CRITIQUE OF SUÁREZ ON THE REAL DISTINCTION OF A CATEGORICAL

RELATION FROM ITS FOUNDATION

Paul Gerard Horrigan, Ph.D., 2018.

In the forty-seventh disputation of his 1597 Disputationes metaphysicae, Francisco

Suárez (1548-1617) maintains that there is no real distinction between a categorical relation and
its foundation but only a distinction of reason. In disputation 47, section 2, number 12 Suárez
presents the position of those who deny a real distinction between a categorical relation and its
foundation: “A Fifth Opinion Denying an Actual Distinction in Reality of a Relation from its
Foundation. 12. Still, there is another opinion, extremely opposite to these,1 which denies that a
relation is in reality (in re) distinguished with some actual distinction from its absolute
foundation, but [says that it is distinguished] with only some distinction of reason having some
basis in things.

“Many theologians teach this opinion, especially the Nominalists, in [their Sentences
commentaries] I, dist. 30; [cf.] Ockham, [in this place] at question 1,2 and at dist. 31, question 1;3
Gregory [of Rimini], at dist. 29, question 2, article 2;4 and Giles [of Rome]5 is clearly of the
same opinion in [Sent.] I, dist. 26, question 4, when he says a relation has no proper being
beyond the being of [its] foundation, nor does it have any composition joined to that [ei] – which
cannot be true, except by reason of a complete identity in the thing itself (in re ipsa). Silvester
[Mazzolini a.k.a. Prierias, O.P.] plainly /col. b/ holds the same view, in his Conflati [ex angelico
doctore S. Thoma], Question 1, Dubium 1,6 where he says that a relation is the same thing as its
proximate foundation. And although he adds that they are distinguished formally, he, however,
immediately makes it clear enough that this is only a distinction of reason, from a diversity of
concepts, insofar as the same thing taken alone is conceived absolutely, but with something else
posited, it is conceived relatively, with simply nothing added or varied with respect to the thing
itself (rem ipsam). But Hervaeus [Natalis, O.P.] teaches and treats this opinion more expressly
and better, [Sent.] I, dist. 30, art. 1 [sic],7 and Quodlibet 7, question 15,8 and Quodlibet 10,
question 1;9 who also has declared that these relative denominations are taken from the

1
That is, the first four opinions presented.
2
Cf. Guillelmi de Ockham, Scriptum in librum primum Sententiarum ordinatio, d. 30, q. 1, in Opera theologica, vol.
4, ed. Girardus I. Etzkorn et Franciscus E. Kelley (St. Bonaventure, N.Y., 1979), pp. 309-310.
3
Cf. ibid., d. 31, q. un, p. 400.
4
Cf. Gregorii Ariminensis, Lectura super primum et secundum Sententiarum (Tomus III, ed. Trapp et Marcolino,
Berlin/New York, 1984), In I Sent. dist. 28-32, qu. 2, Additio 142, pp. 154-5.
5
Cf. Egidii Romani, Primus Sententiarum, correctus a reverendo magistro Augustino Montifalconio (Venetiis:
Impressus sumptibus et expensis heredum quondam Octaviani Scot., 1521), In Sent. I, d. 26, quaestio principalis
secunda, fol. 141va.
6
The work here is Silvestro Mazzolini, Conflati ex angelico doctore S. Thoma, Perusie: Per Hieronymum quondam
Francisci Chartularii, 1519.
7
Cf. Hervei Natalis Britonis, In quatuor libros sententiarum, Commentaria, In I Sent., d. 29, q. 1, ad 2 (Parisiis:
Apud Viduam Moreau, 1647), p. 126a.
8
For this, see: Hervaeus Natalis, Quodlibetum VII, q. 15, in Quolibeta Hervei (Venetiis: Georgium Arrivabenum,
1513; rep., Ridgewood, NJ: Gregg Press, 1966), fol. 143va.
9
Cf. ibid, Quodlibetum X, q. 1, fols. 169vb-170rb.

1
association (consortio) of several absolute things, and not from special (peculiaribus) entities, or
really distinct modes,10 which they add to those absolute things themselves.”11

At numbers 13 and 22 of section 2 of the same forty-seventh disputation, Suárez attempts

to recruit St. Thomas Aquinas himself to support the opinion of those who reject the real
distinction between a categorical relation and its foundation. At number 13 he writes: “13. And
this opinion has a basis in St. Thomas, Opusculum 48, chapter 2, which concerns ‘toward
something’ (ad aliquid), where he says as follows: ‘But when I say that the likeness of Socrates
has his whiteness as a foundation, it should not be understood that the likeness of Socrates is
some thing in Socrates other than that whiteness itself, but it is only that whiteness itself as it is
related to the whiteness of Plato as to a terminus.’ However, John P. Doyle explains that Suárez
is mistakenly quoting from a spurious work, falsely attributed to the Angelic Doctor, namely,
Tract. V, c. 2 of the Summa totius Aristotelis logicae, which can be found, writes Doyle, in S.
Thomae Aquinitatis, O.P., Opuscula omnia, genuina quidem necnon spuria melioris notae debito
ordine collecta cura et studio R. P. Petri Mandonnet, O.P., Tomus quintus, opuscula spuria
(Parisiis: Sumptibus P. Lethielleux, 1927), p. 50.12 Doyle goes on to note: “It is noteworthy that
this work, which was falsely attributed to St. Thomas in the 1570 Editio Princeps of his works,
has been afterwards attributed by Quétif-Échard as likely belonging to Hervaeus Natalis; cf.
Jacobus Quétif et Jacobus Échard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum recensiti, notisque
historicis et criticis illustrati, tomus primus (Lutetiae Parisiorum: Apud J. P. Christophorum
Ballard et Nicolaum Simart, 1719), p. 536a. The obvious lessons to draw from this is that
Hervaeus had great influence here on Suárez.”13

At number 22, section 2 of disputation 47 Suárez sides with those who deny a real
distinction of a categorical relation from its foundation, opting for a distinction of reason: “When
is it Appropriately Explained, the Fifth Opinion is Approved. 22. Therefore, among these
opinions, the one that is most proven is the fifth, which Hervaeus and some other Thomists have
taught, from the sense of which the Nominalists scarcely separate themselves – and Aristotle and
St. Thomas are much in favor of it, as we have seen.14 However, this opinion is to be interpreted
so that it not be understood that the formal character of a relation is nothing or that a relative
denomination is merely extrinsic, taken from some absolute form. For according to this
[understanding] the real category of relation (ad aliquid) would be demolished and destroyed.
But it must be understood that relation indeed entails some form that is real and intrinsically
denominating a proper relative thing (relativum), which [relative thing] it constitutes [as
relative].

10
In passing, let us note this refusal to regard a relation as a mode of its foundation.
11
F. SUÁREZ, Disputationes metafisicae, dispution 47, section 2, no. 12. English translation from: F. SUÁREZ, On
Real Relation (Disputatio Metaphysica XLVII), a translation from the Latin, with an Introduction and Notes by John
P. Doyle, Marquette University Press, Milwaukee, 2006, pp. 61-62.
12
F. SUÁREZ, On Real Relation (Disputatio Metaphysica XLVII), a translation from the Latin, with an
Introduction and Notes by John P. Doyle, Marquette University Press, Milwaukee, 2006, p. 62.
13
Ibid., pp. 62-63.
14
Cf. n. 13, this Section, where, it may be recalled, Suárez has cited the pseudo-Thomistic work, the Summa totius
Aristotelis logicae.

2
 “However, it is not some thing or mode,15 physically distinct from every absolute form,
but it is in reality some absolute form, not however taken absolutely, but as respecting another
[form], which the relative denomination includes or connotes. Thus, for example, similarity is
some real form existing in the thing that is denominated ‘similar,’ but it is not, however, in
reality distinct from whiteness, with regard to that which it posits in the thing that is called
similar, but only with regard to the terminus that it connotes. And thus, similarity is in reality not
other than that whiteness itself as respecting another whiteness as it is of the same or similar
character.

“And this distinction of reason is enough, both for diverse forms of speaking and also for
a distinction of categories. For, as we have said above,16 a categorical distinction is sometimes
only a distinction of reason with some foundaiton in reality, as, for example, with regard to
action and passion,17 and as we will say below with regard to the other categories.18”19

Suárez errs in maintaining that there is no real distinction between a categorical relation
and its foundation, that there is, for him, a real identification of a categorical relation with its
foundation, and that there is only a distinction of reason between a categorical relation and its
foundation, while St. Thomas Aquinas is right in affirming that there is a real distinction of a
categorical relation from its foundation. In De Potentia Dei, III, 3, arg. 7 the Angelic Doctor
writes: “Every relation really existing in things is acquired from something that is diverse from
the relation itself, as equality from quantity, and similitude from quality.” Joseph Owens explains
that “since a real relation is not absolutely inherent, while its grounds are, it is an accident really
distinct from them. The relation can really perish, while the ground really remains. The ground
would really remain in the sugar cube, for instance, if every other similar sugar cube in the world
had perished. The sugar cube, however, would no longer be similar in reality to any other. The
real relation of similarity would have perished, while the ground would still really endure. The
absolute reality of the ground and the relative reality of the relation, accordingly, cannot really
coincide. It is true that all the absolute reality concerned is in the grounds. The leaning tower of
Pisa would acquire no new absolute reality if an exactly corresponding tower were built
somewhere else. But it would acquire a new relative reality, for it would then be really similar to
something else. All the absolute reality necessary would be there in the grounds for the relation,
but only on the coming into being of the term would the real relation of similarity arise.”20

Defending the real distinction of a categorical relation from its foundation against those
like Suárez, Charles A. Hart writes: “The relation could not be the same as the foundation of the
relation since the foundations must always be some absolute accidental determination (such as
quantity, quality, action) in the extremes and not a ‘to another,’ such as characterizes the relation.
Hence we are forced to conclude that the relation is something really distinct from all the
elements giving rise to the relation. We simply must admit that reality does not consist of

15
Again, let us note Suárez’s refusal to reduce a relation to a mode which is added to its foundation.
16
Cf. DM 39, s. 2, nn. 22-23, vol. 26, pp. 516-517.
17
Cf. Aristotle, Physics 3.3.202b19-22; also see Metaphysics 11.9.1066a30-34.
18
He is talking here about time, place, disposition, and possession. For the distinction of reason with a foundation in
reality that is involved in the distinction of the last six categories, cf. DM 39, s. 2, nn. 21-23, vol. 26, pp. 516-517.
19
F. SUÁREZ, On Real Relation (Disputatio Metaphysica XLVII), a translation from the Latin, with an
Introduction and Notes by John P. Doyle, Marquette University Press, Milwaukee, 2006, pp. 73-74.
20
J. OWENS, An Elementary Christian Metaphysics, Center for Thomistic Studies, Houston, 1985, p. 183.

3
absolute things only but embraces an ordering of things to one another as part of reality. The
order of the universe is a reality. For St. Thomas the very fact that relation, or ‘to another,’ is
placed in the list of predicaments is evidence of its reality.21

“…Suárez would confine its reality (the reality of a relation) to the reality of the
foundation…St. Thomas definitely opposes (such a view). The causal relation of dependence for
existence especially cannot be identified with the accidents of action (actio), as the actuality of
an active power in an agent, and of passion (passio), as the actuality of a passive power in a
patient. In both cases these are absolutes. The mind discovers this ordering of the one to the other
in a truly ordered hierarchical universe. It is under the compulsion of reality…”22

In the fourth volume (Metaphysics) of his Introduction to the Philosophy of St. Thomas
Aquinas, H. D. Gardeil states that “as for the distinction between relation and its foundation, St.
Thomas insists it is real; for, among other things, the distinction again meets the test of
separability – the two questions (why relations at all, and what the distinction of relation and
foundation?) come to one. Two white objects, for example, are related by similarity. If one
object is destroyed, the relation ceases; yet the whiteness, its foundation, survives in the still
existing object. But surely, what is really separable is really distinct.”23 Henry J. Koren explains
that “predicamental relations are really distinct from their foundation. For otherwise there could
be no question of a real relation, because the foundation of a relation is always something
absolute, whereas the relation itself is totally relative. Hence, either there are no real relations or
they are really distinct from their foundation.24 Moreover, sometimes it is possible to separate the
relation from its foundation. For example, between identical twins there is a real relation of
similarity based upon their physiognomy. The death of one will destroy this similarity, but its
foundation, this particular physiognomy, will remain in the survivor.”

“The reluctance of many philosophers to admit the real distinction of the predicamental
relation from its foundation seems to flow from a misunderstanding of its true nature. If relations
are real and really distinct from their foundation, so they seem to reason, they surely are very
strange entities, having nothing absolute and merely pointing to something else. How can we
represent such things in our mind? As a kind of gossamer web linking every creature to all other
creatures by innumerous threads, possessing a higher degree of elasticity than the best grade of
bubble-gum, so that they can stretch and shrink with every move of every correlated being
without becoming hopelessly entangled in one another?

“The answer is that we should beware of using our imagination in metaphysical

problems. Just as any effort to imagine what potency and act, essence and ‘to be,’ substance and
accident, look like if taken by themselves can end only in disaster, so also any effort to draw a
mental picture of real relations. Our imagination can properly represent only a concrete whole;
substance, accident, potency, act, relation, etc., are not concrete wholes but realities which our
intellects abstract from our sense images. Their intellectual representation is not a representation

21
Cf. De Potentia Dei, q. 7, a. 9.
22
C. A. HART, Thomistic Metaphysics, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1959, pp. 235-236.
23
H. D. GARDEIL, Introduction to the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, vol. 4 (Metaphysics), B. Herder, St.
Louis, 1967, p. 179.
24
Cf. De Potentia Dei, q. 7, a. 9.

4
of the whole reality as it exists in nature, but a representation of real co-principles, which
together with other co-principles form the concrete whole existing in nature. If we have to deny
real relations because we cannot imagine what they look like, then, for the same reason, we must
deny the validity of all other abstract concepts of reality, and thus we should have to give up all
attempts towards a rational conception of the universe. Moreover, the analogy of being should
not be lost sight of. Every category is a class of being sui generis, in the strictest possible sense
of the term; hence, no category can be properly represented by a being belonging to a different
category. Our mind, however, has a persistent tendency to think in univocal terms and to reduce
everything to univocation, and therefore tries to conceive relations as if they were something
absolute. As philosophers, we must react against this tendency and keep in mind that being is
analogous.”25

Against Suárez and the Nominalists, and in favor of the position of the Angelic Doctor,
Henri Grenier states the following in the third volume (Metaphysics) of his Thomistic
Philosophy: “Suarez affirms that there is only a distinction of reason between a predicamental
relation and its foundation. Nominalists too maintain that relation makes no real addition to its
subject. Thomists teach that there is a real distinction between a predicamental relation and its
proximate foundation.

“Predicamental relation is really distinct from its foundation. Things which are separable
from each other are really distinct from each other. But predicamental relation is sometimes
separable from its foundation. Therefore predicamental relation is really distinct from its
foundation.

“Minor. – It is evident from an example: if an animal’s only offspring dies, neither the
substance, nor the generative power of the animal, nor the act of generation already exercised are
changed, but yet the real relation of the animal to its offspring ceases.”26

In his Philosophy of Being, Henri Renard writes the following concerning the real
distinction of a categorical relation from its foundation: “The fact that the relation must also be
distinct from its foundation has not been accepted by many philosophers who feared these
multitudes of little beings flying about. But it is evident that to say the relation is identified with
its foundation is to deny real relation, since the foundation, by priority of nature at least, is not a
relation and does not signify ‘to another,’ but another predicament, such as quantity, or action.
Now if no real modification is had with the advent of the relation, this latter could only be a
being of the mind. Consequently, either there are no real relations, or predicamental relations are
really distinct from their foundation.

“Real Relations Exist. But obviously there are real predicamental relations; for there
exists a real order of cause and effect, of equality and proportion between all beings in the
universe. But this real order is nothing else than a complexus of relations. Hence to acknowledge
this order is to acknowledge real relations. ‘Perfection and good which are things outside the
mind are not only considered as something inhering absolutely in things, but also according to

25
H. J. KOREN, Introduction to the Science of Metaphysics, B. Herder, St. Louis, 1965, pp. 221-224.
26
H. GRENIER, Thomistic Philosophy, vol. 3 (Metaphysics), St. Dunstan’s University, Charlottetown, 1950, no.
659, pp. 204-205,

5
the order of one thing to another. There must be, therefore, in the things themselves a certain
order, and this order is a relation. Whence it is necessary that there be in the things themselves
certain relations, according to which one is referred to the other.’27

“The same assertion may be made evident from the fact that relation is numbered among
the predicaments. Now a predicament, as we saw, is a reality which has a mode of being distinct
from any other. This we know from the fact of predication. Now a relation is a reality whose ‘to
be’ is to have itself in regard to another. And this is in no way expressed by any other
predicament.

“‘In every predicament is posited a being existing outside of the mind; for we distinguish
between a being of reason and being which is subdivided into ten predicaments. If, then, relation
was not a thing outside the mind, we would not place ‘to another’ as one of the genera of the
predicaments.’28”29

Concerning the real distinction of a categorical relation from its foundation, R. P. Phillips
writes in the second volume (Metaphysics) of his Modern Thomistic Philosophy: “It has been
held that no relation is real in itself, but that only the foundations of relations are real. St.
Thomas will not admit the truth of this view…He maintains that the categorical accident relation
itself is a reality other than its foundation. It is in this last view that he is peculiar; and, indeed, at
first sight, the notion of a reference, a ‘towardness’ which is itself real, seems almost fantastic.
We can see that when a man has a son the act of generation, which is the foundation of the
relation of paternity, is something real in him; but it is difficult to see how this relation to his son
can really differ from the fact that he was his father or generator. But if we say this, what in
effect do we make of the relation? Evidently, the act of generation is something in the father,
which causes some alteration in him. He, as a man, is somewhat changed. There is nothing
relative about this, except in the sense that every accident is relative to its subject, inasmuch as it
affects it and inheres in it. This view, therefore, amounts to absorbing relation in the general
nature of accident, or in one of its categories, such as quality and action, and so destroys relation
altogether. For this is the peculiarity about relation, that while other accidents affect the
substance in itself and internally, relation has as its function to add something external to
substance, inasmuch as it introduces an order between different substances which leaves them
unchanged in themselves. Certainly some accidental change – such as the act of generation – is
presupposed in the substance, in order that the relationship may be set up; but it cannot be this
which constitutes the relation itself, for it is something which is not relative to anything other
than the subject. The existence of a relation is inherence, but its essence is reference. It is a
gossamer reality, floating away to something else, though the cause and the reason of its
existence, and of its being a reality at all, is to be found in some other accident, which is not
relative, but modifies the subject in itself. This accident, which is the foundation of the relation,
being its cause, must therefore be really distinct from the relation itself, which is the effect which
it produces. The relation is even separable from the foundation; for the foundation may remain as
a reality in nature even when the relation ceases. If we have two white objects, they are alike in
so far as both are white; but if one object is destroyed the relation of similarity ceases, though the

27
De Potentia Dei, VIII, 9.
28
De Potentia Dei, VII, 9.
29
H. RENARD, The Philosophy of Being, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1950, pp. 254-255.

6
whiteness which is the foundation of this relation, remains in the object which still exists. No
sign of real distinction can be more convincing than real separability, for a thing cannot be
separated from itself.”30

Régis Jolivet states the following concerning the real distinction of a categorical relation
from its foundation in volume 4 (Metafisica II) of his Trattato di filosofia: “La distinzione reale
tra la relazione e il suo fondamento. a) Il problema. Il problema che qui si pone è se la realtà
delle relazioni differisca dalla realtà del loro fondamento o, in altri termini, se la relazione si
distingua realmente dal suo fondamento. Per esempio, la relazione di eguaglianza è forse
tutt’altra cosa dalla quantità comparata, e la relazione di causalità è anch’essa tutt’altra cosa
dall’azione causale? Talora la risposta è affermativa, osservandosi che la relazione consiste
essenzialmente in un esse ad o rapporto, mentre il fondamento è assoluto, tal altra è negativa,
fondandosi da una parte sul fatto che la relazione è data per la stessa ragione per cui il
fondamento è dato, e d’altra parte, sul fatto che spesso una cosa diviene simile o uguale a
un’altra senza mutare in se stessa, ciò che sembra escludere nella cosa ogni specie di realtà
nuova.

“b) Soluzione. Tuttavia sembra che l’opinione affermativa, cioè quella che distingue
realmente la relazione dal suo fondamento, sia la più plausibile, poiché essa si riduce
semplicemente a constatare questo fatto evidente che, se il fondamento non è unicamente
assoluto, cioè una cosa data in sé, ma anche relativo, può esser tale solo per una realtà altra da
quella che lo costituisce in se stesso. Le ragioni apportate in senso contrario non sembrano
valide. Se infatti la relazione è data per ciò stesso che è dato il fondamento, ciò prova soltanto
ch’essa risulta da questo fondamento. D’altra parte, giacché la relazione è estrinseca, niente
impedisce di ammettere che una relazione si aggiunga a una cosa che non è mutata in se stessa.

“c) La relazione, modo accidentale. Le difficoltà che si oppongono alla distinzione reale
della relazione dal suo fondamento provengono soprattutto da una concezione «cosistica» della
relazione e, in generale, da un modo di pensare empiristico e nominalistico che secondo la
formula d’Ockam (quaecumque distinguuntur, summe distinguuntur), concepisce la distinzione
autentica solo tra cose separabili (82). In realtà, la relazione è soltanto un modo accidentale, cioè
un modo di essere che ha per soggetto immediato, non la sostanza (ciò che non conviene se non
agli accidenti assoluti, quantità e qualità), ma uno degli accidenti assoluti. Affermare la realtà
distinta della relazione, non è dunque affermare la realtà di una cosa, ma soltanto di una
determinazione data nell’ordine della quantità e della qualità.”31

30
R. P. PHILLIPS, Modern Thomistic Philosophy, The Newman Bookshop, Westminster, MD, 1935, vol. 2
(Metaphysics), pp. 229-230.
31
R. JOLIVET, Trattato di filosofia, vol. 4 (Metafisica II), Morcelliana, Brescia, 1960, no. 246.