Abstract
In contemporary metaphysics the notion of grounding plays a crucial role, and though its precise meaning is debated, there seems to be a widespread consensus that grounding is the same in all its typical instances. In this chapter I show that the late scholastic philosopher Francisco Suárez (1549–1617) can be seen as challenging this consensus since he gives an altogether different account of the way vital capacities are “grounded” in their underlying soul and the way the truth of a thought is “grounded” in its object: while a vital capacity is something over and above the soul, from which it “naturally results,” the truth of a thought is no additional entity apart from the thought and its object, in which it is “founded.” So, in addition to contributing two intriguing accounts of vital capacities and truth, Suárez’s theories of natural resultance and foundation make an interesting case for the possibility that grounding might not be a single and unified form of metaphysical dependence as contemporary metaphysicians seem to presuppose.
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Notes
- 1.
Jonathan Schaffer, “On What Grounds What,” in Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology, ed. David J. Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman (Oxford, 2009), p. 387. Note, however, that Schaffer exaggerates when he says that it was only by the beginning of the twenty-first century that analytic philosophers returned to the classical metaphysical question “on what grounds what.” As early as in the 1960s, Julius Moravcsik distinguished between the questions ‘What exists, and what existential assumptions should we be committed to?’ and ‘What important dependencies are there among the various types of existing entity?’ Moravcsik argued that while in the first half of the twentieth century ontological investigations within analytic philosophy were concerned almost solely with questions of the first type, Peter Strawson’s book Individuals marked “a renewed interest in ontology by concentrating on the [second] rather than the [first] of the questions, mentioned above.” (Julius M.E. Moravcsik, “Strawson and Ontological Priority,” in Analytical Philosophy, 2nd series, ed. R.J. Butler [Oxford, 1965], p. 106).
- 2.
Representative lists of grounding claims can be found in Gideon Rosen, “Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction,” in Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology, ed. Bob Hale and Aviv Hoffmann (Oxford, 2010), pp. 110–13, and Fabrice Correia and Benjamin Schnieder, “Grounding: An Opinionated Introduction,” in Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality, ed. Correia and Schnieder (Cambridge, 2012), p. 1.
- 3.
For an overview of these debates see Kelly Trogdon, “An Introduction to Grounding,” in Varieties of Dependence: Ontological Dependence, Grounding, Supervenience, Response-Dependence ed. Miguel Hoeltje, Benjamin Schnieder, and Alex Steinberg (Munich, 2013), pp. 97–122.
- 4.
Alastair Wilson, “Metaphysical Causation,” Noûs 52, no. 4 (2018), 723–51. This view is very unorthodox, however. Most participants of the debate accept the conception of grounding presented by Magali Roques in her Introduction to this volume, according to which grounding is associated with a non-causal form of explanation.
- 5.
Note that there are also voices in the debate that claim that there are different notions of grounding. Kit Fine who distinguishes between metaphysical, physical, and normative grounds, is a prominent example: see Kit Fine, “Guide to Ground,” in Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality, ed. Fabrice Correia and Benjamin Schnieder (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 38–40. For all that, he seems to agree that there is only one notion of metaphysical grounding, and this is the only notion that I am interested in here. Jessica M. Wilson, in “No Work for a Theory of Grounding,” Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 57 (2014), 535–79, makes a case for there being many different grounding relations, such that there is neither any need for nor point in developing an overarching theory of grounding. However, precisely because she takes the univocity of grounding to speak against there being uniform metaphysical form of priority exemplified by typical “grounding-cases,” she is no defender of grounding.
- 6.
Francisco Suárez, Disputationes metaphysicae, disputation 8, section 3, paragraph 13, ed. Charles Berton, 2 vols., Opera Omnia 25–26 (Paris, 1866), vol. 25, p. 287a; henceforth cited according to the format: DM 8.3.13, 25:287a.
- 7.
For an important discussion of this question see Paul Audi, “Grounding: Toward a Theory of the In-Virtue-Of Relation,” Journal of Philosophy 109 (2012), 708–11.
- 8.
Schaffer, “On What Grounds What,” p. 353.
- 9.
Ibid.
- 10.
Jonathan Schaffer, “What Not to Multiply without Necessity,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93 (2015), 647–48.
- 11.
See Kit Fine, “The Question of Realism,” Philosophers’ Imprint 1 (2001), 18.
- 12.
See ibid., pp. 25–26, and Kit Fine, “The Question of Ontology,” in Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology, ed. David J. Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman (Oxford, 2009), pp. 174–76.
- 13.
Fine, “The Question of Ontology,” p. 173.
- 14.
For an excellent introduction to the late scholastic debate about the nature of substantial forms see Robert Pasnau, “Form, Substance, and Mechanism,” The Philosophical Review 113 (2004), 31–88.
- 15.
Amongst those, the probably most prominent was William of Ockham. For a discussion see Dominik Perler, “Faculties in Medieval Philosophy,” in The Faculties: A History, ed. Dominik Perler (Oxford, 2015), pp. 114–23.
- 16.
The locus classicus is his Summa theologiae I.77.1.
- 17.
See DM 7.2.25–27, 25:270–71.
- 18.
DM 7.1.12, 25:253a: “Quae a parte rei sunt distincta,] a parte rei habent distinctas essentias, vel numero, si ipsa sint tantum numero distincta, vel specie aut genere, si illa dicantur esse essentialiter distincta.”
- 19.
Francisco Suárez, Commentaria una cum questionibus in libros Aristotelis De anima, disp. 3, q. 1, para. 6, ed. Salvador Castellote, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1978–91), 2:62: “Istae potentiae, ut potentiae sunt, habent distinctam rationem et definitionem ab ipsa anima, inquantum anima est; ergo distinguuntur ex natura rei. Patet antecedens, quia anima, ut anima, essentialiter ordinatur ad corpus; potentia vero, ut potentia, ad operationem essentialiter.”
- 20.
See DM 15.5.1, 25:517a.
- 21.
The Latin slogan is “Actus et potentia sunt in eodem genere,” which was taken to be implied by Aristotle’s discussion on the ontological status of principles in Metaphysics XII.5, 1071a16–22; cf. Thomas Aquinas, In libros Metaphysicorum XII, lect. 4, n. 26, ed. M.R. Cathala and R.M. Spiazzi (Rome, 1950), §2480, pp. 560–61. Note however that Suárez takes this slogan to have only a restricted scope. As he explains in DM 14.2.14, 25:469b, it holds only for powers whose nature is exhausted by their directedness towards a certain manifestation. This restriction leaves open the possibility of substances having the essential power to cause accidents, which Suárez accepts, as we will see below.
- 22.
DM 18.3.4, 25:616a: “[…] proprietates accidentales, praesertim illas quae consequuntur aut debentur rei ratione formae, causari a substantia non solum materialiter et finaliter, sed etiam effective per naturalem resultantiam.”
- 23.
DM 17.1.6, 25:582b: “[Causa vero efficiens est] extrinseca, id est, non communicans effectui suum proprium, et (ut ita dicam) individuum esse, sed aliud realiter profluens et manans a tali causa, media actione.”
- 24.
For a more extensive defence of this point and further details on Suárez’s theory of efficient causation, see Stephan Schmid, “Efficient Causality: The Metaphysics of Production,” in Suárez on Aristotelian Causality, ed. Jakob Leth Fink (Leiden, 2015), pp. 85–121. For a comparison of Suárez’s theory with other late scholastic accounts see Jacob Tuttle, “Suarez’s Non-Reductive Theory of Efficient Causation,” Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 4 (2016), 125–58.
- 25.
Note that these cases do not exhaust all forms of efficient causation. There is also the case of the production of matter (which is not a form). However, producing matter is a prerogative of God, who, due to his infinite power, is the only being capable of creatio ex nihilo, while all finite beings are confined to bringing about forms in pre-existing matter or subjects (see DM 20.1.14, 25:748b–749a). Apart from this, one might wonder whether there is also the possibility of inverse natural resultance, as it were, with accidental forms giving rise to substantial forms. However, this case is ruled out for Suárez by the axiom that a “principal cause has to be either more noble or at least no less noble than its effect” (DM 17.2.2, 25:599: “causa principalis […] esse debet vel nobilior vel certe non ignobilior effectu”). For a discussion of this principle, see Tad Schmaltz, Descartes on Causation (Oxford, 2008), p. 45.
- 26.
DM 18.3.8, 25:617b: “Hujusmodi accidentales formae, seu proprietates, sunt res distinctae a substantia; ergo, licet fiant cum ipsa substantia, vel ab ipsa resultent, necesse est ut fiant per actionem distinctam.”
- 27.
See DM 20.1.15–21, 25:749a–751a, where Suárez argues that all finite beings are created, and DM 28.1.4, 26:2a, where he says that “the first being has no cause, all others have one” (primum ens nullam habet causam, caetera omnia illam habent).
- 28.
Aristotle, Metaphysics IX.10, 1051b6–8.
- 29.
DM 8.3.13, 25:287a: “[Unde non fit ut per talem compositionem cognoscat veritatem, sed solum illud] esse rei quod fundat veritatem, iuxta illud Aristotelis: Ex eo quod res est vel non est, opinio vera vel falsa est.”
- 30.
DM 8.0, 25:273a: “[…] in rebus ipsis, quae ab illa denominantur verae.”
- 31.
Ibid.: “[…] in intellectu cognoscente res, seu in cognitione et conceptione ipsarum rerum.”
- 32.
In addition to these, Suárez identifies a third type of truth that “is to be found in utterances or in writing” (DM 8.0, 25:273a: “reperitur in vocibus vel scripturis”). Given that this type of truth is immediately explained in terms of the truth of the cognition expressed by these utterances or written signs, we can safely ignore it.
- 33.
DM 8.2.5, 25:278b: “Quid addat veritas supra actum qui denominatur verus.”
- 34.
See DM 8.2.6, 25:279a.
- 35.
Note that this consideration crucially depends on the view that eternalism is false—in other words, that truthbearers can change their truth value, being true at some times and being false at others. This view is contested, but Suárez explicitly defends it in DM 8.2.10, 25:280.
- 36.
Suárez articulates this argument in a rather scattered way in DM 8.2.2–8, 25:277–79.
- 37.
DM 8.2.2, 25:277b: “Veritas ejusdem rationis debet esse in omnibus.” Note that Suárez here is speaking only about propositional truth or truth in cognition. Thus, he is not repudiating his initial distinction between different kinds of truth, which I presented at the beginning of this section.
- 38.
I have not seen Suárez providing such considerations. They are provided by Timothy Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy (Malden, 2007), pp. 54–58.
- 39.
An introduction to the medieval debate about relations is found in Jeffrey Brower, “Medieval Theories of Relations,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2015 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2015/entries/relations-medieval/. Suárez develops his theory of real relations in DM 47.5–9, 26:805–20b; for a detailed discussion, see Sydney Penner, “Suárez on the Reduction of Categorical Relations,” Philosophers’ Imprint 13 (2013), 1–24.
- 40.
As Suárez succinctly puts it, “Everything that is necessary for a real relation is: [i] a capable subject, [ii] a real foundation with an appropriate reason of founding, and [iii] a real, actually existing terminus with a sufficient foundation that is real or in the nature of things” (DM 54.6.2, 26:1039a: “Omnia, quae solent esse necessaria ad relationem realem, qualia sunt subjectum capax, fundamentum reale cum debita ratione fundandi, et realis terminus actu existens cum sufficienti fundamento reali, seu ex natura rei.” Cf. DM 47.6.1, 26:808–9).
- 41.
See DM 8.2.2, 25:277a.
- 42.
Note that (like many late scholastic thinkers) Suárez takes a chimera—a mythical creature with the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and a serpent for a tail—to be an impossible entity, since it combines several mutually incompatible essences; see DM 54.1.7, 26:1017a. A helpful comment on late scholastic conceptions of chimeras is found in John P. Doyle, ed. and trans., Francisco Suárez: Beings of Reason (De entibus rationis); Metaphysical Disputation LIV (Milwaukee, 1995), p. 20.
- 43.
DM 8.2.9, 25:279b: “[Dicendum est] veritatem cognitionis ultra ipsum actum nihil addere reale et intrinsecum ipsi actui, sed connotare solum objectum ita se habens sicut per actum repraesentatur.”
- 44.
For an excellent overview of this debate, see Brian Embry, “Truth and Truthmakers in Early Modern Scholasticism,” Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (2015), 196–216.
- 45.
DM 8.2.9, 25:279b: “[Haec assertio sequitur ex praecedentibus; nam] actum esse verum plus aliquid dicit quam actum esse; et non dicit aliquid reale absolutum vel relativum ultra ipsum actum, nec etiam dicit propriam et rigorosam relationem rationis; ergo nihil aliud addere potest praeter dictam connotationem, seu denominationem consurgentem ex connexione seu conjunctione talis actus, et objecti.”
- 46.
For more on this, see Embry, “Truth and Truthmakers,” pp. 201–3.
- 47.
DM 54.2.10, 26:1020b: “si denominatio sumitur a forma reali, hoc ipso in rebus existit, et consequenter non pertinet ad entia ralionis.”
- 48.
Ibid.: “Dices: hoc ipso quod est sola denominatio, non potest esse plus quam ens rationis, nam denominatio opus rationis est. Respondetur: si per denominationem quis intelligat impositionem nominis denominativi, illud quidem est opus rationis; sed nunc non agimus de impositione nominum; hoc enim modo etiam denominatio intrinseca, quantum ad impositionem nominis denominativi, est opus rationis; sed agimus de ipsarum rerum unionibus aut habitudinibus, in quibus talia denominativa nomina fundantur, quae non sunt opera rationis.”
- 49.
In scholarship on Aristotle, commentators distinguish between “linguistic” and “metaphysical” predication: metaphysical predications are not linguistic acts but metaphysically objective states of affairs corresponding to true linguistic predications. See James Bogen’s Introduction to How Things Are: Studies in Predication and the History of Philosophy and Science, ed. James Bogen and James E. McGuire (Dordrecht, 1985), pp. 1–19. I take Suárez’s realism with regard to denominations to consist in the view that denominations are metaphysical predications.
- 50.
Note that there was a scholastic debate about the ontological status of “intentional or objective existence.” For Suárez’s stance on this question see DM 54.1.
- 51.
DM 8.2.12, 25:280b: “Ad veritatem nec sola repraesentatio sufficit, si objectum non ita se habeat sicut repraesentatur: neque concomitantia objecti potest sufficere ad denominationem veritatis, nisi praesupposita praedicta repraesentatione vel potius includendo illam; quia veritas non est sola illa denominatio extrinseca, sed includit intrinsecam habitudinem actus terminatam ad objectum taliter se habens.”
- 52.
Embry, “Truth and Truthmakers,” pp. 198–204, attributes a similar account of truth to late scholastic successors of Suárez, such as Rodrigo de Arriaga and Francisco Oviedo, which he calls the “semi-extrinsic denomination” view of truth. See note 57 below for an explanation of the aspect in which the conception of truth that I attribute to Suárez deviates from the “semi-extrinsic denomination” view that Embry attributes to Arriaga and Oviedo.
- 53.
DM 8.2.14, 25:281: “Denominatio autem veri formalis, et actualis, [est quidem in re ipsa absque fictione intellectus, ut recte probat argumentum,] non tamen est omnino intrinseca denominatio, sed partim est a forma intrinseca, partim connotat coexistentiam objectivam seu concomitantiam objecti ita se habentis, sicut per cognitionem iudicatur.”
- 54.
Ibid. (emphasis added).
- 55.
DM 8.3.13. 25:287a: “[Unde non fit ut per talem compositionem cognoscat veritatem, sed solum illud] esse rei quod fundat veritatem, iuxta illud Aristotelis: Ex eo quod res est vel non est, opinio vera vel falsa est.”
- 56.
What is more, a coexistence class seems to be a paradigm case of a being-per-accidens, the reality of which Suárez repudiates in DM 1.1.5 [25: 3].
- 57.
It is here that my interpretation of Suárez’s conception of truth deviates from the “semi-extrinsic denomination” view of truth that Brian Embry, attributes to Arriaga and Oviedo in “Truth and Truthmakers,” p. 204. Embry takes it that this view entails that the truth of a proposition consists in the “mereological sum” of the proposition and its object; on my interpretation of Suárez, however, there is no mereological sum consisting of a cognition and its object apart from the coexistence of this cognition and its object, which in turn is nothing but the existence of this cognition and the existence of this object.
- 58.
While Karen Bennett, “By Our Bootstraps,” Philosophical Perspectives 25 (2011), 27–41, defends a “forward-looking” account of grounding, according to which grounding obtains in virtue of the grounds at stake, Fine, “Guide to Ground,” pp. 74–80, defends a “backward-looking” account of grounding, according to which grounding holds (roughly) due to the essence of that which is grounded.
- 59.
See Alastair Wilson, “Metaphysical Causation.”
- 60.
This chapter has greatly profited from comments and suggestions by Brian Embry, Lukas Lang, Stefan Roski, and Sonja Schierbaum, as well as the discussion I had with Martine Nida-Rümelin, Mario Schärli, Gianfranco Soldati, and other members of the audience at a talk I gave at the Université de Fribourg in November 2017. I am grateful for all their valuable feedback. I am also grateful for Ian Drummond’s excellent and philosophically perceptive editorial remarks, which have much enhanced the paper’s readability.
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Schmid, S. (2024). Two Kinds of Grounding? Suárez on Natural Resultance and Foundation. In: Normore, C.G., Schmid, S. (eds) Grounding in Medieval Philosophy. Historical-Analytical Studies on Nature, Mind and Action, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53666-3_13
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