Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) was a Spanish philosopher and theologian, generally regarded as having been the greatest scholastic after Thomas Aquinas.

Life and career

Suárez was born on 5 January 1548 in the Spanish city of Granada. At the age of sixteen he entered the Society of Jesus at Salamanca, and he studied philosophy and theology there for five years from 1565 to 1570. It appears that he was not a promising student at first; indeed, he nearly gave up his thoughts of study after twice failing the entrance exam. After passing the exam at the third attempt, however, things changed, and he completed his course of study in philosophy with distinction, going on to study theology, then to teach philosophy at Avila and Segovia. He was ordained in 1572, and taught theology at Avila and Segovia (1575), Valladolid (1576), Rome (1580–85), Alcalá (1585–92), Salamanca (1592–97), and Coimbra (1597–1616).

He wrote on a wide variety of subjects, producing a vast amount of work (his complete works in Latin amount to twenty-six volumes). Suárez' writings include treatises on on law, the relationship between church and state, metaphysics, and theology.

Suárez was regarded during his lifetime as being the greatest living philosopher and theologian, and given the nickname Doctor Eximius; Pope Gregory XIII attended his first lecture in Rome. Pope Paul V invited him to refute the errors of James I of England, and wished to retain him near his person, to profit by his knowledge. Philip II of Spain sent him to the University of Coimbra in order to give it prestige, and when Suárez visited the University of Barcelona, the doctors of the university went out to meet him wearing the insignia of their faculties.

After his death on 25 September 1617 in Portugal (in either Lisbon or Coimbra) his reputation grew still greater, and he had a direct influence on such leading philosophers as Hugo Grotius, René Descartes, and Gottfried Leibniz.

Philosophical thought

His most important philosophical achievements were in metaphysics and the philosophy of law.

Metaphysics

For Suárez, metaphysics was the science of real essences and existence; it was mostly concerned with real being rather than conceptual being, and with immaterial rather than with material being. He held (along with earlier scholastics) that essence and existence are the same in the case of god (see ontological argument, but disagreed with Aquinas and others that the essence and existence of finite beings are really distinct . He argued that in fact they’re merely conceptually distinct; rather than being able to exist separately, they are conceivable separately. That is, rather than being logically separable, existence and essence are epistemically separable.

On the vexed subject of universals, Suarez was a nominalist; he argued that we have direct knowledge only of individuals.

Philosophy of law

Here Suárez' main importance stems from his work on natural law, and from his arguments concerning positive law and the status of a monarch. He argued against the sort of social-contract theory that became dominant among early-modern political philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, but some of his thinking found echoes in the more liberal, Lockean contract theorists.

Human beings, argued Suárez, have a natural social nature bestowed upon them by god, and this includes the potential to make laws. When a political society is formed, therefore, its nature is chosen by the people involved, and they give their natural legislative power to their ruler. Because they gave this power, they have the right to take it back, to revolt against a ruler — but only if the ruler behaves badly towards them, and they're obliged to act moderately and justly. In particular, the people muct refrain from killingthe ruler, no matter how tyrannical he mat have become.

If a government is imposed on people, on the other hand, they not only have the right to defend themselves by revolting against it, they are entitled to kill the tyrannical ruler.

Sources

• The Catholic Encyclopedia
• Robert L. Arrington [ed.] A Companion to the Philosophers (2001: Oxford, Blackwell) ISBN 0-631-22967-1
• Peter J. King One Hundred Philosophers (2004: New York, Barron's) ISBN 0-7641-2791-8