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Metaphysical Disputation I
On the Nature of First Philosophy or Metaphysics
Early Modern Catholic Sources
Translated by Shane Duarte
Imprint: Catholic University of America Press
Francisco Suárez (1548-1617) was one of the most important philosophers and theologians of Early Modern Scholasticism. Although Suárez spent most of his academic career as a professor of theology, he is better known today for his Metaphysical Disputations (Salamanca, 1597). The present volume contains a facing-page English translation of Metaphysical Disputation I, which is introductory and devoted to the nature of metaphysics itself. In it, Suárez first specifies this science’s object and nature (Sections 1 and 2) and then discusses its unity (Section 3), its end, utility and functions (Section 4), its status as the most perfect natural science and true wisdom (Section 5), and finally the thesis that it is the science most of all desired by means of a natural appetite (Section 6). Those interested in late scholastic conceptions of metaphysics and their influence on the better known metaphysical systems of the seventeenth century – e.g., Descartes’s – will find the volume especially useful. The Latin text contained in this volume introduces a significant number of corrections to the text of the Vivès edition, the one standardly used by scholars of Suárez, and thus more faithfully reproduces the text of the first edition. The volume also contains a lengthy introduction that provides a detailed survey of the disputation’s principal claims and arguments.
Francisco Suárez (1548-1617) was a Spanish Jesuit priest, philosopher and theologian, one of the leading figures of the School of Salamanca movement. Shane Duarte is the translator of Metaphysical Disputations II-IV, which will be published in two volumes by The Catholic University of America Press.
"A most significant contribution in view of the importance of these disputations for the history of metaphysics...Duarte provides a comprehensive introduction by situating them within that history."
~Robert Fastiggi, Sacred Heart Major Seminary
"Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputations are the crowning achievement of Renaissance Aristotelianism, and here for the first time we have a translation of the first part of that massive work, explaining what metaphysics is and why it should be studied. Duarte carefully reconstructs the Latin text and provides a scrupulously faithful facing translation. This is philosophical scholarship of the highest order."
~Robert Pasnau, University of Colorado-Boulder
"This is an excellent annotated translation of the first of the Metaphysical Disputations of the important scholastic philosopher and theologian Francisco Suárez. The volume includes a version of the Latin text that takes into account variations among the different editions of this work. There is also a comprehensive introduction that provides a helpful entry into the world of late scholastic metaphysics by way of a contextualized consideration of the details of the arguments in Suárez’s opening disputation."
~Tad Schmaltz, University of Michigan
"Judged by the quality of its translation alone, this work is already a remarkable scholarly accomplishment: clear, accurate, and philosophically informed. This work is, however, much more than a simple translation: Duarte has done serious critical work on the text itself, making hundreds of emendations and corrections, thereby bringing us closer to Suárez’s intended meaning than we have been since the original publication of his magnum opus. In addition, Duarte has prefaced the work with a masterly introduction, economical and authoritative in equal measure. Duarte’s work is a tour de force sure to set the standard for generations to come."
~Christopher Shields, University of Notre Dame
"This book is a major contribution to the history of philosophy, and in particular to the study of Renaissance and Early Modern metaphysics… Duarte’s translation is excellent, careful, and intelligent."
~Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
"Suárez published 54 metaphysical disputations, each one a book-length treatise in its own right. Although English translations have been appearing with impressive regularity, Duarte’s new volume deserves special celebration, not just because it finally tackles the first disputation, but because it sets a whole new scholarly standard for how the task should be done."
~Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy
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