Suarez

Freedom in the sense of free will is a multiway power to do any one of a number of things, leaving it up to us which one of a range of options by way of action we perform. What are the ethical implications of our possession of such a power? The paper examines the pre-Hobbesian scholastic view of writers such as Peter Lombard and Francisco Suarez: freedom as a multiway power is linked to the right to liberty understood as a right to exercise that power, and to liberation as a desirable goal involving the perfection of that power. Freedom as a power, liberty as a right, and liberation as a desirable goal, are all linked within this scholastic view to a distinctive theory of law as constituting, in its primary form of natural law, the normative recognition of human freedom.
Hobbes's denial of the very existence of freedom as a power led him to a radical revision both of the theory of law and of the relation of law to liberty. Law and liberty were no longer harmonious phenomena, but were left in essential conflict.
One legacy of Hobbes is the attempt to base a theory of law and liberty not on freedom as a multiway power, but on rationality. Instead of an ethics of freedom, we have an ethics of reason as involving autonomy. The paper expresses some scepticism about the prospects for such an appeal to reason as a replacement for multiway freedom.

One of the most famous controversies in the scholarly circles of Catholicism and Protestantism is the opposition between Aquinas’ analogia entis and Barth’s analogia fidei. Considered, paradoxically, in the second half of the last century, as a possible opening for the ecumenical dialogue (Mondin, Chavannes), it was summoned more recently in some important publications by Johnston, McCormack, Spencer, and White. The main goal of this article is to offer a general account of the Aquinas-Barth controversy, its philosophical and historical background, and an evaluation of the argumentation concerning ways of convergence and divergence between the proponents of analogia entis and analogia fidei, in the context of the possible reconciliation between Aquinas’ and Barth’s positions.

'Normativity and Reason' explores what might be involved in the claim that the normativity of moral standards is a normativity of reason. 

Taking the accounts of moral normativity given by a range of moral theorists, including Hume, Pufendorf, Locke, Sidgwick and Scanlon, and comparing these with medieval and early modern scholastic natural law theory, the paper argues that normative standards on action involve a variety of distinct kinds of justificatory force - and that standards of moral right and wrong or of moral obligation involve, in particular, a distinctive justificatory force of Demand.

Using this theory of obligation, the paper argues for a new account of moral rationality, and of the relation of moral and legal obligation.

Rezime: Na osnovu analize relevantnih mesta iz Dekartovih spisa u članku se pokazuje da Dekartove ideje reprezentuju stvari u duhu, ali da on nije reprezentacionalista u malbranšovskom smislu: kod Dekarta se percipira reprezentovani
objekt a ne reprezentacija objekta. Nakon toga, analiziraju se tri smisla ideje kod njega, objektivni, formalni i materijalni, a potom i razumevanje pojmova conceptus formalis i conceptus objectivus kod Franciska Suareza što čini neposredan istorijskofilozofski izvor Dekartove teorije ideja. U zaključku se ističe centralnost pojma ideje uzete formalno i iznose se razlozi za tvrdnju da u okviru Dekatove teorije ideja reprezentacionalizam i direktni realizam jesu ekvivalentni. Na kraju se daje sumarni pregled uticaja i preobražaja razumevanja ideja u ranoj modernoj filozofiji.
Ključne reči: teorija ideja, direktni realizam, reprezentacionalizam, conceptus
formalis, conceptus objectivus, Francisko Suarez, rana moderna filozofija.

What validates political authority? Do political rights and duties depend on the nature of human society or on a decision to live in a specific way? Francisco Suárez SJ (1548-1617) expressed some very interesting and original ideas about these questions. Marking 400 years since his death, scholars realize that what he said can be relevant for us today, as we face a serious lack of clarity regarding crucial concepts like tolerance, national identity and reciprocity. This specialized conference is meant to throw light on the current importance of his legacy in this area.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTyg55NI2PY&feature=youtu.be

La relación trascendental aplicada a la relación alma y cuerpo en el hombre The transcendental relationship applied to the relationship soul and body in man SALVADOR CASTELLOTE Profesor emérito de la Facultad de Teología "San Vicente Ferrer" de Valencia scastellote@telefonica.net Resumen. Mi objetivo es analizar, en primer lugar, el significado de la categoría de la relación, según los conceptos contenidos en la DM 47 sobre la categoría de la relación predicamental y/o trascendental, aplicándola a la existente en el cosmos, a la relación entre conocimiento y la cosa conocida y al compositum cuerpo-alma. Aquí haré una referencia a la semejanza entre Suárez y Kant con respecto al postulado de la existencia de Dios y de la inmortalidad del alma humana. Palabras clave: Antropología filosófica; Metafísica; Psicología; Relación alma-cuerpo. Abstract. My goal is to analyse, first, the meaning of the category of the relationship, according to the concepts contained in the DM 47 over the predicamental and/or transcendental relationship category, applying it to the existing in the cosmos, the relationship between knowledge and the thing known and the compositum body-soul. Here I will make a reference to the similarity between Suarez and Kant about the postulate of the existence of God and the immortality of the human soul.

RESUMEN A comienzos de la Edad Moderna, el teólogo Francisco Suárez admite la legitimidad de la fuga en el supuesto de durísimas condenas o si la cárcel fuese demasiado insalubre, porque el privilegio de la vida es máximo. Las leyes que castigan el quebrantamiento de condena son leyes puramente penales. La doctrina de las leyes pura o meramente penales no solo fue la versión embrionaria del tratamiento jurídico de la conciencia sino una manera de consolidar al poder soberano porque se está justificando que la legitimidad del mismo no depende en todos los casos de la efectividad de sus normas. Palabras clave: Suárez, leyes meramente penales, castigo, derecho de fuga, principio de humanidad, derechos humanos, estado de necesidad.

The article provides an overview of the debates on the nature of free will in the wake of Luis de Molina’s Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis. The controversy which followed the publication of this groundbreaking theological synthesis in 1588, is approached here from the perspective of broader social developments which social historians associate with the phenomenon called functional differentiation. From this angle, Molina’s campaign for a libertarian concept of the will is not only a domestic affair for theologians, it is one of the milestones of modernity, as it gives rise to new-style approaches to the unity of a systemic whole. The unity of the universe, in Molina, is not a given, it is the result of processes of integration intended to coordinate various metaphysical domains which can no longer be held together by the all-encompassing emanative causality of God. The reason is that Molina’s account of freedom does not allow God to govern the world by his own causal activity, for no intelligence, not even an infinite one, can know with certainty the outcome of a decision from any source, other than the decision itself. By consequence, God’s causal participation in events cannot be the true basis of his knowledge of the future. From the fact that libertarian concepts of free will sever the internal link between human action and providential causation so that they cannot be reduced to one another, it follows that the autonomous systems resulting from this situation must mutually accommodate each other externally, by some complementary mechanisms of coordination. Coordinating mechanisms (such as middle knowledge, God’s noetic supereminence over his creatures, and congruism) are needed to ensure the smooth functioning of the system as a whole. Based on the analysis of these systemic requirements, it will be argued that Molina’s proposal, as well as its modulations in the congruist systems of Bellarmino and Suárez, are early attempts to provide a theory of functionally coordinated autonomous systems, which play a foundational role in modernity.