The Complete Works Of Francisco Suárez - Disputations on Metaphysics, Part I, Disputations 1–27, Volume XXV - Francisco Suárez

This twenty-fifth volume begins Suárez’s monumental Disputationes Metaphysicae, one of the most influential systematic works in post-medieval scholastic philosophy. It presents the opening set of disputations, in which Suárez lays the foundations for his comprehensive treatment of metaphysics as the science of being.

The work opens by defining metaphysics, its object, and its method, carefully distinguishing it from logic, natural philosophy, and theology. Suárez establishes metaphysics as a rigorous speculative science concerned with being insofar as it is being, and with its most universal principles.

The early disputations also examine the fundamental properties of being, such as unity, truth, and goodness, along with preliminary discussions of cause, principle, and distinction. Suárez introduces his characteristic use of formal distinctions and conceptual analysis to clarify how different aspects of reality can be understood without confusion or contradiction.

Throughout this volume, Suárez sets the methodological and conceptual framework for the entire metaphysical system that will unfold in subsequent disputations. The result is a tightly organized introduction to a comprehensive scholastic metaphysics that would deeply influence later philosophy.