Knowledge of the Singular: Aquinas, Suarez, and Recent Interpreters

KNOWLEDGE OF THE SINGULAR: AQUINAS, SUAREZ, AND RECENT INTERPRETERS OCKHAM'S NOMINALISM carne as a severe blow to philosophia perennis and prepared the groundwork for Modern Philosophy. Several factors contributed to this upheaval. On the one hand, neither Augustinian Scholasticism nor the followers of Scotus were properly equipped to oust once and for all the anti-conceptualistic tendencies introduced by the Venerabilis Inceptor. On the other hand, despite the tremendous contributions of Cajetan and Franciscus of Ferrara, the Thornist School was ill-prepared to resist the attack which was strongly reinforced by Francis Bacon's opposition to the scholastic apriorism in natural philosophy and by the brilliant confirmation of the " experimental method " as it was put into effect in the works of Galileo. It is true that in the early sixteenth century the tide seemed to be on its way back for a moment. The School of Cajetan indeed had just received a new momentum though Franciscus of Vitoria who had been himself a student of a very serious and progressive thornist, Peter Crockaert, at the University ot Paris. This would seem to be a significant event, for through his own teaching at Salamanca Vitoria was about to give Europe a whole generation of outstanding professors such as Melchior Cano and Domingo Soto, who in turn would pass on the thomistic torch to others, such as the Jesuit Cardinal Toletus, a disciple of Soto, who used his influential chair at the Roman College to spread the word throughout the Continent. In this chain, Peter Fonseca, S. J., was undoubtedly one of the most effective links through the publication of his Cursus Conimbric .ensium which he undertook while teaching at the University of Coi'rnbra in Portugal and which was designed to update in a critical way traditional Aristotelianisrn. However, all this 606 KNOWLEDGE OF THE SINGULAR 607 impressive anti-nominalistic effort would be overpowered and even undermined by the eclectic mind of another illustrious Jesuit, Franciscus Suarez, who joined Fonseca at Co'imbra and was destined to dominate the Scholastic stage for three cen·· turies. His teaching indeed was bound to touch even a young man called Rene Descartes who would study at the" College de la Fleche " in Paris, and his frame of mind would impress the new philosopher thereby exerting a decisive influence on the whole Modem Philosophy.1 Yet, this is not to say that Suarez did nothing more than to convey Ockham's message, nor is it necessary to say so in order to uphold the aforementioned impact. Although his sympathies indeed were not all with Ockham-as they were shared also by St. Thomas and Scotus-, his eclectic position was enough to commit him to two allegiances totally irreconcilable with each other which in the end were to give a considerable boost to nominalism as they were bound to weaken and further discredit thomistic terminology. Furthermore, not even his doctrinal disagreement with Ockham regarding the principle of individuation did in fact immunize him against a nominalistic approach to universals despite that Suarez could not altogether go along with the Venerabilis Inceptor's conception of the individual for he tried 1 See Joseph Marechal, Le Point de Depart de la Metaphysique (Paris: DescleeDe Brouwer, 1965), Cahier II, pp. 39-40: " Cette Scolastique renouvee, soit thomiste, soit eclectique, inspira de nombreux titulaires de chaires publiques ou privees, disperses par !'Europe entiere. Descartes, eleve au College des Jesuites de La Fleche, dans le premier quart du XVIIe.s., fut atteint par le mouvement general. Il connut directement ou indirectement les ouvres de saint Thomas, de Tolet, des Commentateurs de Coimbre, et meme de Suarez; si mauvais souvenir qu'il ait garde des lecons de philosophie scolastique qu'on lui infligea, on voudrait en connaitre d'une maniere plus precise !'inspiration; car !'esprit le plus independant garde toujours quelque chose d'une initiation premiere. Nous n'avons pas le moyen de satisfaire cette legitime curiosite; mais nous ne croyons pas superflu de rappeler, aujourd'hui meme, que la philosophie cartesienne n'est, ni logiquement, ni psychologiquement un 'commencement absolu '. Si originale qu'elle puisse etre ou se pretendre, elle entre en scene grevee d'un heritage de presupposees, dont...