Introduction To Scholastic Ontology

Introduction to Scholastic Ontology

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Introduction to Scholastic Ontology

I. Constituent Ontology

A constituent ontology, as I am conceiving of it, aims at a general characterization
of substances in terms of various types of constituents which are in some
straightforward sense intrinsic to them and compatible with their status as unified
wholes. Scholastic ontology is in this broad sense a constituent ontology.

Now every plausible ontology of material substances must acknowledge that such
substances have material constituents or parts and can thus be characterized as
composite in that sense. However, scholastic ontology sees the natures (or
essences) of such substances, as well as their characteristics (or accidents), as
individuals intrinsic to those substances and capable of existing only within
singular substances. The natures of such substances constitute them as entities of a
given natural kind, whereas their accidents (both those that emanate directly from
the natures and those that are peculiar to particular substances within a given
natural kind) are related to them by the 'transcendental' relation of inherence.

A non-constituent ontology, by contrast, aims at a general characterization of
substances in terms of their relations to entities (e.g., Platonistically conceived
universals or properties, including abstract essences and natures) that have their
being and reality independently of those substances. These natures and
characteristics of substances are in some obvious way extrinsic to them and linked
to them by the relation of exemplification or participation. On such a view all
individuals are in some sense lacking in intrinsic composition at any level other
than that of integral parts. At the very least, this sort of ontology does not think of
other sorts of composition as ontologically significant.

The recent literature on divine simplicity in analytic philosophy of religion
illustrates well how skewed matters become when those who work within a
non-constituent ontology try to address without adequate care or preparation
relevant aspects of scholastic metaphysics. For the scholastics were able to fashion
a substantive and metaphysically interesting account of the distinction between
God and creatures by characterizing God as wholly simple, i.e., wholly lacking in
the sorts of composition characteristic of creaturely substances. Thus, they
claimed, for instance, that in God there is no composition of form and matter, of
substance and accident, of esse and essentia, or of genus and difference. However,
each of these claims, if transformed without due care into the framework of
non-constituent ontology, leads to patent absurdities. (For an analysis of this
situation I recommend Nicholas Wolterstorff, "Divine Simplicity," Philosophical
Perspectives 5 (1991): 531-552.)

In what follows I will try to explain the motivations for the postulation of the

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various types of constituents posited by mainline Aristotelian scholastic
metaphysicians.

II. Modes of Composition in Scholastic Ontology

A. Physical composition

The requirement of physical composition arises from the analysis of change.
Aristotle posited three principles of change, viz., privation, form, and matter. The
matter of a given change is that which perdures through the change and is
modified by the change, whereas the form is the terminus ad quem of the change
and the privation the terminus a quo of the change.

In cases of qualified or accidental change, this analysis requires that there be a
composition of substance and accident, where the substance is the matter of the
change and the accident which comes to modify the substance is the form. This
accident or accidental form is a reality (perfection, sort of being) that depends for
its existence on the existence of the substance in which it inheres. Such accidents
are usually taken to fall into categories along the lines suggested by Aristotle,
though among the later medievals there were heated debates about the status of
accidents. Ockham, for instance, saw Aristotle's categories as a classification of
terms rather than of entities and went on to argue that only certain terms in the
category of quality signify distinctive entities; Suarez and St. Thomas, grants a
type of reality to all accidents, though Suarez assigns some the status of modes,
which, unlike full-fledged accidents, are only "modally distinct" and not "really
distinct" from the substances in which they inhere. (A real distinction implies
separability at least by God's absolute power.) Modes are something like states of
substances and have less unity and independence than do, say, qualities. In any
case, the three basic types of accidental change are (i) alteration (change with
respect to quality), (ii) augmentation and diminution (change with respect to
quantity), and local motion (change with respect to place). All changes with
respect to other categories are reducible, i.e., able to be traced back, to these three.

But Aristotle insisted, apparently in keeping with common sense but contrary to
received philosophical wisdom, that at least some really real things (ousiai) could
themselves come into and pass out of existence through change. If such
unqualified or substantial change is possible, there must be within the relevant
substances (or individual natures) a composition of (primary) matter and
(substantial) form. So the same matter can successively be a constituent of
different substances and even of different kinds of substances. The types of
substantial change are generation and corruption. (A note on Empedocles,
Anaxagoras, and the atomists).

The form/matter and substance/accident distinctions can both be seen as
determinations of the more general distinction between act and potency, since in
each case what we have is a determinable "matter" (a potentiality) being
determined or actualized or brought to completion by a determinant "form" (an
actuality), which is the terminus of the change.

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Aquinas's distinction between being (esse) and essence is yet another instance of
this general distinction between act and potency, one that is meant to
accommodate, contrary to received philosophical wisdom, the possibility of an
exercise of efficient causality that is not a modification of an existing matter or
substratum but is instead a creation ex nihilo of a substance with all its accidents
(essentia). In this case the notion of a principle of potentiality is stretched a bit,
since this principle does not exist prior to the exercise of efficient causality.
Nonetheless, Aquinas and his followers insist that the distinction between esse and
essence is a real distinction (in his sense of 'real distinction', which does not
involve separability) on a par with the distinctions between substance and accident
and between form and matter. (Suarez takes this distinction to be a conceptual
distinction with a foundation in reality, but this difference is not of present concern
to us.)

Thus we have the following:

Type of Causality

Act

(Passive)

Potency

creation/annihilation

esse

essentia

unqualified change:

generation & corruption

(substantial)

form

(primary)

matter

qualified change:

alteration & augmentation/diminution

& local motion

accident substance

B. Logical (alternatively: metaphysical) composition

The postulation of modes of physical composition arises from the analysis
of change; there is another sort of composition, the postulation of which
arises from broadly scientific considerations. If we think of scientific
theorizing as beginning with a taxonomy of natural kinds arranged
according to species and genus (reminiscent of Aristotle's category of
substance), and if we think of the goal of scientific inquiry as objective
knowledge of the natures of physical substances, then we will naturally ask
about the metaphysical grounds for our use of natural kinds terms, their
definitions, and predications in which such terms appear as the subject and
various (discovered) properties that 'emanate from' the relevant natures or
essences appear as predicates, e.g., 'Salt is soluble in water'. Such statements
(or 'laws') are in some obvious sense about universals or common natures
rather than primarily about singulars; or at least this much is true: If George
is a chunk of salt, then George is soluble by virtue of its being constituted as
a member of the natural kind salt.

Now all the scholastics agree that each secondary-substance or natural kind

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term has a composite definition that signals similarities among natural kinds
as well as differences. For instance, both angels and aardvarks are
substances, but the former are immaterial whereas the latter are material.
The question then is: Is there a distinctive metaphysical constituent of a
substance corresponding to each element in its definition? To take the
simple hackneyed example, is there within a human being a distinctive
'metaphysical' constituent corresponding to each of the following
natural-kind terms: 'substance', 'body' ('material substance'), 'living
substance', 'sentient substance' ('animal'), 'rational', and, finally, 'human
being' itself?

Duns Scotus, for one, argued that there must be distinctive constituents of
this sort (he called them 'formalities') if scientific methodology and theories
are to be well-grounded. This is why he thought of them as 'metaphysical'
constituents and then was faced with the problem of relating these
metaphysical constituents to the corresponding physical constituents
(matter/form) of the same substance. Also, Scotus thought that among the
metaphysical constituents or formalities of a given substance there must be
an individuator or individual difference that accounts for that substance's
metaphysical distinctness from the other members of the same lowest-level
species.

Most other scholastics, by contrast, deny that substances have distinctive
metaphysical constituents in addition to their physical constituents.
According to them, the problem is to show how the various logical or
conceptual constituents of natural kind concepts and their definitions are
related to the physical constituents of the relevant substances. How, for
instance, are distinctions like matter/form and substance/accident related to
concepts of genus, species, and difference? And in the background is the
question that held Aristotle's attention in the impenetrable middle books of
the Metaphysics, viz., how can entities that exhibit these various modes of
composition have the unity characteristic of primary substances?

With this background we are ready to look at the first two sections of
Disputation 5, in which Suarez characterizes singular or individual unity and
then asks what this sort of unity adds to the common nature in such a way as
to compose with that common nature a singular substance.

Alfred J. Freddoso
University of Notre Dame

Disp. 5, sect. 1

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Disputation 5, Section 1:

Are all things that exist or are able to exist singular and

individual?

I. Reasons for doubting an affirmative answer (n. 1)

A. The case of God: The divine nature is communicable to the three
divine persons, in the same way that the common nature human being,
which is not a singular entity, is communicable to many individuals.

B. The case of angels: Angels have only specific or essential unity and
not numerical or singular unity. So each angel is akin to what the
common nature human being would be if it existed on its own as
such.

C. The case of common natures as existing in individuals: The
common nature human being exists in Peter and Paul and is not as
such a singular thing.

II. An analysis of the notion of individual (or singular or numerical)
unity (nn. 2-3)

A. Analysis: That which is singular or individual is opposed to that
which is common or universal (i.e., that which has specific or generic
unity rather than numerical unity) in the sense that that which is
singular or individual "is one in such a way that, under that notion of
being by which it is called one, it is not communicable to many as to
things which are [logically] inferior to or subordinated to it, or to
things which are many within that same notion." For instance, the
common nature human being lacks singular unity because it is
communicable to and common to many humanities (Peter, Paul, Joan,
etc.) which share the same notion, viz., human being. By contrast,
Peter, i.e., this humanity, is not common to many individuals which
share the notion this humanity. Also, Peter and Paul are subordinated
to human being in the sense of falling under it as determinates under a
determinable. So what is distinctive about numerical or individual
unity is the negation of a certain sort of divisibility, viz., divisibility of
a determinable into lower-level determinates.

B. Amplification: "Singular entitas is such that it is not the case that
its whole notion (ratio) is communicable to many similar entitates,

Disp. 5, sect. 1

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i.e., divisible into many entitates which are such as it itself is." Note
that even per accidens unities (e.g., a heap of stones), numbers greater
than one, and common natures (i.e., genera and species) themselves
have a sort of individuality. But they do not have full-fledged singular
unity because they are not per se entities, i.e., entities that as such
have natures capable of existing `in an unmediated way'. "So the
notion of per se individual and singular unity consists in entitas that is
by its nature one per se and is undivided or incommunicable in the
aforementioned sense."

III. the resolution of the question (nn. 4-5)

A. The answer: "Given that the notion of an individual or singular
being has been explicated in the above way, one should claim that all
things which are actual beings, i.e., which exist or are able to exist in
an unmediated way, are singular and individual. I say `in an
unmediated way' in order to exclude the common natures of things,
which cannot as such exist in an unmediated way or have actual
entitas except within singular and individual entities--the latter being
such that if they are destroyed, then it is impossible for anything real
to remain."

Question: Given this, what distinguishes common natures from
accidents?

B. Argument:

(1) Whatever exists has a fixed and determinate entitas.
(2) But every such entitas has an added negation.
Therefore, every such entitas has singularity and individual
unity.

Proof of (2): Every entitas, by the very fact that it is a
determinate entitas, is unable to be divided from itself;
therefore, every entitas is also such that it cannot be
divided into many entitates which are such as it is (since
otherwise the whole entitas would be in each of them and
so it would, insofar as it exists in one of them, be divided
from itself insofar as it exists in another--which is
manifestly absurd).

According to Suarez, this argument shows that universals
cannot exist in reality separate from singular things. The
argument depends crucially on the rhetorical question:
How can a universal be truly predicated of, or essentially
constitute, a singular thing unless it exists in that thing?
That is, how can the essence or nature of a given thing be

Disp. 5, sect. 1

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something separate from it that does not exist within it?
This is precisely the question that many modern-day
Platonists answer with a resounding: "Easy! That's just
the way it is."

IV. Reply to original reasons for doubting an affirmative answer (nn.
6-8)

To A: The divine nature is singular and is communicable to the
persons not as a superior to an inferior (or species to an individual),
but in the manner of a form to a suppositum. The nature is not divided
from itself, but instead is whole in each of them. Note, then, that the
relation of the divine nature to the three divine persons is not to be
thought of as like the relation of the common nature human being to
Peter, Joan, and Paul. It's rather as if the same singular humanity were
each of Peter, Joan, and Paul. This is why the Trinity is mysterious.

To B: Some Thomists think that spiritual natures are like abstract
specific essences, but this will be discussed later. In the meantime, we
simply deny that angelic natures are anything other than singulars, and
this independently of how one answers the question of whether an
angelic nature can be multiplied in many individuals within the same
species.

To C: Human being, as it exists in reality, is singular, since it is
nothing other than Peter, Paul, etc. But whether it is in any sense
distinct from the individuals will be discussed in the next chapter.

V. Three separate questions concerning individuation

A. The individuality question: What is the intrinsic principle by virtue
of which a thing of a given species, say the species aardvark, is this
aardvark or numerically one aardvark or an individual aardvark? That
is, what constitutes it as something which is, as the Latin term
individuum suggests, indivisible into things each of which shares the
very same notion?

B. The distinctness question: Given a pair of individuals of the same
species, what is the intrinsic principle by virtue of which this one is
distinct from that one? (Note that distinctness is different from
individuality or numerical unity, since distinctness, unlike
individuality, is a relation that presupposes the existence of at least
two individuals.)

Disp. 5, sect. 1

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C. The plurality question: What makes numerical plurality within a
given species possible? That is, what is the metaphysical ground for
the possibility that there should exist more than one individual of a
given species? (This question is obviously different from the
individuality question, since it is conceivable that an individual should
belong to a species that cannot be multiplied into many individuals;
this, of course, is just what St. Thomas himself believes to be true of
the angelic species. The plurality question also differs from the
distinctness question, even though they are intimately related; for the
distinctness question has a place only on the assumption that there is a
plurality of individuals within a given species.)

Disp. 5, sect. 2

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Disputation 5, Section 2:

Is it the case that in all natures the individual and singular thing

as such adds something over and beyond the common, i.e.,

specific, nature?

I. The nature of the question (nn. 1 & 7)

"In order to clarify what this [individual and singular unity] is, we
cannot do better than to explain what it adds over and above the
common nature, i.e., the nature that is conceived by us abstractly and
universally."

"None of the authors doubts that the individual adds, over and beyond
the common nature, a certain negation that formally completes or
constitutes the unity of the individual. This is evident ... from what we
said above concerning the notion or nominal definition of an
individual. Indeed, if we are speaking formally about the individual
insofar as it is one in the relevant sense, it adds a negation in its
formal concept not only over and beyond the common nature
conceived of abstractly and universally, but even over and beyond the
whole singular entitas conceived of merely under a positive concept;
for this whole entitas is not conceived of as one in a singular and
individual way until it is conceived of as incapable of being divided
into many things that have the same notion."

"Therefore, the present problem is not about whether or not such a
negation formally pertains to the notion of this sort of unity ... Rather,
it is a problem about the ground for this negation. For since it does
not seem able to be grounded in the common nature (given that the
common nature is of itself indifferent and does not require such a lack
of divisibility into many similar things, but is indeed divided into
them), we are asking what it is within the singular and individual
thing by reason of which this negation belongs to it."

So the question is: does individual unity add to the individual some
positive entity over and above the common nature, a positive entity
that grounds the indivisibility that defines individuality?

II. Three popular positions on this question (nn. 2-6)

Disp. 5, sect. 2

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A. Affirmative: "The first position affirms in general that at least in the
case of created things the individual adds to the common nature some
real mode which (i) is in reality distinct from the nature itself and
which (ii) composes, along with that nature, the individual itself."

Main protagonist: Scotus with his individual differences. The
main arguments stem from (i) the object of scientific
knowledge (viz., the common nature) and its distinction from
individuals that have that nature, and from (ii) reflection on the
idea that the common nature, which constitutes the essence of
the individual, is common to many individuals and so cannot
itself account for individuality, which must consequently be
traced to some other reality.

B. Negative: "The second position is the exact opposite, viz., that the
individual adds to the common nature nothing that is positive and real
and nothing that is distinct, either really or conceptually, from that
nature; rather, each thing or nature is per se an individual in an
unmediated and primary way."

Main protagonists: Ockham, Biel, and the other nominalists.
The main argument is that there is no conceivable thing that is
not singular and so it is absurd that an [already existent] thing
should become individual by the addition of some real thing
over and beyond the common nature. Also, this addition would
be either essential to the thing or accidental to it--and both
answers lead to absurdities.

C. Affirmative for material things and negative for spiritual things:
"The third position is able to make use of the distinction between
spiritual and material things. For in the case of immaterial things the
singular thing adds nothing over and beyond the common nature,
whereas in material things it does add something ... The foundation
for this position is the claim that since immaterial substances neither
have matter nor bespeak a relation to matter, it is impossible to
imagine anything in them which they add over and beyond the
essence, and so they are individuals by their very selves; by contrast,
in composite things designated matter is added, and from this matter
one can infer something that the individual adds over and beyond the
species."

Main protagonists: Various Thomists (including St. Thomas?),
following Aristotle's dictum that in material things there is a
distinction between the essence (quod quid est) of a thing and
that which has the essence (id cuius est), whereas there is no
such distinction in immaterial things. The background idea is
that in the case of material things matter is in some way a
source of individuality.

Disp. 5, sect. 2

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III. Suarez's resolution of the question (nn. 8-30)

In resolving this question Suarez asserts and defends four theses which,
taken together, define a position distinct from the three just noted. I will
state these theses and give the barest indication of how he supports them.

A. The Theses

Thesis 1 (n. 8): The individual adds, over and beyond the
common nature, something real by reason of which (i) it is an
individual of the sort in question, and by reason of which (ii)
the negation of divisibility into many similar things belongs to
it.

Thesis 2 (n. 9): The individual, as such, does not add anything
that is distinct in reality from the specific nature--that is,
distinct in such a way that in this individual, say Peter,
humanity as such and this humanity (or better: that which is
added to humanity in order for it to become this humanity,
something that is usually called a haecceity or individual
difference) are distinct in reality and thus bring about a true
composition within the thing itself.

Thesis 3 (n. 16): The individual adds, over and beyond the
common nature, something which (i) is conceptually (ratione)
distinct from the nature, which (ii) belongs to the same category
(i.e., the reality grounding the individual difference is not an
accident), and which (iii), as an individual difference that
contracts the species and constitutes the individual,
metaphysically composes the individual .

Thesis 4 (n. 21): The individual, not only in material things and
in accidents but also in created and finite immaterial substances,
adds something conceptually distinct over and beyond the
species.

B. The Main Arguments:

For Thesis 1 (n. 8): "The common nature does not of itself
require such a negation, and yet such a negation belongs per se
and intrinsically to that nature insofar as it exists in reality and
has been made a this. Therefore, it adds to the nature something
by virtue of which the negation is adjoined to it. For every
negation that intrinsically and necessarily belongs to a thing is
grounded in something positive, something that cannot be a
concept but is instead real, since the unity and negation in

Disp. 5, sect. 2

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question belong to the thing itself truly and of itself." So on this
point Suarez agrees with Scotus. His contention, I believe, is
best seen as a confirmation that there is something real in an
individual in addition to whatever objective grounding there is
for its being a member of a given species. This is a very general
claim that leaves open the question of whether there is a distinct
reality or entitas that grounds individuality. So Thesis 1 says
something like: "Yes, there is an objective ground for
individuality, just as there is an objective ground for
membership in a natural kind, and we can at least make a
conceptual distinction between the two and think of the former
as adding something to the latter."

For Thesis 2 (nn. 9-15): Here Suarez first points out that anyone
who denies that natures exist in reality as universals ought to
accept this thesis, since a denial of Thesis 2 involves the claim
that the common nature is itself a thing (res) or at least a mode
with its own per se unity. From here the dialectic becomes
complicated, mainly because Suarez attempts to meet head-on
the Scotistic claim that there is an objective distinction, viz., a
formal distinction, between the common nature and the
individual difference. The best way to think of Scotus's formal
distinction is this: In the case of the human being Socrates,
corresponding to the terms or concepts human nature and
Socrates there are two 'formalities' or 'realities', the common
nature and the individual difference, which in themselves have
the sort of individuality appropriate to them but which unite
inseparably in the individual Socrates to constitute that
individual with its numerical or singular unity. So in itself the
nature has a "formal unity" that is "less than numerical unity,"
though as it exists in Socrates it is 'contracted' to this individual
and is 'really' identical with Socrates and his individual
difference. So within Socrates himself the common nature and
individual difference are "formally distinct from one another
but really identical with one another," where the formal
distinction is not just a conceptual distinction, but a distinction
'in reality', to use Suarez's term. Suarez, like most other
scholastics, finds this notion of a 'formal distinction' baffling
and full of contradictions: "Even though within the nature
[considered in abstraction from its individuation] this formal
unity can be conceptually distinguished from individual unity,
nonetheless it is inconceivable that it should, as abstracted, exist
in reality with its own entitas and be distinct in reality from
individual unity, and that it should as such also lack universal
unity." His own contention is that within the individual there is
an objective ground for the distinction between the concepts of
the common nature and the individual, but that there is no neat
fit between these concepts and the actually existing individual.

Disp. 5, sect. 2

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An argument that illustrates this is found in n. 14: "The
individual differences of Peter and Paul are distinct in reality
from one another as two things (res) that are incomplete but
singular and individual in the way in which they exist. And yet
these individual differences have a similarity to and agreement
with one another. For they are in fact more similar to each other
than they are to the individual difference of a horse or a lion.
And [yet] it is not necessary to distinguish in reality, within
them, a thing in which they are similar from a thing in which
they are distinct. Otherwise, there would be an infinite
regress--which is absurd among things or modes that are
distinct in reality."

For Thesis 3 (nn. 16-20): This thesis follows rather
straightforwardly from the first two, since if the individual adds
something to the nature in the way explained above but is not a
distinctive real entity, then the distinction between what
grounds the attribution of the common nature and what grounds
the attribution of individuality must be a well-grounded
distinction among concepts, where the composition alluded to
in part (iii) of Thesis 3 is a composition of concepts or a 'formal'
composition.

For Thesis 4 (nn. 21-30): It is only in the case of an infinite
being that a metaphysical (i.e., conceptual) composition of the
sort in question cannot even be imagined. And given the
explanation of the first three theses there is no reason why even
immaterial substances should not fall under those theses: "For
in any immaterial substance that is individual and finite, e.g.,
the archangel Gabriel, the mind conceives both (i) this
individual (since it conceives numerically this individual) and
(ii) its essential and specific notion, which does not essentially
include either (i) numerically this entitas or (ii) any positive
repugnance toward its being able to be communicated to
another individual. Therefore, in such a case the mind conceives
something common and something which is conceptually added
to the latter in order that it be determined to this individual.
Therefore, in precisely this respect there is no difference
between immaterial substances and other things." Suarez then
goes on to counter the arguments of Thomists by accusing them
of begging the question by presupposing that matter is the
ground or principle of individuation. But this will be disproved
in the next section. Also, he points out that even if matter were
the principle of individuation for material things, it would not
follow that individuality does not have some other principle in
angels. We have to look at each case separately.

Disp. 5, sect. 2

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IV. Replies to the three positions laid out at the beginning (nn. 31-39)

A. Reply to First Position (IIA above and nn. 31-33): The arguments
for this position "establish only that the specific nature expresses an
objective concept that is abstracted by reason from the individuals and
that, conversely, the individual adds something conceptually distinct
over and beyond the common nature. For human science has to do
with things as conceived universally, to which definitions and
demonstrations pertain immediately. And for this it is sufficient that
they be able to be abstracted conceptually, even though they are not
separate in reality. This is clear from what was said above about the
concept being, about which (i) there is scientific knowledge and about
which (ii) demonstrations can be made, even though it is obvious that
it does not in fact exist as abstracted from the proper notions of
beings, but instead is abstracted only conceptually. Hence, this sort of
distinction is also sufficient for causal locutions such as 'Because man
is risible, Peter is risible'. For in these locutions there is no real and
physical cause that mediates between Peter and risible, but instead
what is being explicated is the adequate reason and origin of the
property in question." What's more, in the other arguments for this
position there is a fallacy committed when one "argues from our mode
of conceiving, or from the use of the words by which we signify
things as conceived by us, to the things as they exist in themselves,
thus inferring a distinction among things from a conceptual
distinction." This latter sort of fallacy was labeled by Ockham as one
of the two worst mistakes in philosophy. (The other was the
postulation of universals as separately existing entities.)

B. Reply to Second Position (IIB above and nn. 34-37): In the end
Suarez's own position has a marked similarity to this second position
and so it is interesting to see his reply to it. "As for the first argument
for the second position, one may reply that the argument correctly
proves that a thing is not made singular through the addition of a
reality or mode that is distinct in reality from the nature which is said
to become singular ... . However, that argument does not prove that it
is impossible for a thing to be made singular through the addition of
something that is conceptually distinct, since this sort of distinction
does not presuppose an actual entitas and hence does not presuppose
singularity in both of the terms. For since this distinction exists by
means of concepts, it can be readily understood to be a distinction
between a thing conceived universally and its mode." Notice that in
replying to Cajetan Suarez is careful to separate the act/potency
distinction as applied to real entities from the act/potency distinction
as applied analogously to concepts. After denying that the reality
which grounds individual unity can be accidental to the individual,
Suarez gives the following, rather illuminating summary:

"Thus it follows that our mind conceives that in which the

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individuals agree with one another as some one thing and as
that which is 'formal' in them and which contributes per se to
scientific knowledge. For a distinction merely in entitas is
thought of as being, as it were, accidental and so is called
'material'. And for the same reason there is no scientific
definition except of the common and specific concept; and it is
in this sense that the lowest-level species is called the whole
essence of the individuals, viz., the essence as formally and
precisely taken and conceived, and the essence insofar as the
cognition of it merits human scientific knowledge. For
scientific knowledge does not descend to particulars according
to their proper and individual notions, since it is unable to grasp
them as they exist in themselves and does not deal with the
accidents proper to individuals. For either these accidents
belong to them contingently and accidentally; or else, if some
are perchance altogether proper, then they are as hidden as
individual differences are. And, finally, it would be a difficult
and almost infinite task to descend to each particular. Yet there
is no doubt that individuals, even if they differ solely in
number, have distinct essences in reality--essences which, if
they were conceived of and explicated as they exist in
themselves, would have to be explained through diverse
concepts and definitions. And they would also have distinct
properties, at least in reality or in accord with some proper
mode, and under this notion they are subject to angelic and
divine knowledge."

C. Reply to Third Position (IIC above and nn. 38-39): Suarez finds in
Aristotle no good argument for the claim that there is a deep
difference between immaterial and material substances on the issue of
individuation and individuality. In reply to the argument he says the
following:

"Even though this principle of individuation [viz., matter] does
not exist in immaterial things, there must nonetheless be some
analogous principle. For even these substances are individuals
not by dint of their specific notion but by dint of their singular
notion. Hence, when a spiritual substance is said to be an
individual by its very self, if 'by its very self' is taken to mean
'by dint of its specific notion,' then the question is begged and
something false is assumed, as has been shown. On the other
hand, if 'by its very self' is taken to mean 'through its own
entitas,' then this is indeed true, but it does not at all prevent it
from being the case that within that very entitas the specific
notion and the individual difference are conceptually distinct,
and that the same entitas can in different respects be the
principle and ground for both of them. For on this point the
argument is almost the same as in the case of material

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substances. For regardless of whether it is designated matter or
some other thing that is called the principle of individuation for
material substances, this principle cannot be anything that is not
the essential entitas itself of the thing--whether its whole entitas
or part of it. Hence, within that entitas one has to distinguish
both (i) the specific notion, by reason of which [the entitas] is
said to be the essence or a part of the essence, and (ii) another
notion that is conceptually but not really distinct, by reason of
which [the entitas] is said to be the principle of individuation."

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Disputation 5, Section 3:

Is designated matter the principle of individuation in material substances?

I. The meaning of the question (nn. 1-2)

We have already seen that we can think of the individual as adding something real to the
common nature in such a way as to constitute the individual. The composition itself is a
'metaphysical' composition in which the specific nature is contracted by the individual
difference in such a way as to formally constitute the individual--in a way strictly analogous
to that in which the generic nature is contracted by the specific difference to constitute the
species. Thus, some philosophers, most notably Scotus, have assumed that once we
understand this relation between the specific nature and the individual, we see that the
principle of individuation is the individual difference, and so there is no need to look for any
further principle of individuation.

But, of course, on Suarez's view the composition in question, while grounded in reality, is
itself merely a conceptual composition. So there is, he insists, a further question: What is it
within the thing itself that grounds the concept of the individual difference? And to motivate
the question, he notes, first, that philosophers often say, in the case of the definition of a
species, that the genus is taken from the matter whereas the specific difference is taken from
the form--and this even though the species is composed 'metaphysically' of the genus and
specific difference. Second, and perhaps more illuminating, we can understand what is
meant by saying that among the predicates true of a given substance, say the man Socrates,
(i) some are taken from his matter (e.g., 'material substance', 'snub-nosed', 'six feet tall'), (ii)
some are taken from his form (e.g., 'rational', 'capable of free decision'), and (iii) some are
taken from the composite (e.g., 'human being', 'tentmaker'). So the search for a principle of
individuation is a search for the physical component or components grounding the concept
of the individual difference.

II. Matter as the principle of individuation: initial exposition and objections (nn. 3-7)

A. The lure of matter: It is easy enough to see why matter might at first seem relevant to the
question of what distinguishes individuals of the same species from one another. It seems
that two red oaks, for instance, are distinct from one another because they are or include
distinct 'packets' of matter. Aristotle seems to have been of this view, as well as St. Thomas.
As a matter of fact, though, Suarez thinks that the authorities appealed to by this position
are a lot more impressive than the arguments usually adduced for it. Let us look briefly at
the three arguments and Suarez's reply to them. (It should be noted that unless otherwise
indicated, the term 'matter' is being used here to denote the bare primary principle of
determinability in material things, prior to and independently of its receiving quantity, i.e.,
determinate geometrical dimensions. Matter as subject to determinate dimensions is materia

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signata a quantitate or designated matter.)

B. Arguments and objections

Argument 1:

(1) Matter is the principle of multiplication and numerical distinctness among
individuals within the same species.
(2) But that which is the principle of numerical distinctness is also the principle
of individuation.
Therefore, matter is the principle of individuation.

Objections:

Someone could readily reply that (1) is false. For that which is the principle of
distinctness is also the principle of multiplication, and, as St. Thomas himself
says, the first principle of distinctness is not matter, but form. The idea is
something like this: In the division of, say, armadillohood into distinct
individuals, a given individual's having armadillo-like geometrical dimensions
is metaphysically prior to and explains the division of the relevant matter into
distinct armadillo-like packets. Some Thomists accept this and claim that
numerical unity has two aspects, viz., (i) incommunicability to inferiors and (ii)
distinctness from other individuals, and that matter as such is the principle only
of the incommunicability, whereas quantity is the principle of the distinctness.
The idea is that matter, taken as completely bereft of form, itself stands in need
of some form, viz., determinate quanititative dimensions, in order to be
chopped up into distinct packets, as it were. These authors must thus disavow
Argument 1. Note that Suarez does not endorse this objection without
qualification. However, he does take these Thomist arguments to show at least
that there is no reason why the whole notion of numerical distinctness should
be attributed to matter rather than to form. For Suarez himself will try to show
that even matter as such has some 'entitative act' that distinguishes one matter
from another.

---------------------------------------------------

Argument 2:

(1) It is that which is incommunicable to similar inferiors that is an individual.
(2) But matter is the first ground and principle of this incommunicability (given
that form is an act and so is of itself communicable to something, viz., matter).
Therefore, matter is the principle of individuation.

Objections:

In reply Suarez claims that (1) is equivocal and goes on to distinguish no fewer
than five possible sorts of communicability and corresponding
incommunicability:

(a) x's communicability to y insofar as y is a subject which x informs or in
which x inheres
(b) x's communicability to y insofar as x is a cause of y
(c) x's communicability to y insofar as x is a part of y

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(d) x's communicability to y insofar as x is a nature had by the
suppositum y
(e) x's communicability to y insofar as x is a superior shared by y, which
is inferior to it or subordinated to it.

Matter is indeed incommunicable to anything in sense (a). But this sort of
incommunicability is not necessary for individuation, since accidents (and
substantial forms) lack it even though they are individuals. Nor is it sufficient
for individuality, since matter is incommunicable in this sense by dint of its
species and yet is not an individual by dint of its species, but is instead by dint
of its species common to many numerically different matters.
In sense (b) matter is communicable to form in the sense of sustaining it and in
that way being a 'cause' of it.
In sense (c) matter is communicable to the composite substance as a part to a
whole and as a (material) cause to its effect. For it communicates actual entitas
intrinsically (as opposed to extrinsically, like an efficient cause) to the
composite.
In sense (d) matter, as a part of the nature of a composite substance, is
communicable to its own suppositum, i.e., to the substance qua ultimate subject
of predication.
Finally, in sense (e), which is the sense relevant to individual unity, matter is as
such communicable to many inferiors, which can be its subject in the order of
predication--as when we say that Socrates has matter and Plato has matter.
Someone might object that it is matter in general, and not the designated matter
of the individuals, that is communicated in this way, and that designated matter,
by contrast, is not so communicable and can thus be the principle of
individuation. The reply is that designated matter does not have its
incommunicability by virtue of its being the first and most basic subject, which
is the notion appealed to by Argument 2. So if it is incommunicable, it gets this
incommunicability from something other than its being matter. But this
'something other' will be a feature that it shares with form (see below). This is
borne out by the fact that God and angels are 'first subjects' in the relevant sense
even though they have no matter.

---------------------------------------------------

Argument 3:

(1) The individual is the first subject in a metaphysical (categorial) ordering
(since all the superiors are predicated of it).
(2) Therefore, the first principle and ground of the individual as such must be
that which is the first subject among the physical principles or components of
the individual.
(3) But this is matter.
Therefore, matter is the first principle and ground of the individual as such.

Objections:

Being a subject of inherence (as matter is) is far different from being a subject
of predication (as the individual is). Even though there is an analogy between
the two, one sees in the case of simple substantival forms a subject of

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predication without any subject of inherence. And an individual is as such a
first subject of predication: "Thus it is not necessary for that which is the first
subject in the order of generation and imperfection to be the first principle and
ground of the individual, which is the first subject in the order of predication,
containing within itself all the perfection of the superiors and adding something
proper by which it, as it were, completes and brings to fulfillment those
perfections."

III. The three modes of explaining designated matter (nn. 8-33)

A. Introduction (n. 8): Despite the fact that the foregoing arguments do not establish that
matter is the ground or principle of individuation, the authority of Aristotle and St. Thomas
is great enough that this position would at least be a reasonable one if it could be plausibly,
even if not absolutely convincingly, defended. The first difficulty is that matter is itself
common--common not only in the sense that it is communicable to many individuals at
once as a quasi-species but also in the sense that numerically the same 'chunk' of matter can
exist 'under' many forms successively in time. This is why the Thomists claim that it is not
matter as such, but rather designated matter, i.e., matter 'signed by quantity' and possessing
determinate geometrical dimensions, that is the principle of individuation. But the
explication of this notion is subject to many difficulties and disagreements. Suarez's strategy
is to distinguish three different accounts of designated matter and to show that each of them
fails as an account of the principle of individuation.

B. First analysis (nn. 9-17)

"The first explanation is that matter signed by quantity is nothing other than matter
with quantity or matter affected by quantity; they think that the principle of
individuation is, as it were, wholly made up of these two things, so that matter confers
incommunicability and quantity confers [numerical] distinctness, as was explained
above."

The argument:

(1) In order for matter to be the principle of individuation, something is
required that distinguishes this matter from that matter.
(2) But this something is not matter itself, since distinctness must be brought
about by an act, whereas matter as such is pure potentiality.
(3) Nor is this something the [substantial] form, since, to the contrary, this form
is distinct from that form precisely because it is effected and received in a
distinct matter.
Therefore, this something is quantity.

Three objections:

(1) On the assumption that the proponents of the argument hold, as they do,
that quantity inheres in and is an accident of the whole composite substance
and not the matter of the substance, so that the same quantity does not perdure

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through generation and corruption: The substance qua individual is
metaphysically prior to quantity in the way that a substance is metaphysically
prior to its accidents. Hence, the quantity cannot constitute the substance as an
individual. "From this it follows that at first numerically this form is introduced
into this matter, and that the quantity follows upon this."

(2) On the assumption that the proponents of the argument mean to claim that
the quantity inheres in the matter prior to its inhering in the composite
substance, so that the quantity perdures through generation and corruption:
On this view designated matter, as well as matter as such, can exist under
diverse forms and hence in numerically distinct individuals. So just as they
argued above that common matter cannot be the principle of distinctness, so by
the same argument it follows that designated matter cannot be the principle of
distinctness or the principle of individuation. The Thomistic reply to this
objection plunges us into the labyrinth of St. Thomas's commentary on
Boethius's De Trinitate. For the claim is that it is matter with indeterminate
dimensions (perhaps: matter with some determinate dimensions or other) that is
thus common, whereas matter with determinate dimensions (perhaps: matter
with these particular dimensions) is not common in this way. In response,
Suarez asks: What do these determinate dimensions add over and beyond
quantity? If they add only a certain width, breadth, and depth, the same problem
arises since such dimensions can be common to many individuals. If they add
in addition certain dispositions, causal properties, and other qualities that
together determine the matter to one individual substantial form rather than
another, then, to be sure, designated matter in this sense cannot be common to
another. But this cannot be what the Thomists mean and, in addition, it cannot
be true. For, first, if this were so, then it would be more than quantity that is the
principle of individuation; it would be "quantified matter as signed by these
qualities". Second, on this view the accidents by which the matter is disposed
for this form would be intrinsically included in the principle of individuation;
but the accidents of a substance, in contrast to its principle of individuation,
cannot be intrinsically and formally included in the substance itself (thought of
as distinct from its accidents). Rather, they presuppose the substance and as
such are posterior to it.

(3) "By abstracting from [the above assumptions] we argue in a third way: Even
though a thing's existing in itself as one thing is prior in nature to its being
distinct from other things, still, the latter follows intrinsically from the former
without any positive addition that comes to the thing that is one; rather, it
follows just through the negation by which, once the other term is posited, it is
true to say that this is not that. And so the same positive thing which grounds
the unity as regards the first negation, i.e., the intrinsic indivisibility,
consequently grounds in addition the second negation, i.e., the distinctness
from another. On this score it is often said--and absolutely correctly--that a
thing is distinct from others by virtue of that through which it is constituted in
itself, since it is distinct by virtue of that by which it exists ... Therefore, in the
case of individual unity, that which is the principle of the individual as regards
its constitution and its incommunicability or indivisibility in itself is also the
principle of its distinctness from others. And, conversely, whatever is the

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principle of distinctness must also be the principle of constitution. Therefore, if
matter, by itself and excluding quantity, constitutes an individual that is in itself
incommunicable and one, then it also makes it distinct from others;
alternatively, if it cannot confer distinctness, then it cannot confer the
incommunicability of individuation, either ... And the same argument can be
made with regard to quantity as well." Suarez goes on to make a distinction
among three different kinds of distinctness and corresponding unity:

(a) distinctness with respect to quantity (distinctio quantitativa): Quantity
first gives its substance quantitative unity, "which consists in its being the
case that one substance exists under quantitative limits distinct from
those of another substance, in such a way that the one is not continuous
with the other by a proper continuity of quantity." Suarez has already
argued that quantitative unity presupposes the individual unity of the
substance it modifies and hence cannot be the ground for that individual
unity.

(b) distinctness with respect to position or place (distinctio situalis):
Quantity then (i.e., later in the order of nature) makes it the case that "one
substance exists outside the position or place of another." The
corresponding sort of unity is obviously extrinsic to a material substance,
since such a substance can change its place without ceasing to exist as
the same individual.

His claim is that (c) is prior to (a) and (b). Indeed, this account of the relation
between individual or numerical unity, on the one hand, and quantitative and
positional unity on the other leaves open at least the following conceptual
possibilities: that a material substance should exist without any quantity at all,
i.e., without determinate dimensions; that a material substance should exist
without being in a place; that a material substance should exist at one and the
same time in two discontinuous places; that two material things should exist in
exactly the same place. As a matter of fact, Suarez has theological reasons for
thinking that God can actualize each of these possibilities. But even someone
who is sceptical on that point can at least appreciate the fact that there are
distinct concepts involved in the three sorts of distinctness and that we can ask
coherently whether, say, two distinct material bodies can occupy the same
place, or whether one material substance can simultaneously be in two distinct
places. Suarez ends this section by accusing Soncinas and Ferrariensis of
conflating the transcendental unity which is the subject of the present
disputation and the categorial unity or oneness which is conferred by a
substance's quantity and which, as we have seen, presupposes transcendental
unity.

C. Second analysis (nn. 18-27)

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intrinsically, but rather as the terminus of the matter's disposition toward quantity. For
matter is by its nature susceptible to quantity, but it cannot as such be the complete
principle of individuation. For it is indifferent to any given quantity, just as it is
indifferent to any given form. However, by the action of the agent previous to
generation the matter is determined in such a way as to be susceptible to this quantity
and not another; and it is this matter which, as such, is called the principle of
individuation. By 'quantity' here we mean not just mathematical quantity but physical
quantity, i.e., quantity affected by physical qualities and dispositions." So on this view
matter signed by quantity is matter as predisposed by an agent for this determinate set
of dimensions. Thus, the objection to the first analysis is circumvented by the fact that
on this analysis the principle of individuation precedes the actual inherence of
quantity in either the matter or the substance. Rather, the matter is signed by virtue of
the fact that the agent imparts to it a disposition for this set of quantitative
dimensions.

Rationale:

The ensuing discussion becomes fairly complicated, but is interesting because it
gets to the heart of Aristotelian anti-reductionism. To see this, ponder the
following question: What is it that distinguishes a unified living organism at the
instant of its generation from an agglomeration of the preexisting substances
that provide the new substance's matter? On an Aristotelian view, the general
ontological answer to this question is that at that instant the matter in question
is informed directly and primarily by the new organism's substantial form or
form of the whole. It is this principle which unifies the substance and to which
all its characteristics, dispositions, and powers are subordinated. But in order
for this to be the case, and in order for it to be the case further that the accidents
of the new organism are primarily its accidents and not the accidents of the
other substances from which it was formed, we must conceive of the matter that
is so informed by the substantial form as being, at the instant of generation, a
materia nuda that is wholly receptive and wholly non-resistive with respect to
the form. We should note immediately that this does not entail that it is
naturally possible that just any substantial form should inform the matter at that
instant, since, as Suarez puts it, there is "a natural sequence by which this agent
here and now is determined by a natural ordering to introduce this form,
immediately after this alteration." Nor does it entail that materia nuda can ever
exist on its own as such. Nonetheless, if substantival generation is indeed
possible, it must be the case at the instant of generation that (i) the previous
substances, now altered in such a way as to prepare for the generation of the
new substance, cease to exist as such, along with their accidents, and that (ii)
the matter of the old substances comes directly under the unifying function of
the new substantial form.

Objections:

Given this picture, it is easier to understand the dialectic that unfolds as Suarez
criticizes the second analysis. The proponents of this analysis agree that what
makes the organism an individual cannot be quantity insofar as quantity is one
of its accidents, and this for the reasons set out above. Thus if designated matter

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is to be the principle of individuality, it must be conceived of as naturally (even
if not temporally) prior to the generation of the substance as an individual. This
is why, on the second analysis, matter as the ground for individuation is the
matter insofar as it is conceived of as (i) naturally prior to the generation, (ii) in
the immediate or last preparation (or disposition) for the form, and (iii)
predisposed for the particular quantitative dimensions which will characterize
the substance itself. Much of Suarez's argument is meant to show these three
requirements are in conflict, since (i) and (ii) entail that what we are talking
about is materia nuda, whereas (iii) entails that this matter has positive
dispositions. All the attempts to avoid this basic contradiction are found
wanting.

D. Third analysis (nn. 28-33)

This analysis in effect gives up the claim that designated matter is in any way an
intrinsic principle of individuality. Suarez attributes four theses to the proponents of
this analysis:

Thesis 1: "Thus, first of all, speaking of the principle that constitutes the
individual in reality and from which is truly taken the individual difference that
contracts the species and constitutes the individual, this position denies that
designated matter is the principle of individuation."

Thesis 2: "Second, this position claims that matter is the principle and root of
the multiplication of individuals among material substances."

Thesis 3: "Third, this position claims that matter signed by quantity is the
principle and root of--or at least the occasion for--the production of this
individual as distinct from the rest."

Thesis 4: "Fourth, this position adds that 'matter signed by sensible quantity'
expresses the principle of individuation with respect to us, since it is through
this principle that we have cognition of the distinction of material individuals
from one another."

Suarez accepts Thesis 1, and he also accepts a version of Thesis 2 according to which
matter as such (rather than designated matter) is the principle of multiplication among
material substances. There is a long discussion of Thesis 3, in which Suarez poses
two interesting questions:

(a) Is matter the explanation for the fact that in a given instance of efficient
causality, it is this rather than that actual individual that is produced?

(b) Is matter the explanation for the fact that in a given instance of efficient
causality, it is this rather than some other possible individual, whose essence
would include just the same matter, that is produced?

He answers yes to (a). And he also gives a tentative yes to (b), as long as the matter is
thought of as designated and affected by other dispositions. He also accepts Thesis 4,
but worries in the end about whether this third analysis of designated matter is really

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what St. Thomas had in mind, since it gives no rationale for St. Thomas's insistence
that angelic species cannot be multiplied in many individuals.

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Disputation 5, Section 4:

Is the substantial form the principle of individuation in material substances?

I. The two principal arguments (nn. 1-2)

A. Argument 1

"The principle of individuation has to be something which (i) intrinsically constitutes
this substance and which (ii) is maximally proper to the substance. Thus, by reason of
the first property it has to be something substantival. For accidents, as has been said
repeatedly, constitute neither substance nor this substance, since this substance,
insofar as it is a this, is a per se and substantival being. On the other hand, by reason
of the second property the principle in question cannot be matter, but [must be] form.
For this matter is not maximally proper to this individual, since it can exist under
other forms as well. Therefore, form is the principle of individuation."

B. Argument 2

"The principle of unity is the same as the principle of entitas, since, as St. Thomas
says, 'Each thing has esse and individuation according to the same [principle].' But
each thing has its esse properly from its form. Therefore, it also has its individual
unity from the form. The major premise is obvious from the fact that unity is a
property that follows upon esse, and it adds to the latter only a negation; therefore,
unity cannot have a positive and real principle other than that which is the principle of
the entitas itself."

II. The evaluation (nn. 3-6)

A. Objection

The main objection to this position is that the two arguments just adduced prove at
most that form is a principle of individual unity, but not that it is the only such
principle. For the matter, too, constitutes the substance intrinsically and is thus at least
part of the principle of individual unity.

B. Reply 1

One reply to this objection is that the form individuates not only the substance but the
matter as well.

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However, Suarez criticizes this reply in various ways. For one thing, it makes
mincemeat out of the Aristotelian contention that generation is a genuine change
because the very same matter is at first under one form and then under another. But
this cannot be true if the form makes the matter it informs to be this matter. Instead,
the matter at the terminus a quo of the change would not be the same as the matter at
the terminus ad quem.

C. Reply 2

"It is true, to be sure, that the adequate intrinsic cause of a material substance's
individual unity is, as the objection concludes, both the form and the matter.
However, if these two [principles] are compared with one another, the principal cause
of this unity is the form, and it is in this sense that it is especially attributed to the
form that it is the principle of individuation." For the form completes the individual in
the same way that the specific difference (form) completes the species. "The common
way of thinking and talking confirms this. For if, say, to Peter's soul there is united a
body composed of matter that is distinct from the body that he previously had, then
even though this latter composite is not identical in every part with the one that
existed before, the individual is still called the same individual, absolutely speaking,
by reason of the same soul." But the converse does not hold. This indicates that the
form, rather than the matter, is the principal principle of individuation.

Suarez is not utterly impressed by this reply, mainly because it still leaves open the
question: What makes this form itself a this? "It is not form as such, but rather that by
virtue of which the form is a this, that is the principle of individuation." And some
argue that this latter thing is the matter.

Now Suarez himself, of course, does not accept this answer to the question. Indeed,
he tries to show that exactly the same question arises with respect to the matter.
"Thus, all the arguments adduced above can prove the same thing about the matter
that they intend to prove about the form. For on this score there is a sort of parity
between the matter and the form. And from another angle the matter surpasses the
form only because it provides a certain occasion for producing various and individual
forms, whereas the form surpasses the matter because it principally constitutes the
individual, because it is more proper to it, and because it is the matter that exists
because of the form rather than vice versa." Nonetheless, he believes that even if
'matter' is a bad answer to the question, the question itself is nonetheless legitimate
and requires a reply that takes us beyond the account of individuation proposed in this
section.

III. The resolution (n. 7)

"Thus the present position, as we have explained it, is rather plausible and gets close to the
truth. Nonetheless, one should say without qualification that the form alone is not the full
and adequate principle of individuation for material things, if we are talking about their
entire entitas--even though it is the principal principle and is thus sometimes, according to
the formal mode of speaking, judged sufficient for denominating that same individual. All

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of this will be clarified and proved at length in section 6."

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Disputation 5, Section 4:

Is the substantial form the principle of individuation in material substances?

I. The two principal arguments (nn. 1-2)

A. Argument 1

B. Argument 2

II. The evaluation (nn. 3-6)

A. Objection

B. Reply 1

One reply to this objection is that the form individuates not only the substance but the
matter as well.

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C. Reply 2

III. The resolution (n. 7)

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of this will be clarified and proved at length in section 6."

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Disputation 5, Section 5:

Is the principle of individuation the existence of the singular thing?

I. Statement of the position (n. 1)

The view is that the existence of the individual is what gives it individual unity, though
Suarez also discusses the more plausible view, which he attributes to Henry of Ghent and
Dionysius Carthusiensis, that the subsistence of the individual, to be defined below, is the
principle of individual unity.

II. Arguments against existence as the principle of individuation (nn. 2-5)

A. On the assumption that existence is not in reality distinct from essence:

This is just a misleading statement of the nominalist position, according to which no
principle of individuation is needed.

B. On the assumption that existence is in reality distinct from essence:

Note that Suarez does not accept this assumption, but nonetheless tries to show that
even if it were true, existence could not be the principle of individuation.

Suarez concedes (if you can call it that) that the position is true `formally', but not
`materially'. The example helps explain what Suarez has in mind here. This white
thing, as regards the formal notion of white, is constituted by whiteness. But the white
thing itself, as a substance, is not constituted by whiteness. In the same way, each
thing "has some individual notion under the concept of an existing thing" from its
existence itself. This is to say simply that just as `Socrates is wise' is true by virtue of
Socrates's wisdom, so too `Socrates exists' is true by virtue of Socrates's existence.
However, assuming that Socrates's existence is distinct in reality from his essence, it
is not the case that Socrates himself is constituted as this individual by his existence;
it is rather his essence that so constitutes him. Indeed, his existence derives its own
character, what we might call `Socrates-existence', precisely from the fact that it
actuates his individual essence.

Suarez goes on to give three arguments for this claim:

The first is that even as merely possible beings (better: as ideas in the divine
mind), Peter and Paul "essentially include their own individual notions." That

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is, God's idea of Peter, antecedent to Peter's existence, is an idea of this
creatable individual, so that the proposition `Peter is by essence [or:
necessarily] this human being' is every bit as true as `Peter is by essence [or:
necessarily] a human being'. Hence, even if we assume that Peter and Paul are
alike in every way that it is possible for them to be alike, it is still the case that
God's willing to create Peter is (at least conceptually) distinct from God's
willing to create Paul.

The second argument is that if there is indeed a distinction in reality between
essence and existence, then the essence qua potency is presupposed by the
existence qua act. But `essence' in this context means not only the specific
nature but the individuality of the entity involved. "Therefore, in the very sense
in which the essence has per se the entitas of the essence, which is distinct from
the existence and apt to be actualized by it, in that sense, too, it has its own
unity and individuation."

The third argument is that existence is itself a general notion, so that our
familiar question arises with respect to it, viz., what makes this existence a
this? No answer is satisfactory except for the answer that it is a this by its very
self. But, Suarez asks, why not say the same thing about the essence?

III. Arguments against subsistence as the principle of individuation (nn. 6-10)

The subsistence of a substance is that by virtue of which it is a suppositum, or ultimate
subject of predication. Because of the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, scholastic
theologians hold that it is possible for a given individual nature not to have its own
subsistence (Incarnation) or to have more than one subsistence (Trinity). So Suarez is
willing to grant that a substance's subsistence is indeed distinct in reality from the substance
itself. He conceives of subsistence as a mode of the substance, either a connatural mode (in
ordinary cases) or a mode that comes to it from without (in the Incarnation). Now the
position under discussion is that an individual's subsistence not only makes it an ultimate
subject of predication but also consitutes it as an individual. It is this claim that Suarez
disputes.

Suarez's arguments for this claim, as well as his criticism of Henry of Ghent's construal of
subsistence, would take us too deeply into the metaphysics of the Incarnation, a fascinating
topic but one which we won't be taking up here. (For those who are interested, I've written a
couple of papers on this topic.) Suffice it to say that if the orthodox understanding of the
doctrine of the Incarnation is correct, then the view in question is automatically ruled out,
since Christ's human nature is an individual even though it does not have its own
subsistence.

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Disputation 5, Section 6:

What in the end is the principle of individuation in all created substances?

I. Summary of the position (n. 1)

"From what has been said thus far against the above positions, it seems that what remains,
on the basis of a sufficient enumeration of the parts, as it were, is that the whole singular
substance does not need any other principle of individuation in addition to its own entitas or
in addition to the intrinsic principles from which its entitas is constituted. For if such a
substance is, physically speaking, simple, then it is an individual of itself and by its simple
entitas. On the other hand, if it is composed out of, say, matter and form united to one
another, then just as the principles of its entitas are matter, form, and their union, so too
those same principles, taken as individuals, are its principles of individuation, whereas those
other substances, because they are simple, will be individuals by their very selves ......
Hence, just as individual unity cannot formally add anything real and positive over and
above individual entitas--since on this point its notion is the same as that of all the types of
unity--so too the positive foundation of this unity as regards the negation it expresses cannot
add anything positive, physically speaking, to that entitas which is denominated as one and
as an individual. Therefore, that entitas is through itself the foundation of this negation, and
it is in this sense that the entitas is said by the opinion in question to be by itself the
principle of individuation. For this opinion does not deny that within this individual entitas
the common nature can be conceptually distinguished from the singular entitas or that the
individual adds something conceptually distinct over and beyond the species--something
which, according to a metaphysical consideration, has the notion of an individual difference
..... However, the present opinion adds that this individual difference does not have within
the substance any principle or foundation that is in reality distinct from the substance's
entitas, and so in this sense it claims that each entitas is a principle of its own individuation
through itself ... In order for this to become clearer, we will explain it case by case for all
substantival things."

By `substantival things' Suarez means all the intrinsic components of a material substance,
viz., its individual primary matter, its individual substantial form, and the individual mode
which is the unity between this matter and this form. The rest of this section is taken up
with this discussion, with a brief discussion of immaterial substances at the end.

II. The individuation of primary matter (nn. 2-4)

A. The claim

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"The matter is in reality individual and the ground of this unity is its entitas through
itself, insofar as it exists in reality without anything extrinsic added to it."

B. The argument

(1) This matter (say, of a stick) is distinct from that matter (say, of a human
being); therefore, it is individual and singular in itself.
(2) But the ground of this unity in it is neither the substantial form or any
relation to the substantial form, as was proved above (for it remains
numerically the same matter under any form it might exist under).
Therefore, the ground of this unity is its own entitas.

Suarez goes on to claim that this is true even on the assumption that each matter
always has a particular quantity. The quantity would still be separable from it, at least
by God's power, and, besides, the quantity would be extrinsic to its entitas and thus
presupposes the latter. Furthermore, the same argument holds for other dispositions or
accidents besides quantity. The agent acts on the matter qua individual, and so
presupposes it in its individual unity. It is true that the agent limits the matter to this
form either by removing impediments to the reception of the form or by giving it
dispositions that are naturally necessary for the introduction of this form. But all of
this presupposes the matter's prior existence as an individual.

C. Objections and replies

Objection 1: Since matter is pure potentiality, one matter is made actual and hence
distinct from another matter only by some form or actuality. Hence, it is not an
individual by itself.

Reply: It is only with respect to position that quantity makes one matter distinct
from another. But each matter is entitatively and really distinct through its own
entitas, since "matter of itself has some entitas, be it entitas of existence or
entitas of essence."

Objection 2: Matter is, by its species, essentially related to form; therefore, this
individual matter is individuated by the form or by its relation to this form.

Reply: "Just as matter has a transcendental relation to form, so too this matter
has this sort of transcendental relation to form, since it has numerically this
capacity and potency, and in this sense it is individuated by its relation to form.
But this is just what it is for it to be individuated physically through itself, since
its entitas essentially includes this relation. It is not necessary, however, that
this individuation be effected through the determination of the form, since it is
not only matter as a species but numerically this matter that is related to form in
general."

III. The individuation of substantial form (nn. 5-13)

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A. The claim

"The substantial form is a this intrinsically through its very own entitas, from which
the individual difference is taken in accord with the form's ultimate grade or reality."

B. The argument

(1) No accidents can be principles that individuate the substantial form. (The reasons
here are already familiar to us, both as regards the substance's accidents and as
regards the accidents of the matter leading up to its being informed by the substantial
form.)

(2) Matter cannot by itself be an intrinsic principle that individuates any substantial
form. (The reason is that the matter is not an intrinsic principle of the form's entitas.
The matter is at most a sustaining cause of the form, but a sustaining cause is
extrinsic to that which it sustains. So matter causes the individuation of form only in
the sense that, in the case of material substances, it provides a necessary condition for
the existence of the form.)

C. Addenda

The question arises about whether in general a given form can exist in just any
primary matter, or whether it essentially informs this matter which it in fact informs.
Thomists generally accept the second view and then go on to say that in the case of
the form, its individuator is the matter even though the matter is extrinsic to its
essence.

Suarez points out, first, that this cannot be true of the rational soul, which is
conceived by all to have a certain independence of its matter in the sense that it
actualizes distinct matters, both synchronically and diachronically. Suarez seems to
assume that this is not generally true of sentient and plant souls (see n. 9). (There are,
to be sure some, difficulties here, but I think he's wrong about this. For he clearly
thinks that change of material parts entails change of form, since such forms are said
to be extended and divisible. This accounts for his somewhat puzzling remark above
that the unity of a tree or brute animal over time is not unity of the composite in the
strict and philosophical sense.) Nonetheless, even in these latter cases he denies that
the matter can be deemed a principle of individuation for the form, since no such
disposition to a particular form can be thought of as existing in the matter.

IV. The individuation of substantival modes, especially the union of matter and form (n. 14)

A. The claim

"A substantival mode, which is simple and in its own way indivisible, also has its
own individuation of itself and not from any principle that is in reality distinct from it.
This will be explained by examples in the case of the union of form with respect to
matter, or of matter with respect to form, which I am assuming to be a substantival

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mode; likewise in the case of simple subsistence."

B. Comment

As Suarez conceives of such union, it is always the individual union of this matter
with this form. Thus a change in either term results in a numerically distinct union.
Yet the union itself is, according to Suarez, distinct in reality (modally distinct) from
the form and from the matter. What's more, it's at least conceivable that this matter
and this form should be united by a different union. Suppose, for instance, that God
separated them and then reunited them; he would not have to effect numerically the
same union.

V. The individuation of the substantival composite (n. 15-17)

A. The claim

"In a composite substance, insofar as it is such a composite, the adequate principle of
individuation is this matter and this form as united to one another; among these, the
principal principle is the form, which is by itself sufficient for the composite, insofar
as it is an individual of such-and-such a species, to be judged numerically the same.

In reply to Fonseca's claim that this way of speaking is true but inappropriate, since
the matter and the form are not added to the common nature in order to form the
individual composite, Suarez has this to say by way of clarification: "In these
arguments he moves away from a physical notion to metaphysical composition. For
when this matter and this form are called physical principles of the individuation of
this composite, they are being related not to the common specific nature, but to the
physical composite that they compose. Therefore, it is necessary not that they be
added to the common specific nature, but that they compose that nature by composing
an individual in which that nature is included. Hence, according to the same physical
constitution such principles are simples; nor do they have any other principles by
which they are physically individuated. Rather, they are individuated by themselves,
as has been explained. Thus, it is not an improper way of speaking, but a true and
proper one, since the intrinsic principles of individuation are the same ones that are
the intrinsic principles of entitas, as has been said over and over again. For
individuation follows upon entitas insofar as it is a certain negation; on the other
hand, insofar as it is something positive, it adds nothing to the entitas. But this matter
and this form, united to one another, are the intrinsic principles of the entire entitas of
the composite substance, of which we are now speaking. Therefore, they are also the
intrinsic physical principles of individuation .... Neither [form nor matter] by itself,
but rather both together, are the adequate principle [of individuation]. For this
composite, in order to be numerically the same wholly and completely, requires not
only this matter or this form but both together, and if either of them is varied, then it
does not remain numerically the same composite, in an unqualified sense and in every
part, that it was before, since to some extent its entitas has been changed. "And from
this it is clear that numerically this same union is also required for the perfect unity of
such a composite, since in its own way this union contributes to the constitution of

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the composite. However, the union is not as necessary as the matter and the form,
since they are essential principles of such a composite in an unqualified way, whereas
the union is a sort of necessary condition, i.e., it is the causality of the matter and the
form. "Also, if we compare the matter and the form to one another, then the principal
principle is the form--not only with respect to the specific nature, taking the form
insofar as it is in a species, but also with respect to this individual, taking the form as
an individual. For this form is maximally proper to this individual, and it is that which
completes numerically this whole substance ... Consequently, the form is the principal
principal that distinguishes this substance from others."

All of this raises interesting questions about identity through time. What are we to
say? Suarez clarifies his position a bit by talking about how the subsistence of a
substance fits into this picture: "Just as the difference must be taken from a
substantival, and not an accidental, principle, so too among the substantival principles
it should be taken from the one that is the principal one and the one that is more
proper and the last constituent of the thing itself. But form is like this, as has been
shown. This is likewise true if we are talking about the individual of such a nature or
species insofar as it is formally constituted in that species. It is for this reason that we
claimed above that a suppositum is numerically one as long as it has numerically one
subsistence--even if the nature is not one. For the formal constituent of the
suppositum is the incommunicable subsistence, from which alone the notion of an
individual suppositum as such must be taken. By contrast, however, we claimed that
the unity and individual difference of a singular thing, insofar as it is constituted
under such-and-such a species or substantival essence, must be taken from the
substantival nature, which formally constitutes such an individual. This is the sense in
which we are now claiming that the individual difference of this human being, taken
formally insofar as it is an individual of the human species, is taken from this soul.
On the other hand, if we are talking of this composite, insofar as it is perfectly and in
all parts one, then it will be more accurate to say that the individual difference is
taken from its whole entitas and so from its adequate physical principle, which
includes the matter and the form--and this in order that it might be true of the whole
composite as well that it is individuated by itself, i.e., through its own entitas."

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What an Efficient Cause Is

I. Preliminary Remarks

A. Suarez and the moderns

Unlike Hume's analysis of causality, and unlike most of the prominent
contemporary analyses (e.g., those of Lewis, Mackie, Tooley, etc.), Suarez's
definition is not meant to be reductive. That is, he does not mean to analyze
causality in non-causal terms. Thus, he is not trying to replace causality with
some philosophically more tame or less metaphysical concept like constant
conjunction, regularity, counterfactual dependence, change in probability,
etc. Indeed, it is precisely in order to avoid the notion of action, which
stands at the heart of Suarez's analysis, that these modern theories have been
developed. Hume's analysis was self-consciously aimed at avoiding the
metaphysical implications of the notion of action and also of what he
(perhaps mistakenly) saw to be the intimately related notion of causal or
natural necessity.

In giving his analysis, Suarez presupposes that what we ordinarily take to be
instances of causality in nature are just that. He argues for this
presupposition in section 1 of Disputation 18, but for present purposes he is
assuming that we have enough paradigmatic instances clearly in mind in
order to construct an illuminating definition or, better, explication.

B. Creation ex nihilo

At a certain point in his discussion Suarez makes adjustments that are
conceptually required in order for creation ex nihilo to count as an instance
of efficient causality. Notice that these moves do not by themselves assume
that creation ex nihilo is indeed metaphysically possible. Rather, they
assume simply that if there is or can be such a thing as creation ex nihilo,
then it should count as an instance of efficient causality. This seems rather
modest and wholly acceptable.

This concern with creation explains, by the way, why Suarez talks about the
communication of esse rather than about the communication of form. If
every instance of efficient causality involved an agent acting on a patient,
then we could simply speak of the communication of form to the patient that
serves as matter of the change in question. However, creation is an action
but not an action on an antecedently existing patient or matter. In the case
where the effect of creation is a material substance, creation brings into
being both the form and the matter. Hence, Suarez uses the more general
term esse for the perfection communicated in efficient causality, rather than
the more specific term form. However, whenever a created efficient cause
acts (at least naturally), the terminus of its action is always esse qua form, be
it a substantival form, or an accidental form, or (perhaps) a mode.

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II. Reworking Aristotle's Definition

What we have in this section is a carefully crafted reworking of Aristotle's
characterization of an efficient cause as that 'whence there is a first
beginning of change or rest'. At each step Suarez makes an emendation and
then raises a problem that leads to a further emendation.

Step One:

Proposal: An efficient cause is that whence there is a first
beginning of change or rest.

Problem: This definition does not contain a proper genus.

Solution: Replace 'whence' with the term 'per se principle'. 'Principle'
defines a general category under which all the various sorts of causal
or explanatory notions fall. Literally, it means 'source' or 'beginning'.
(Later on in section two Suarez will distinguish a principle quod from
a principle quo. This amounts to a distinction between the substance
which (quod) is the agent in a given case of efficient causality from
the power or habit or faculty by which the substance acts. However,
this distinction does not come into play at present.) The particle per se
is meant to exclude anything (or any description) which is only
accidentally related to the effect produced. For instance, if a doctor
builds a house, he does so as a human being or as a builder, but not as
a doctor. That is, his being a doctor is accidental or per accidens with
respect to this particular instance of efficient causality. The term
'doctor' connotes a human being as having a certain set of powers,
habits, and dispositions which define the medical art he possesses and
is irrelevant to his house-building activity. So the principle quod here
is best captured either by a natural kind term which leaves open just
what the relevant principle quo is ('human being') or by a term which
connotes the relevant powers ('builder').

Step Two:

Proposal: An efficient cause is a per se principle from which a
change first exists or comes to exist.

Problem: The definiens here is common to causes other than efficient
causes, in particular the matter or material cause, since the matter, like
the agent, exists antecedently to the change or exercise of efficient
causality. It is not enough to point out that the matter itself must first
be made to exist by an exercise of efficient causality, since the same

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holds for all secondary (i.e., non-divine) efficient causes as well.

Solution: The efficient cause is at least conceptually prior to the
matter, in that the matter receives because the agent acts, but not vice
versa. So this is a legitimate sense in which the efficient cause is first
and the matter is not. Further, the efficient cause is an extrinsic
principle, unlike matter and form, which are intrinsic causes. Later on,
Suarez clarifies this further by pointing out that the matter and the
form communicate their own esse to the composite, whose own esse
derives from or includes that of the matter and the form. By contrast,
the efficient cause communicates an esse that is numerically distinct
from its own--and this whether we are speaking of the principle quod
or the principle quo.

Step Three:

Proposal: An efficient cause is a per se and extrinsic principle
from which a change first exists or comes to exist.

Problem: The definiens seems to apply to the final cause or end rather
than to the efficient cause, since the end is that for the sake of which
an efficient cause acts and is thus prior to the latter. In short, an
efficient cause 'aims at' a certain terminus. Note that the Aristotelian
picture has a dynamism packed into it that later anti-Aristotelians
found fit to reject. Some of them (Descartes) limited change to local
motion, where finality is perhaps least evident; others (Hume) simply
rebelled against metaphysics in general; still others (Malebranche,
Berkeley) saw the connection between finality and efficiency and
limited agency to God alone or to God and rational agents alone.
What they all deny--or at any rate are agnostic about--is dynamism
and real action in nature.

Solution: The efficient cause is first in execution and it alone has a
real moving influence. The particle 'from which' is already sufficient
to mark this difference, since the end is that for the sake of which a
change exists, but not that from which a change exists. So no
emendation is called for.

Step Four:

Proposal: An efficient cause is a per se and extrinsic principle
from which a change first exists or comes to exist.

Problem: (1) This definition applies only to the First Cause, since no

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other cause is first, strictly speaking. (2) This definition does not
apply to creation, since creation is not a change.

Solution: (1) By 'first' we mean first within a given genus or order of
causes. So it can apply to any principal cause, and indeed to any
instrumental cause, advising cause, or disposing cause--in short, to
any cause that acts and thereby contributes to some effect. So each
genuine efficient cause will be 'first' with respect to some effect or
other within some order or genus of efficient causality. (There is some
question here about instrumental causes, but this will be dealt with in
the next section.) (2) This objection is well taken, and to
accommodate it we should speak of action instead of change.

Step Five:

Proposal: An efficient cause is a per se and extrinsic principle
from which an action first exists or comes to exist.
Alternative 1: An efficient cause is a first per se and extrinsic
principle from which an effect flows forth, or on which an effect
depends, by means of an action.
Alternative 2: An efficient cause is a first per se and extrinsic
principle from which an effect receives its own distinct esse by
means of an action.

Problem: What an action is is just as obscure as what an efficient
cause is.

Solution: At the level of generality at which we are now operating, it
is sufficient to understand by the term 'action' the effect's emanation
from and dependence on its extrinsic cause. Thus, we need not make
explicit mention of the effect in the formula, although we may ala the
second alternative. Later, in Disputation 18, Section 10, we will say
more about what an action is. (It will turn out that an action is a mode
of the effect that has an essential relation to the agent as actually
acting--and it is this mode which is the agent's causality.)

Lingering questions:

How are we to 'picture' the causal relation? Is some entity transferred
from the agent to the patient?

How can an action be a real modification of the patient or effect and
not of the agent? Does this make sense?

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How is this conception of causality related to notions such as constant
conjunction, spatial continguity, regularity, counterfactual
dependence, and variations in the probabilities of the effect-events?

Isn't it events, rather than substances, powers, and esse, that are the
relata of the causal relation?

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Types of Efficient Causes

Quotes from Suarez, DM 17, sect. 2

I. Per se cause/per accidens cause

"A per se cause is a cause on which the effect directly depends with respect to that
proper esse that it has insofar as it is an effect, in the way in which (says Aristotle)
a sculptor is a cause of a statue."

"On the other hand, since a per accidens cause is not a true cause but is instead
called a cause because of some relation or similarity to a cause or because it is
conjoined with a cause, it cannot be appropriately defined by a single general
description; rather, a cause is called per accidens in various senses. For a cause is
called per accidens sometimes on the side of the cause and sometimes on the side
of the effect.

"That which is said to cause per accidens on the side of the cause is something
that is accidentally conjoined to a per se principle of causing. Sometimes this is
the very subject of the form that is the principle of acting. It is in this sense that
water is said to produce heat per accidens, since it is accidental to water that it
should be hot and thus accidental to it that it should produce heat. "And it is in this
sense," Aristotle says, "that Polycletus is a cause of a statue" [Metaphysics
5.2.1013b34-1014a4]. In some cases, however, the thing in question is a second
form that is accidentally conjoined to the first form in the same subject--I mean
that it is accidental that it should be related to the power of effecting, regardless of
whether the two forms are conjoined necessarily in some other sense. This is the
sense in which a singer writes per accidens and in which what is white produces
heat per accidens, etc. ...

"It is also customary in some cases for a cause to be designated as per accidens on
the side of the effect, i.e., with respect to that which is accidental to the per se
effect. And in this sense a per se cause of a given effect is itself a per accidens
cause of that which is conjoined to the per se effect--in the way in which a motion
is a cause of heat /584a/ or in which a hot thing is a cause of something black. This
is also the sense in which things that happen by chance or by fortune are said to
have a per accidens cause--as, for example, that someone who is digging should
discover a treasure.

"Again, one should note that when an effect is called per accidens by reason of the
fact that it is conjoined to a per se effect, there are two possible ways in which it
can be called per accidens: in one way, with respect to the agent's intention alone;
in another way, with respect to the action itself, too, and with respect to the
connection of the one effect with the other. For it is possible for an effect not only
to fall outside the agent's intention but also not to be connected in any way with
the agent's action--as, for example, that one who is digging in the ground should

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discover a treasure. And in such a case the cause and the effect are per accidens in
the most proper sense. In some cases, however, the one effect is connected by its
nature with the other effect, even though it falls outside the agent's intention. For
example, the corruption of one thing is necessarily conjoined by its nature with the
generation of another; yet [this corruption] falls outside the natural agent's
intention and for this reason it, too, is commonly called a per accidens
effect--though not in as proper and absolute a sense as in the previous case. For to
the extent that [the corruption] is connected necessarily [with the generation], it is
in some sense per se. An indication of this is that there can be scientific
knowledge and demonstration with respect to it. Indeed, since within the genus of
a [positive] disposition the privation of the contrary form is, as it were, a necessary
means for the introduction of the relevant form, one can claim that the effect in
question does not fall altogether outside the agent's intention. For even though this
effect is not intended for its own sake, it is nonetheless in some sense intended for
the sake of the principal end, and so, as far as the present discussion is concerned,
we are not counting effects of this sort among those that are per accidens on the
side of the cause."

II. Physical cause/moral cause

"Second, efficient causes can be divided into physical causes and moral causes. In
this context `physical cause' is not being taken for a corporeal or natural cause that
acts by means of corporeal and material motion; instead, it is being taken more
generally for a cause that has a true and real influence on the effect. For just as we
claimed above that in some cases the term `nature' signifies any essence
whatsoever, so too sometimes the term `physical influence' is used for that which
is effected through true, real, proper, and per se causality. And in this sense God is
a physical cause when He creates, and an angel is a physical cause when he effects
a motion in the heavens or even within himself, and the intellect is a physical
cause when it effects an act of understanding, and the will is a physical cause when
it effects a volition, and so on.

"On the other hand, there are two senses in which a cause can be called a morally
efficient cause. For* sometimes a cause is called a moral cause solely because it
acts freely, and in this sense a moral cause is not altogether distinct from a
physical cause when the latter is taken in the general sense that we have
explicated; instead, a moral cause will be distinguished from a physical cause that
acts naturally and necessarily. For in this sense the will, when it freely loves, is a
true and physical cause of its own love, which it nonetheless effects morally, i.e.,
freely.

"However, `moral cause' is taken in another sense according to which a moral
cause is altogether distinct from a physical cause, and it is predicated of a cause
which does not truly bring about the effect per se but which behaves morally in
such a way that the effect is imputed to it. This is the sense in which an advising
cause, or an imploring cause, or a cause that does not prevent something when it
can and should prevent it is called a moral cause. And it is in this second sense that

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we are now taking `moral cause', so that a cause that truly effects something is
being called a physical cause, whereas a cause that effects something only by
imputation is being called a moral cause. It follows that if we consider these things
from a physical or metaphysical point of view, then this division is reduced to the
previous division into per se causes and per accidens causes. For `cause which
truly effects something physically' is predicated only of a per se cause, whereas a
cause which causes only morally or by imputation is, when considered from a
physical point of view, /585b/ only a per accidens cause, since it does not have a
real and per se influence. Thus a moral cause is always either (i) a cause that does
not prevent something when it can and should prevent it or else (ii) a cause that
applies or induces a per se cause, whether by means of advice or entreaties or
payment or sometimes even by means of local motion, as when someone applies a
fire to a house. For even though the individual in question is a per se physical
cause of the motion itself, he is nonetheless only a per accidens cause of the
burning. But this latter causality, which is per accidens from a physical point of
view, is regarded as per se from a moral point of view and by imputation.
Therefore, we do not have to say any more about the moral cause taken in this
sense. For to the extent that it is per accidens from a physical point of view, it does
not fall under scientific knowledge, whereas to the extent that it is per se within
the genus of morals, the consideration of it pertains to moral science and not to
metaphysics."

III. Principal cause/instrumental cause

A. First explanation

"A principal cause is commonly said to be a cause to which an action is
attributed properly and absolutely. However, this description does not
sufficiently clarify the matter. For, first of all, a thing's form, e.g., a soul, is
in some sense a cause, and, as is obvious, it is not an instrumental cause.
Therefore, if the division in question is adequate, then a soul is classified as
a principal cause. And yet action is not properly attributed to it, since a soul,
as Aristotle said, does not properly act. Therefore, the description in
question does not apply to every principal cause. For, as the argument just
given makes clear, there is one sort of principal cause which operates and
another sort which is a principal principle of operating--they are commonly
called, [respectively], a principal cause ut quod and a principal cause ut quo.
But the description given above applies at most to the former of these causes
and not to the latter."

B. Second explanation

"Second, a principal cause is commonly said to be a cause that influences
the effect by its own power or, alternatively, a cause that influences the
effect by a sufficient power, i.e., a cause which, given the concurrence that
is owed to it, is sufficient to produce the effect."

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C. Third explanation

"There is another possible way of speaking, according to which a principal
cause is a cause that influences the effect (or the form that constitutes the
effect) proximately and by its own proper influence. This position becomes
clearer if we immediately add the definition of an instrumental cause and the
difference between the two: An instrumental cause will be a cause which
does not immediately attain to the effect or form by its own action, but
which instead /587b/ attains to antecedent thing from which the form in
question results, a form that the instrument does not attain to proximately
and in itself. From this it follows that every instrumental cause is a principal
cause with respect to some effect, viz., that effect which it attains to
proximately and per se, whereas it is an instrumental cause with respect to
another effect which results therefrom."

D. Fourth explanation

"There is a fourth possible way of speaking according to which an
instrumental cause is a cause that acts only insofar as it is moved by another,
whereas, by contrast, a principal cause is a cause that has the power to
operate through itself and without the motion of another. This explanation
seems to be derived from the things we know by experience in the case of
the instruments of a craft. For these things are better known to us, and in
their case there is no other mode of operating."

E. Fifth and correct explanation

"Lastly, and in the most proper sense, an instrumental cause is said to be a
cause that concurs in, or is elevated to, the production of something more
noble than itself, i.e., something beyond the measure of its own proper
perfection and action--for example, heat insofar as it concurs in producing
flesh and, in general, an accident insofar as it concurs in producing a
substance."

IV. First cause/secondary cause

"Fourth, efficient causes are divided into first causes and secondary causes.
Now if we speak loosely, then it is efficient causes in general that can be
divided here, since every cause that depends on another--be it a principal
cause or an instrumental cause--can be called a secondary cause. However,
if we speak more strictly, then it is principal causes that are being divided
here. For there is one sort of cause that operates altogether independently,
and this is called a first cause, and there is another sort of cause that is
dependent, even if it operates by means of a power that is principal and
proportionate, and this is called a secondary cause."

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V. Univocal cause/equivocal cause

"Now there are some [principal] causes that produce an effect of the same
type, and these are called univocal causes, e.g., fire when /592a/ it generates
fire. And, in general, a cause which, operating through the power of its own
form, produces a similar effect is a univocal cause as well as a principal
cause with in its own order, as St. Thomas correctly notes in Summa
Theologiae 3, q. 62, a. 4. On the other hand, there is another sort of cause
that produces an effect of a different type. This sort of cause has to be more
noble than the effect--otherwise, it would not be a principal cause, but an
instrumental cause--and it is called an equivocal cause, since it does not
formally agree with the effect in the same form, but instead contains that
form eminently."

VI. Conjoined instrument/separated instrument

"What I am calling a conjoined instrument secundum esse is an instrument
that is united to the principal agent in some way or other, whether through
contact or through some sort of presence or through some real union--in the
way that a writing pen, say, is a conjoined instrument. By contrast, the
opposed separated instrument will be an instrument that is not conjoined to
the principal agent in any way--as, e.g., semen after it has been separated.
And corresponding to the various modes of conjunction and separation there
can be some latitude and variation in these terms.

"What I am calling a conjoined instrument secundum causalitatem is an
instrument that requires the principal agent's actual and proper influence and
causality in order to cause--in the way that, once again, a writing pen is a
conjoined instrument. Hence, the corresponding separated instrument will
be an instrument that in its action does not require the principal agent's
special influence and causality. And in this sense, if heat is called a fire's
instrument for producing heat, then even though it is conjoined to the fire
secundum esse, it can be called a separated instrument secundum
causalitatem, since in order to produce heat it does not require an influence
over and beyond its own proper power."

Whether Action is the Causality of an Efficient Cause

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Whether Action is the Causality of an Efficient

Cause

I. Preliminary remarks (DM 18.10, n. 1)

A. An agent's causality vs. the relation cause of

Suarez is careful to distinguish that which formally constitutes an agent as
an efficient cause from the relation cause of which results from the agent's
action. The relation presupposes the causality, since one of the terms of the
relation, viz., the effect, is conceptually posterior to and terminates the
causality. So the question is: What is the causality itself?

B. Suarez on action

For Suarez's extended treatment of action, we have to go to Disputations 48
and 49. Just for the record, in Disputation 48 he identifies action as a certain
peculiar mode, viz., "the mode of constituting the terminus itself in reality
insofar as the latter depends on and flows from its principle" (DM 48.4.13)
In the case of creation and transubstantiation, this mode has no subject
properly speaking, be it the agent or the effect produced. In the case of
actions on already existent subjects, i.e., actions on a patient, the mode in
question is an intrinsic modification of the patient that produces the effect
within the patient. In the latter sort of case, the action and the passion are
identical in reality. As Suarez puts the point in Disputation 49, insofar as
this mode intrinsically modifies the patient, it is called a passion, whereas
insofar as it is denominated as emanating from the agent, it is called an
action. So in such cases the action has the patient, rather than the agent, as
its metaphysical subject. In short, in such cases an action is in reality a mode
of the patient insofar as the effect is actually being produced in it.

II. Competing views on the nature of an efficient cause's causality

The first two views examined by Suarez agree on the negative thesis that the
agent's causality is distinct from its action. He himself will insist to the
contrary that the causality just is the action. In any case, everyone agrees that
the causality is in some sene a "path to" to the effect, which terminates it,
and thus that the causality itself must be thought as constituting, and hence
as being conceptually prior to, the existence of the effect. (In the same way,
the mode of union between matter and form which constitutes a composite
substance must be thought of terminating in, and hence as being
conceptually prior to, the composite which it constitutes.)

A. First view (nn. 2-3)

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The causality is something distinct from the action, since the causality is
prior to the effect, whereas the action is itself an effect of the agent.
Moreover, the causality, unlike the action, remains after the effect has been
produced--or so they claim.

But, Suarez charges, when the proponents of this position are pressed to say
exactly what the causality is, they claim that it is the production of (i.e., the
giving of esse to) the effect. Yet this, Suarez contends, is to say nothing
more than that the causality is the action itself. Thus, this position collapses
back into the position that the causality is the action.

B. Second view (n. 4)

The causality is a mode that has the agent as its subject. However, since the
action is not a mode of the agent, but is instead something outside the agent,
the causality is not the action. (According to this position, in creation ex
nihilo there is causality but no action, since there is no preexistent patient
for the action to exist in). Also, according to this position, in many cases of
efficient causality there is a single causality but a multiplicity of actions (p.
251, second paragraph). Therefore, the causality is distinct from the action.

C. Suarez's view (nn. 5-7)

The causality of an agent is just the action itself. (Look at the three
arguments on pp. 252-254). The action is both sufficient and necessary for
the production of the effect and, indeed, just is the effect's dependence on
the agent for its esse. In reply to the other views, Suarez makes it clear that
the causality, like the action, exists only so long as the agent in question is
actually communicating esse to the effect. Hence, an agent that simply
brings an effect into existence but then ceases to give it esse in any way is
such that its causality with respect to that effect no longer exists--though it
can still be said to be a cause of the thing because it brought it into existence
at some previous time.

III. Replies to the arguments for the contrary positions (nn. 8-12)

Salient points:

An action can be said to be caused, but (i) it cannot be the only thing caused
and (ii) it does not require a further causality through which it is caused.

The causality lasts as long as, and only as long as, the action lasts.

The action is not a mode of the agent qua agent, but is rather a mode of the
patient qua patient--though in the case of immanent actions it is per
accidens a mode of the agent because in such a case the agent and patient
are identical.

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In any given examples, there are as many causalities as there are actions.
Thus the dreaded problem of act individuation does not cause any more
trouble than usual here. Suarez does have a few things to say about this
problem in the last two numbers of this section.

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Corruputive Efficient Causality

I. Prelude: two types of ceasing to be (DM 18.11)

There are two ways in which a thing can cease to exist (or be destroyed or be
corrupted): (i) mediately, i.e., as a consequence of the coming-to-be of some
other thing that is incompatible with it in the same subject; and (ii)
immediately, i.e., not consequent upon the coming to be of something else.
Examples of the latter are annihilation and corruptions that follow upon the
removal of conserving actions.

II. Two main principles

A. Only mediate ceasing-to-be is brought about through an instance of
positive and proper efficient causality.

B. When the ceasing-to-be is immediate, it is brought about not by an
instance of positive and proper efficient causality, but by the absence or
removal of proper and positive efficient causality.

III. Corollaries

A. In every case of ceasing-to-be there is a change but not necessarily an
action.

B. Whenever a ceasing-to-be is mediate, the action by which it is effected is
an action on a presupposed subject.

C. Whenever a ceasing-to-be is effected through a positive action, it is a
single non-complex action that involves two partial changes, one positive
and the other privative or negative, viz., a coming-to-be of some new esse
and an expulsion of some other esse.

D. In a mediate ceasing-to-be, the ceasing-to-be is brought about by the very
same principles, accompanied by the very same conditions, that effect the
production upon which the ceasing-to-be is consequent.

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