)
from quantity, and so on.71
The view Suárez proposes holds that categories are distinguished
according to “our way of conceiving, founded in reality. Some call this
distinction of reasoned reason, whereas others call it formal.”72 The
justification of this claim is indirect: “This view . . . is sufficiently proven
from what has been said against the previous views.”73
The distinction of reasoned reason is, according to Suárez, conceptual.
Conceptual distinctions come in two varieties: One is the distinction of
reasoned reason and the other the distinction of reasoning reason. The
second has no basis in reality but is purely a creation of the mind; it arises
out of the intellect’s activity of comparing, which makes possible its
infinite multiplication.74 The first, however, the distinction of reasoned
reason, has a foundation in reality, even if the distinction itself is merely
conceptual. This is the kind of distinction that we make when we
think about God’s properties, for example. The foundation of this dis-
tinction in the case of categories must be sufficient to allow relations or
modes of denomination of primary substance that are irreducible to one
generic concept.75

68 69 70 71
DM xxxix.2.19. Ibid. DM xxxix.2.20. DM xxxix.2.20–1.
72 73 74 75
DM xxxix.2.22. DM xxxix.2.23. Ibid. Ibid.
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36 jorge j. e. gracia and daniel d. novotný

This is not enough to clarify the issue. The question remains: What is
this foundation in reality that is the basis of the denomination? It cannot
be a category itself, because for Suárez categories are concepts and the
product of conception and abstraction.76 And it cannot be a reality
represented by the distinction, for then the distinction would be real
rather than conceptual. The point to consider is that a distinction of
reasoned reason has some basis in reality, even though the distinction itself
is a concept in the mind, resulting from some comparison or thinking
about something.
Now we can go back to categories and apply what we have learned
about the distinction of reasoned reason to them. Categories are ways in
which humans conceive the world based on certain comparisons that the
mind carries out between other concepts, but these other concepts have
reference in the world. An example would help, but the one of God and
his properties, which Suárez gives, is of no great use because of its
uniqueness. Let us try to make up one that perhaps Suárez would accept.
Consider the category quality. For Suárez, quality is a concept which the
mind develops based on its consideration of the relations between
certain concepts, such as red, blue, grammatical, and so on, on the
one hand, and certain other concepts, on the other, such as three meters
long, yesterday, woman, and so on. Quality tells us something about the
first set of concepts and their relations to other concepts. But the
concepts among which relations are established have instances in reality,
outside the mind, although not qua concepts. Red, as universal, is not to
be found outside the mind. Nonetheless, there are red things in the
world and each of them is an individual instance of the universal red.
This means that quality, in spite of being a concept based on the relation
among concepts, is nonetheless related, via those concepts, to the world
outside the mind.
Are Suárez’s arguments with respect to the identity, number, and
relations among categories convincing? It is hard to decide on the many
subtle and detailed points Suárez makes. Here are three tentative apprais-
als. First, concerning immediacy: Suárez acknowledges many distinct
transcategorial predicates, such as substance and accident, individual
and universal, and absolute and relative, that do not express categories.
What is their place in metaphysics? Suárez does not address this question
in the Metaphysical Disputations. Hence, even if we were to judge that he

76
Ibid.
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Fundamentals in Suárez’s metaphysics 37

succeeds in defending the traditional division of categories into ten, his
discussion opens a topic he does not address adequately. Second, con-
cerning exhaustivity: If experience is the final arbiter of the number and
identity of the categories, how much certainty do we have about this?
Consensus about the experience we have of the ten categories is lacking, as
it is clear in scholastic discussions both in the Middle Ages and subse-
quently after Suárez. Third, concerning distinction: The claim that there
is a conceptual distinction with a foundation in reality for the categories
is appealing, but Suárez does not present a strong case for it, especially
considering that he acknowledges that at least some accidents are
really distinct from substance. Hence, if they are, why are they not also
really distinct from each other?

2.3 unreal transcendentals and categories

To this point we have discussed only transcendentals and categories that
Suárez regards as being part of reality. But he explicitly notes that beings
of reason have “quasi-transcendental” properties.77 This suggests that,
corresponding to real transcendentals, there are also unreal ones. Suárez
does not develop this idea, but later baroque authors, such as Bartolomeo
Mastri (1602–73), do.78
In contrast to what Suárez says about transcendentals, he does not refer
to the various kinds of unreal beings he discusses in Metaphysical Dispu-
tations as “categories.” However, his treatment of these has a structure
similar to that he applies to real categories. This suggests that he is
concerned with categories of unreal being as much as he is concerned
with categories of real being. Indeed, Disputation 54 deals with beings of
reason (unreal entities) in a methodologically similar way to the one
Suárez applies to real beings. After an introduction (“Why we deal with
beings of reason in metaphysics”79), Suárez discusses their nature,80
causes,81 and division.82 The last topic takes up the most space, and is
subdivided into the questions of the exclusivity83 and exhaustivity84 of the
division, after which he adds sections on particular genera (i.e., negation,
privation,85 and relation of reason86).

77 78 79 80
DM liv.intro.2. Novotný 2008. DM liv.intro.1–2. DM liv.1.
81 82 83 84 85
DM liv.2. DM liv.3–6. DM liv.3. DM liv.4. DM liv.5.
86
DM liv.6.
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38 jorge j. e. gracia and daniel d. novotný

2.4 conclusion
The aim of science from an Aristotelian–scholastic perspective is the
possession of certain knowledge of truth, acquired by demonstration. In
demonstrations, something (Y) is shown about something else (X) on the
basis of still something else (Z). How does this apply to Suárez’s meta-
physics? Being qua real being (X) is the subject of the science of meta-
physics, and demonstrations show its transcendental properties and
categories (Y). Roughly speaking, then, we have dealt in this chapter with
two aspects of Suárez’s metaphysical fundamentals. The third aspect,
namely “the basis on which these demonstrations take place” (Z) concerns
causes, and will have to wait for another occasion.
We can also express this point as follows: Metaphysics turns around the
questions of “nature” (what?), causes (why?), and division (what sort?).
A theory of transcendentals addresses primarily the first question: the
nature of reality/being; it concerns what being is and its attributes.
A theory of categories addresses primarily the last question: the division
of reality/being; it concerns the list of the highest kinds of entities. Since
for Suaréz the object of metaphysics is being (including its properties) and
being and its properties constitute the transcendentals,87 one might say
that for Suárez metaphysics is the science of the transcendentals, which
was a view first proposed by Scotus. In this Suárez’s metaphysics manifests
a fundamentally Scotistic character in spite of many real and apparent
disagreements with Scotus on particular issues.88

87
DM i.1.26.
88
For a more precise statement of where Suárez adopts Scotus’s view, where Aquinas’s, and where he
goes his own way, see Darge 2004. The nature of Suárez’s metaphysics is summarized in Heider
2009.