Is Suárez’s Concept of Being Analogical or Univocal?

Abstract

This article deals with the question of Suarez's conception of being, which prima facie seems to oscillate between a Scotistic univocal conception and a conception of being according to the analogy of intrinsic attribution. The paper intends to show that Suarez's doctrine can in no way be interpreted as representative of the univocal conception, and proceeds in six steps. First, it highlights the importance of the Uncommon Doctor's theory of the unity of both the formal and the objective concepts of being. In the second part, the paper asks how the concept of being can, without any internal differentiation and structure, give rise to the different relations that it has to the natures subordinated to it. In the second and the third parts, this question receives an answer against the background of Suarez's critique of Scotus's conception, and with the help of his theory of the radical intimate transcendence of being. In the fourth section, there follows an exposition of Suarez's doctrine on the explication of the concept of being. The fifth section offers a brief presentation of the significance of esse for ratio entis. In the last section, the author places his interpretation in the general context of the Metaphysical Disputation.