Metaphysics and dialectics in the thought of Francisco Suárez, influence in and from Iberian scholasticism

Abstract

This text deals with the thought of one of the most representative authors of the scholasticism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but who paradoxically has been little studied in the breadth of his work and its scope: Francisco Suárez, S. J. (1548-1617). The thought of this Jesuit is inscribed in a crossroads of paths and transformations that shaped the so-called European “modernity”, and we believe without a doubt that his thought contributed significant elements for the shaping of later philosophical and theological thought. We emphasize his metaphysics and dialectics, as philosophical sciences that articulate his thought in the fields already mentioned, but whose scope will go beyond his religious congregation and scholasticism itself, since he had an impact on many other authors who are considered non-scholastic by the academy.

This work contains three general aspects: we make a description of the intellectual context in which the thought of our author arises, as a framework for the understanding of his philosophical proposals. We deal with features of his philosophical perspective presenting a specific aspect of it, central axis in the consolidation of his idea of metaphysical science, the ratio dubitandi or reason to doubt, which acquires the character of method for a critique of metaphysical science. Finally, we expose the meaning for Suárez of the study of dialectics as a rigorous instrument for the acquisition of science, contributing to a revaluation of this science after the influence of the Ockhamist terminism that led to its decline.