Book Review

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The Philosophy of Francisco Suárez, by Benjamin Hill and Henrik
Lagerlund (eds). Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. 320. $85.00.
The Philosophy of Francisco Suárez is a volume comprising eleven critical
studies, preceded by a well-written introduction by Benjamin Hill, devoted
to various aspects of the intellectual legacy of the outstanding Spanish phil-
osopher and theologian of the sixteenth century, Francisco Suárez (1548-
1617). The fortunes of Suárez’s philosophical work confirm the old truth
that history is rarely just. In the seventeenth century Suárez was one of the
most important philosophers in the whole of Europe. Nevertheless, in the
very next century, outside a few Catholic universities, the greater part of his
philosophical work had fallen into oblivion — a state which lasted up to a
very recent past. In recent years the situation has changed and there more and
more frequently appear (even within the Anglo-American tradition) scholarly
articles, books, and academic conferences focusing on the philosophical work
of Suárez. We are therefore pleased to welcome the present volume, pub-
lished in 2012 by the Oxford University Press, which without doubt contrib-
utes to amending the so far not quite satisfactory state of research on this
philosopher.
One of the main tasks of a historian of philosophy is to set the person
under scrutiny and their work in the proper historical context, that is, to
determine and describe the main sources of the ideas which influenced their
work and at the same time show their impact on further generations of
philosophers. This is the task that the editors of the reviewed volume
faced. The principle they followed when compiling the volume was to present
Suárez as ‘a transitional figure, partly medieval and partly modern, who
occupied a middle ground in the continuous sweep of history from the
medieval through the Renaissance and early modern periods’ and thereby
provide material and framework for further discussion of the transitional
character of Suárez’s philosophy. In order to meet this goal they have
assembled papers by historians of mediaeval, Renaissance, and early
modern philosophy, dealing with similar topics from across Suárez’s entire
philosophical corpus. The authors include well-established scholars such as
Christopher Shields, Roger Ariew, Dennis Des Chene, Thomas Pink, Helen
Hattab, and others. The result of their common effort is a successful volume

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which introduces the readers to the fundamentals of Suárez’s philosophy and

enables them to set his work in a broader historical context.
The well thought out structure of the volume reflects the set goals. In the
introduction, consisting of three sections, the reader is first introduced to
the historical context of Suárez’s work, then presented with a brief synopsis
of all the chapters and finally with the biography of the person behind the
work, based primarily on Suárez’s biographies by Raoul de Sorraille and
Joseph Fichter. The eleven studies are grouped into five sections. The first

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section, Background and Influence, comprises two studies mapping the influ-
ences on Suárez and his impact on other philosophers; the first one is penned
by Michael Edwards (‘Suárez in a Late Scholastic Context: Anatomy,
Psychology, and Authority ’), the second one by Roger Ariew (‘Descartes
and Leibniz as Readers of Suárez: Theory of Distinctions and Principle of
Individuation’). The second section, called Metaphysics, also contains two
papers, one by Christopher Shields who discusses the problem of beings of
reason (‘Shadows of Beings: Francisco Suárez’s Entia Rationis’), the other by
Jorge Secada who explores the notion of continuity (‘Suárez on Continuous
Quantity ’). The third section, called Natural Philosophy, presents the reader
with two papers on Suárez’s physics. Des Chene looks at problems connected
with the concept of efficient cause and its formal characteristics (‘Suárez on
Propinquity and the Efficient Cause’) and Helen Hattab addresses Suárez’s
notion of substantial form (‘Suárez’s Last Stand for the Substantial Form’).
The three studies in the fourth section, called Mind and Psychology, are
devoted to Suárez’s philosophy of mind and philosophical psychology. In
the first one James B. South follows up on Helen Hattab’s paper and con-
siders Suárez’s arguments for the immortality of the soul (‘Suárez,
Immortality, and the Soul’s Dependence on the Body ’). Then Cees
Leijenhorst addresses the issue of reflection and self-awareness (‘Suárez on
Self-Awareness’), and finally Marleen Rozemond explores the problem of
the unity and simplicity of the soul as well as its relation to body (‘Unity
in the Multiplicity of Suárez’s Soul’). The last section, called Ethics and
Natural Law, containing two papers, focuses on Suárez’s practical philoso-
phy. Thomas Pink examines Suárez’s innovative conception of obligation
(‘Reason and Obligation in Suárez’) and James Gordley shows Suárez’s con-
tribution to the development of the theory of natural law (‘Suárez and
Natural Law’). The volume is completed by a useful and comprehensive
bibliography comprising both information on the published works of
Francisco Suárez and the works and secondary sources quoted (I am pleased
to note the care the editors have taken to assemble a truly extensive list of
secondary literature). In what follows I shall attempt to comment on the
volume as a whole and then focus on selected chapters, rather than discuss
each one in turn.
The volume is well-balanced and comprises a good variety of topics. There
are, however, several shortcomings I should like to point out. First, the book

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lacks a chapter describing Suárez’s considerable philosophical contribution to

the lively and highly problematic debate of the time concerning divine know-
ledge; in particular, there is no description of Suárez’s innovative conception,
in which (medium in quo) God conditionally knows future contingent events
by the so-called middle knowledge (scientia media). The debate was trad-
itionally conducted within the wider theological framework of the problem
De auxiliis, but the theological theories developed in this context were for-
tified by philosophical concepts and arguments to such an extent that the

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originally theological debate became also — if not primarily — an autono-
mous philosophical problem logically independent of theology, which as
such has come to occupy many representatives of modern philosophy
proper – G. W. Leibniz, Nicholas Malebranche, René Descartes and others.
The debate and its historical importance is hardly mentioned in Suárez’s
biography in the introduction, which would deserve to be amended in this
respect. Happily, persons interested in the problematic can learn about it
from the relatively extensive recently published secondary literature.
Second, the balance and informative value of the first section (Background
and Influence) would have benefited much if the editors had included yet
another chapter mapping the various idea sources of Suárez’s thinking on a
general level, as well as a more extensive description of his influence on later
thinkers. In that way the volume would contribute more to what the editors
have resolved in the introduction, that is, to providing quality material and
framework for further discussion of the transitional character of Suárez’s
philosophy. On the other hand, careful readers will find information con-
cerning the influences on Suárez and his influence on others in many other
chapters of the volume and can thus form a view of their own.
Third, the contents of the second section (Metaphysics) would have bene-
fited much if the editors had included a chapter devoted to the proper object
of metaphysics, which is the concept of being. That includes the discussion of
the univocity and analogousness of the concept, as well as Suárez’s discussion
of the real distinction of essence and existence (Daniel Heider has written
several studies on the topic). Suárez’s conception of being and his rejection of
the (Thomistic) real distinction had far-reaching historical and systematic
implications for other parts of his philosophical system as well as other
metaphysical endeavours, for example, his concept of substantial form, im-
mortality of the soul, efficient causality and ens rationis, among others. Both
studies included in the second part of the volume are without doubt suc-
cessful, but they are devoted to partial metaphysical problems and do not
enable the reader to learn and evaluate the overall framework of Suárez’s
metaphysics or how it affects other areas of his philosophy.
As far as the individual chapters of the volume are concerned, all deal with
their subjects in a highly sophisticated manner and provide both specialists
and non-specialists in the field with sufficient background allowing for ap-
propriate orientation in the problematic. An example among others is the

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brilliant paper by Christopher Schields, who brings an innovative interpret-

ation of Suárez’s conception of beings of reason — non-real beings, whether
fictions, privations, negations, impossible beings, or non-real relations.
According to Schields, Suárez believed that such entities exist in no sense
of the word ‘but are merely considered as if they existed’ (p. 71). Shields calls
this a ‘tethered-counterfactual’ approach, because it refers to counterfactual
objects ‘tethered’ to the activity of our intellect. Therefore on Shields’s inter-
pretation beings of reason do not exist even in some ‘third realm’, where

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they would have a real, though diminished, ontological status; neither are
they total fictions of which nothing can be said. They are entities which
Suárez conceives as if they existed, though they in fact do not. That is why
we can think and talk of beings of reason, certain qualities can be attributed
to them, without committing ourselves to a specific ontology. On Schields’s
interpretation Suárez seems to come very close to Meinong, who claimed that
although non-existent objects have no existence or being, they may never-
theless be the subject of true predication. However, Schields denies this, un-
fortunately without much argument, and claims:
Although a fair bit of what he says seems at least initially to suggest a Meinongean
solution to the problem of non-existents, Suárez’s treatment of beings of reason in
fact proves both more difficult to classify and also far more nuanced than so much
would suggest. (p. 58)
It is a pity that Schields does not settle with the ‘traditional’ and different
interpretation of Suárez, defended at present, for example, by D. Novotný,
according to which entia rationis have a special type of being or existence —
an intentional one, ‘object-dependent’ on thinking.
Hattab likewise provides a well thought out and highly interesting inter-
pretation of Suárez’s conception of substantial form, motivated by three
fundamental questions: the existence of substantial form, its causality as
the formal cause of the substance, and the function accidents have in the
eduction of substantial form. According to Hattab, Suárez’s conception of
substantial form is characterised by inverting the traditional priorities in a
way and emphasising different problems. This manifests itself at least in two
respects. First, Suárez’s motivation to accept the existence of substantial
forms is not the need for a conceptual apparatus explaining substantial
change and how it differs from accidental change, as was traditionally the
case with, for example, Thomas Aquinas. His main motive is defending the
immortality of the human soul. Second, in Suárez’s conception substantial
form (as well as prime matter) is an entity in its own right and — as
compared to the tradition — its efficient causality is stressed to the detriment
of formal causality. According to Suárez, the substantial form does not cause
the existence of the prime matter to which it is joined, it is not its first act, but
both constitutive principles of the material substance have their own
entity, one independently of the other. Both these characteristics, argues
Hattab, are crucial in the rise of mechanicism, which eliminated formal

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causality completely and stressed the ontological autonomy and mutual in-
dependence of the constitutive elements of reality. The otherwise brilliant
study of Hattab would definitely be much enriched if the author attempted to
disclose the connections between Suárez’s (as well as Aquinas’s) conception
of substantial form and prime matter and his conception of being, in other
words the relationship of essence and existence. Suárez’s conception of
substantial form having its own entity is logically dependent on his concep-
tion of being, that is, the rejection of the real distinction of essence and

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existence in every being.
The study by James B. South devoted to the problematic of the immortality
of the human soul follows loosely up on Hattab’s paper and supplements it in
some respects. South correctly sets Suárez’s thoughts on the human soul,
immortality, and the relationship of soul and body into the broader historical
context of Averroistic debates on the topic taking place especially in Italy
throughout the sixteenth century, and conclusively shows that Suárez’s
anti-Averroistic conception of the soul is fundamentally influenced by
Pomponazzi who cast doubt on the possibility of a natural proof of the
immortality of the soul. The crucial presupposition of a proof of the immor-
tality of the human soul, as well as of successfully dealing with Pomponazzi’s
doubt, according to South, was overcoming Aristotle’s famous assertion that
the intellect requires phantasms or the imagination. Suárez argues that one
must interpret Aristotle’s claim so that phantasy is only concomitant to the
operation of the intellect, but the intellect and its operation are not depend-
ent on phantasy in the proper sense of the word. If the soul has its own
proper operation, it can exist when the body and its power of imagination has
ceased to exist. In order to show that the operation of the intellect is an
operation proper to the soul itself, Suárez interprets the relationship of the
intellect and the imagination as a special kind of parallelism and not as a
causal relationship. South calls this ‘cognitive process dualism’, by which he
means that no sensual operation can causally influence spiritual operation
and vice versa that spiritual operation cannot cause a change in a sensual
(bodily) power. That shows (in light of natural reason) that all intellectual
cognitive acts depend solely on the soul and Pomponazzi’s doubt is refuted.
In this context South praiseworthily draws attention to the similarity
of Suárez’s conception and Descartes’s infamous problem of the interaction
of soul and body. The otherwise excellent paper would be much improved,
and a better grasp of the problematic conveyed, if South attempted to
compare Suárez’s non-causal conception of the relationship of reason to
phantasm with the Thomistic purely causal conception of the relationship,
in which the role of the efficient causality of (active) reason on phantasm, the
so-called physical promotion, is crucial. Suárez himself conceived his own
position in debate with Thomists.
Pink’s and Gordley ’s inspiring studies dealing with Suárez’s moral philo-
sophy can be of great interest to ethicists, political philosophers and

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historians of philosophy in general. Gordley shows Suárez’s contributions to

the older natural law tradition, especially to Aquinas and the Salamanca
school. According to Gordley, Suárez’s conception of natural law differs
from that of his predecessors especially by being much more abstract,
almost Platonic in fact. This robust metaphysics of natural law led Suárez
to claim, that the precepts of natural law do not refer to the partial and
specific circumstances in which they ought to be applied. That is the most
common reason why Suárez’s conception is criticised, since on his view the

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precepts of natural law are far too restrictive universal prohibitions which fail
‘to ground moral norms in human fulfilment’ (p. 212). The core of the criti-
cism is that Suárez conceived of law in terms of theoretical reason rather than
practical reason. Pink then shows how Suárez substantially transformed the
traditional concept of obligation and opened up the way to modern theories
by grounding the obligatory force of law in reason itself and not in the
concept of sanction. “The binding authority of the natural law does not lie
in any reason to obey it that derives from fear of sanction. Its authority is
simply that of reason itself and consists in a distinctive vis directiva, that is a
directive force of reason,” says Pink. Pink further deeply analyses Suárez’s
conception of obligatory force and maps its use and development in the work
of Grotius and Pufendorf.
The Philosophy of Francisco Suárez as a whole is a welcome and significant
contribution to the so far not very extensive literature on Suárez and
provides both the broader philosophically educated public and experts in
the field with valuable incentives and information on Suárez’s philosophy.
The volume is without doubt well worth reading and I cannot but warmly
recommend it. (This work is supported by grant GAČR 13-08512S.)

Catholic Theological Faculty DAVID SVOBODA

Charles University
Thakurova 3
Prague
Czech Republic
svoboda@ktf.cuni.cz
doi:10.1093/mind/fzu006

Mind, Vol. 0 . 0 . 2014 ß Mind Association 2014