In 1597 Francisco Suárez published a comprehensive treatise on beings of reason (entia rationis) as part of his Disputationes metaphysicae. Subsequent scholastic philosophers vigorously debated various aspects of Suárez’s theory. The aim of this paper is to identify some of the most controversial points of these debates, as they developed in the first half of the seventeenth century. In particular, I focus on the intension and the extension of ‘ens rationis’, its division (into negations, privations and relations of reason) and (...) its causes. Additionally, I will discuss how Suárez’s views sparked a number of debates within the classical view, debates which ultimately led to the emergence of various alternative theories, especially among the Jesuits. These non-classical views radically revise the previous classical conception of beings of reason. (shrink)

What are properties? Examples are easy. Consider a particular billiard ball. The ball is red, spherical, and has a definite mass. The ball's redness, sphericity, and mass are properties: properties of the ball. Putting it this way invites a distinction between the ball, a bearer of properties, and the ball's properties. Some philosophers deny that there are properties. To say that the ball is red or spherical, for instance, is just to say that the predicates "is red" and "is spherical" (...) apply truly to the ball. But it is hard not to think that "is red" applies truly to the ball, if it does, because the ball is a particular way, the red way; and "is spherical" applies to the ball because it is a particular way, the spherical way; and the ways in question are distinct ways the ball is. Ways the ball is are, or appear to be, properties of the ball. (shrink)

This article shows Francisco Suárez’s conception of the eternal law, the natural law and of the human law. It also analyzes their different characteristics, and its relation with Suárez understanding of the _common good_. For me, the relation between law and natural law constitutes the basis to give solution to the nominalistic conflicts of the period. Those conflicts went so far as to deny the existence of _true justice_ in the civil law, and to understand that morality, being a fiction (...) of _human_ nature, is the necessary condition in order that the civil law and the legal right achieve the common good in society. (shrink)