Francisco Suárez on Eternal Truths, Eternal Essences, and Extrinsic Being
2017; Michigan Publishing; Volume: 4; Issue: 20201214 Linguagem: Inglês
10.3998/ergo.12405314.0004.019
ISSN2330-4014
Autores Tópico(s)Theology and Philosophy of Evil
Resumoa ccording to philosophical lore, it is necessarily true that water is H 2 O.But it is a contingent fact that there is any water at all, and according to current science there was a time at which there was no water.Because water is contingent and temporal, it is ill-suited to ground the necessary, eternal truth that water is H 2 O, and it is prima facie unclear what could ground that truth.more generally, it is unclear what could ground necessary, eternal truths about contingent, temporal existents.Following medieval and early modern tradition, I will call this 'the problem of eternal truths'. 1 Francisco Suárez's discussion of the eternal truths has received much attention from scholars because it appears to be the target of some of Descartes's critical remarks, 2 and Suárez's view is also philosophically interesting in its own right.In spite of all the attention, however, Suárez's view has remained elusive.Scholars have alleged that Suárez grounds the eternal truths in "connections between properties" (Karofsky 2001: 41), essential properties (Cantens 2000: 135), all translations from Latin are my own.I have taken liberties with the original punctuation where doing so renders the text more perspicuous.many of the relevant texts by Suárez are available in English translations, which I have consulted and listed under References.1.For a contemporary resurrection of this medieval problem, see mcDaniel (forthcoming: Section 9.3-4).2. Compare Descartes, to mersenne, may 6, 1630 (at I: 149-150; CSmK III: 24) with Suárez, Dm 31.12.40 and 12.45.Descartes claims that (i) eternal truths are true because God knows them, and (ii) we "must not say" that they would be true even if God did not exist.Suárez explicitly denies (i) and seems to deny (ii).(He does not in fact deny (ii).)Suárez actually recognizes two distinct problems regarding the eternal truths.One concerns the grounds of eternal truths, and the other concerns the failure of supposition (or reference) of the subject terms of eternal truths (Dm 31.12.38,44; De scientia Dei, II, c. 5, n. 12 [Vivès, XI: 359]).these two problems are often conflated in the literature (see, e.g., Karofsky 2001), perhaps because Suárez has one solution for both problems.For the sake of space I will focus exclusively on the grounding problem.
Referência(s)