Metaphysical Disputations

A vast Latin treatise in fifty-four disputations by the Spanish Jesuit Francisco Suárez, published in two volumes in Salamanca in 1597. It was the first systematic metaphysics in the scholastic tradition arranged by topic rather than as a commentary on Aristotle's text. The first volume treats being in general: what metaphysics studies, the concept of being, the transcendental properties of unity, truth and goodness, the principle of individuation, the kinds of distinction, and a long account of the four causes. The second volume treats particular kinds of being: God, the infinite being, whose existence Suárez argues can be shown by reason; created being; the relation between essence and existence, which he holds are distinct only in thought; substance and the categories of accidents; and finally beings of reason, such as negations and logical relations. Suárez sets out the views of Aquinas, Scotus and many others before giving his own, often independent, judgement.

It was the standard metaphysics textbook in Catholic and Protestant universities for a century, and its concepts passed through Descartes, Leibniz and Wolff into modern philosophy.