Book contents
- Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputations
- CAMBRIDGE CRITICAL GUIDES
- Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputations
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The Character of Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputations
- Part II Being, Its Properties, and Ancillary Notions
- Part III Causation
- Part IV Corporeal Substance
- Part V Categories
- Chapter 13 Reductive Realism
- Chapter 14 Suárez on Time
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE CRITICAL GUIDES
Chapter 13 - Reductive Realism
Suárez on the Categories
from Part V - Categories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2025
Book contents
- Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputations
- CAMBRIDGE CRITICAL GUIDES
- Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputations
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The Character of Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputations
- Part II Being, Its Properties, and Ancillary Notions
- Part III Causation
- Part IV Corporeal Substance
- Part V Categories
- Chapter 13 Reductive Realism
- Chapter 14 Suárez on Time
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE CRITICAL GUIDES
Summary
What are the categories: fundamental entities or concepts? Suárez answers this question by rejecting strong realism as well as conceptualism. On his view, the distinction of ten categories marks a conceptual distinction that is grounded in reality, but without there being a one-to-one relation between concepts and entities. Rather, the distinction is grounded in different things (res) as well as modes (modi) and in combinations of these two building blocks of reality. The chapter examines this grounding relation by first analyzing Suárez’s account of things and modes and the way they are related to each other. It then focuses on the categories of substance and quality and explains in what sense the concepts of substance and quality are grounded in things and modes. Finally, it argues that Suárez subscribes to a distinctive form of reductionism that differs from the standard nominalist approach to the categories.
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- Suárez's Metaphysical DisputationsA Critical Guide, pp. 241 - 256Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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