Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Suárez's Conception of Metaphysics

« The difference between non-real beings and possible beings is that possible beings have an aptitude for existence,even though they do not exist, whereas non-real beings do not.

A possible being like Misifus, has an aptitude suchthat it could exist even if it does not; but a non-real being like a goatstag, lacks such an aptitude and neitherexists nor can exist (31, 2, 10; 26, 232).Real being, then, includes possible, unactualized essences in addition to actualized ones.

This means that theobject of science, and thus of metaphysics, is not restricted to actually existing being, but extends to and includespossible being (31, 2, 10; 26, 232).

This conception of metaphysics, as the study of not only actual essences butalso possible essences, has been identified as one of the sources of the mentalism of modern philosophy; forpossible being, so the argument goes, can be nothing but mental, and thus the door is open to a conception ofmetaphysics as a science of the mental.This interpretation is disputable, however, for Suárez does not identify possible being with mental being.

Heunderstands mental being as ‘what has objective being only in the intellect or as what is thought by the mind as abeing, although it has no being in itself', that is, what has no being outside the mind (54, 1, 5; 26, 1016).

Blindnessis a good example of a mental being, for blindness is a lack of something rather than having something and, as such,has no reality outside the mind.From this it follows that possible beings for Suárez are not the same as mental beings.

For possible beings, eventhough they do not exist, have an aptitude for existence.

But it is impossible for mental beings ever to exist, sothey cannot have an aptitude for existence.

Consequently, that metaphysics includes the study of possible beingsdoes not mean that it is concerned with mental entities. The second source of the charge that Suárez's conception of metaphysics contributed substantially to thementalization of the discipline is his claim that the object studied by metaphysics is the objective concept of being(2, 1, 1; 25, 65).

This claim may be interpreted as implying mentalism because objective concepts, qua concepts,presumably cannot be anything but mental; therefore, it turns out that metaphysics studies something mentalrather than something real.The notion of objective concept is one of two members of a distinction widely used by later scholastics.

The othermember of the distinction is the formal concept.

The formal concept, according to Suárez, is an act of our mindswhereby we conceive something.

As an act of the mind, it is a quality and thus an accident of the mind.

The formalconcept is called ‘formal' because it informs the mind in the way any form informs its subject, and it is the end ofthe process of conception.

Moreover, it is by means of the formal concept that the mind knows an object, for theformal concept represents the thing known to the mind (2, 1, 1; 25, 65).The objective concept, on the other hand, is what is represented in the act, or quality, which is the formalconcept.

The objective concept is not a concept in the way a formal concept is, namely as a form that modifies themind, determining its conception.

Indeed, it is called a concept only derivatively because of the relation it has tothe formal concept.

It is objective in so far as it is the object with which the formal concept is concerned; it is notobjective in the sense of being an image or representation of something else ([19.42] 41).

On the contrary, theobjective concept is what is represented by the formal concept and, as Suárez states elsewhere, ‘the thingsignified' by it (29, 3, 34; 26, 59).In short, we might say that the distinction between the objective concept and the formal concept is the distinctionbetween what I think about (objective) and that through which I think it (formal).

So, whereas ‘the formal conceptcat', for example, is the mental act whereby someone thinks of ‘cat', ‘the objective concept cat' is whatever onethinks about when one thinks of ‘cat', namely cat.Put this way, it does not look as if objective concepts are mental in any way.

As Suárez states, they are notconcepts strictly speaking; they are not representations or images; and they are not mental acts or qualities.Instead, they are the objects of the (formal) concepts the mind forms.

This would seem to indicate that they arenot mental at all.This inference is corroborated by the fact that the being and unity of objective concepts turn out to be the samebeing and unity of their objects and, thus, that objective concepts can be mental or real depending on thoseobjects.

Suárez makes quite clear that whereas the formal concept is real, always ‘a true and positive thing', theobjective concept need not always be something real; it can be mental or real, depending on the objective conceptin question.

If, for example, the objective concept in question is ‘blindness', what we have is a mental beingbecause blindness is not a real entity.

If, on the other hand, the objective concept in question is ‘humanity', whatwe have is a real being, namely an actual or possible substance (i.e.

a human being).

Indeed, Suárez says that thisis the case with the objective concept of being (2, 3, 7; 25; 83).From these considerations we must conclude that not all objective concepts have only a mental status; someobjective concepts exist in reality.

This entails, then, that to be an objective concept does not necessarily implymental existence alone.

Whether that is the case depends not on the nature of objective concepts as such, but onthe particular objective concept involved.

In the case of ‘blindness', it does imply mental existence alone becauseblindness does not and cannot exist outside the mind; but in the case of ‘humanity', it does not because humanbeings can and do exist outside the mind.

This same point is corroborated when we look at the unity of objectiveconcepts.Do objective concepts, qua objective concepts, have universal or individual unity? Suárez's answer is unequivocal.The formal concept is always present in some mind that produces it and is, therefore, individual.

With respect tothe objective concept, however, the case is different, for an objective concept is universal or individual dependingon the particular objective concept involved (2,1,1; 25, 65).

If the objective concept in question is ‘man' or‘substance', the objective concept is universal.

If, on the other hand, the objective concept in question issomething determinate, like ‘Socrates', then the objective concept is individual.

From this it also follows that onlythose objective concepts that are individual can exist extramentally and therefore be real, since for Suárezuniversals have no such existence (5, 1, 4; 25, 146).. »