Suárez’ Minimal Realism of Artifacts

Abstract

The article places Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) and his position on the ontological status of artifacts against the Medieval philosophical background. It is concluded that Suárez is an artifact realist. However, Suárez’ realism concerning artifacts is of a minimalist kind. Inscribing himself into the realist tradition, Suárez affirms that an artifact has an “artificial form”, a ‘forma artificialis’. However, this form is not a thing in its own right, but rather has the status of a mode. Further, the artificial form is not a mode of substance, but rather of quantity. Hence, Suárez can rightly be called a minimal realist concerning artifacts. In an additional section, the role of the exemplar in the production of an artifact is explored. Suárez counts the exemplar among the efficient causes, and so, the exemplar in the mind of the artisan is one of many efficient causes that together produce and determine the artifact.

1. Introduction

From the earlier medieval debate over artifacts, one can delineate two main positions: realism and nominalism1. In this debate, Suárez basically sides with the realists2. However, the story is more complicated. Through his account of one-ness (‘unum’), and the relation of multiplicity to unity, Suárez has a novel way to incorporate artifacts into that which is treated within the framework of metaphysics. Although an artificial form, a ‘forma artificialis’, is employed to explicate the status of the artifact as something over and above the mere sum of its parts (against an artifact nominalism, then), this form—although a quality—is not a “thing” over and above the constituting parts, but is rather a mode. Further, the artificial form is not a mode of a substance, but rather of an accident, namely quantity. Thus, while following in the footsteps of the realist tradition, Suárez is a minimalist with respect to that which arises over and above the parts of an artifact.

The following paper is divided into two main parts: a first longer, part tracing the status of artifacts in the Disputationes metaphysicae, and a second shorter, part, dealing with the question of the production of artifacts as this is explicated in the work. The first part, concerning ontological status, is in its turn divided into three sub-parts: on the artifact as a unity (i.e., on the “one-ness” of artifacts), on the artificial form as a kind of quality, and on the status of figure or shape (the kind of quality under which the artificial form falls).

2. Artifacts and Unity

An initial question that arises with respect to artifacts is: what kind of unity are we dealing with in this case?3 Everything that is has unity as one of its transcendental properties or “passions”, together with truth and goodness4. This unity of that which is belongs to it precisely as something that is5, and does not arise over and above it6.

As will be seen, artifacts are what Suárez—following the Aristotelian tradition—calls “one by accident”7. The basic division Suárez makes as to different kinds of unity is between being “one in itself” (‘unum per se’) or just “simply one” (‘unum simpliciter’), on the one hand, and “one by accident” (‘unum per accidens’) or “in a qualified sense” (‘secundum quid’), on the other8. That which is one in itself is the basic case, for Suárez. A being that is one in itself has “entity or essence”9, whereas a being that has accidental unity lacks such an entity or essence10. Making room for the form-matter union as a per se unity, Suárez adds that beings in themselves are either “simple” or “composite”11, where the composite beings consist of “incomplete” entities (i.e., form and matter) that stand as act and potency to each other12.

Just as “one by accident” is defined in contrast with “one in itself”, so also is “a being by accident” described in contrast with “a being in itself”. Briefly, that which is a “being by accident” is that which consists of distinct things, where these distinct things are not joined by a “physical and real union”13. However, having established this, Suárez goes on to offer an interesting discussion of “degrees” of one-ness in anything which has mere accidental unity. At the very “lowest” level with regard to unity, then, we find “mere aggregations”, such as “heaps of wheat or of stones”14. Moving up one step in the degree of one-ness, we arrive at an assemblage with some order in it. It is here that we find artifacts15. Suárez gives as examples an army, a commonwealth (‘respublica’), a house, “and other similar artifacts” as these “beings by accident” that, although they do not have a mutual “physical union”, still have “some order”16. And here Suárez also makes explicit comparisons within these accidental unities that have “some order”17. A house is more of a unity than an army, for example. The highest degree of one-ness when it comes to accidental unity, though, one finds in the case of a tree onto which a branch from another tree has been grafted. This shows, then, that Suárez also considers the manipulation and/or cultivation of nature as belonging to the artificial18.

After a brief treatment of the question of mixed liquids, where Aristotle’s treatment and his argumentation for why these might be called one in themselves is referred to, Suárez ends his treatment of accidental unity by suggesting that the kind of accidental unity that can most properly be called “one in itself” is the union of a substance with its accidents19. This is an at once ironic and very important suggestion. It is ironic since it is precisely in relation to accidents of substances that Aristotle originally introduces the accidentally one (“Socrates sitting”, e.g.,), and Suárez has to explicitly state that this case is even included. And it is important, in the history of metaphysics, since it addresses the worry about the “splitting up” of the whole thing into a “hidden” substance or subject, on the one hand, and accidents severed from this substance, on the other20.

In view of that which is “one by accident”, Suárez thinks that being, understood under the aspect of being one, is analogous, “and almost equivocal”. This is so because that which is one accidentally is not really a being, but is rather better understood as beings. That which is one “by accident” is only said to be so by a “proportional analogy” and by an “imitation” of things21 that are one in themselves. A being that is one by accident is not strictly a thing, but could rather be said to be things22. However, artifacts can be conceptualized under one concept (e.g., “a hammer”), and could therefore be viewed as being one, in some sense, also making it possible for us to have knowledge of them (as being true) or directing our will toward them (as being good). This is also why the treatment of artifacts does fall under the scope of metaphysics (unlike beings of reason)23.

But if an artifact is accidentally one, what is the status of the accident due to which it has this accidental unity?

3. The Artificial Form

One can obtain clues to the answer to this question from Suárez’ disputations on the material and formal causes of accidents (DM 14 and 16, respectively). In the disputation on the material cause of accidents, he returns to the question of what kind of unity we find in artifacts. He establishes, once again, that we do not find “real and physical” unity there. Therefore, neither do we find true material causation in the case of artifacts. Instead, it is rather the “constituting parts” (‘partes integrantes’) that are like the material cause of the “proper artificial form, that is, the figure” (‘propriam formam artificialem, quae est figura’)24. The artificial form, then, serves like an accident to the parts that make up the artifact, according to Suárez. We shall later return to the ontological status of the figure.

In the disputation concerning the formal cause of substance, Suárez both reinforces and (seemingly, at least) contradicts his position above. When it comes to the production of accidental forms, some occur naturally, others supernaturally. However, there is a third way, namely artificially. So, we have a reinforcement of the view that the artificial form is an accident. However, to this Suárez adds that artificial forms do not belong to the “proper forms” or “accidental beings”. This is so, because there is nothing “made” (‘proprie fiat’) in the practice of an art. What we have are “physical and natural forms”, but ordered in a certain way. Artificial forms “are actually only modes”, and only consist in “figure”. The human power to “make” through art does not extend further than this—to arrange certain physical and natural things—and this is what we understand by the notion of “figure”25. Through art, then, humans cannot make things in their “proper being and entity”, but only in some “shape and figure”26.

There seems to be a tension here, however. On the one hand, there seems to be an accident—the artificial form, that is a figure—that comes into being when an artifact is constructed27. On the other hand, Suárez denies that something (‘aliquid’) is made or comes into being when an artifact is made, and that artificial forms are only “modes”, that are explicitly distinguished from proper accidental forms in this context. How do these claims square?

4. The Ontological Status of Shape

The answer lies in the ontological status of shapes or figures. A shape or a figure is a kind of quality, in the scheme Suárez adopts from Aristotle28. The different kinds of qualities—each presented in pairs—are as follows (DM 42.2.1)29:

• Habit and disposition (‘habitus et dispositio’);
• Natural power and powerlessness (‘naturalis potentia et impotentia’);
• Passivity and passive quality (‘passio et passiva qualitas’); and
• Figure and shape (‘figura et forma’).

Suárez discusses in different instances how the pairs relate. As for the fourth kind of qualities—that is of special interest to us here—he writes that “shape” (‘forma’30) here basically signifies the same as “figure” (‘figura’)31.

What, then, is a figure or shape?32 Figure, according to Suárez, properly signifies “some mode resulting in a body from the termination of magnitude”33. It is like the other qualities as it “affects or perfects” (‘afficiendi et perficiendi’) the subject. As was related above, “shape” in this context denotes just the figure of something. However, they differ in that figure denotes this “mathematically and abstracting from matter”, whereas “shape” signifies this as it finds physical expression34.

The shape—taken in this sense—is, so to say, the Gestalt of that which appears or is presented to us physically. In this way, this accident collects and gathers many other accidents in itself, “especially color”. Although constituted by many other accidents, it can still be taken as a quality in itself; Suárez mentions health and beauty as examples of accidents falling into this category35.

So shape is a quality. However, as has already been seen, it also has a close relation to quantity. Figure “terminates and informs” quantity. It is also related to the matter in which the quantity inheres. The other qualities, by contrast, are related to the conservation and operation of the substance. As such, they rather are related to the form. The figure or shape therefore differs greatly from the other qualities. It also differs in that the figure or shape does not have its own “proper entity”, but is rather a “mode” of quantity36.

Figure or shape almost seem to “vanish” ontologically, then, considered as entities in their own right. It does not have its own proper entity, but is rather reducible to quantity, of which it is a mode37. Suárez affirms this minimal reality, also, and writes that it is the “lowest” of all qualities, “in perfection as well as its entitative mode”, so that one could question whether it even merits the name “quality” used in a strict (or “univocal”) sense38.

How one evaluates the “thickness” of Suárez’ realism of artifacts depends, then, on how one interprets his teaching on modes and the modal distinction39. It would take us too far here to investigate this question into any depth. It is sufficient for our purposes that a modal distinction, by which a mode is distinct from that of which it is a mode, is in-between a real distinction—as this obtains between two different, independent things—on the one hand, and a mere rational distinction on the other40. In explicitly rejecting that the artificial form is merely rationally distinct from the quantity—an option that is open to him–, Suárez cannot be said to be a nominalist regarding artifacts. However, in emphasizing the dependence of the artificial form or shape upon the quantity, in counting it as a mode, his realism must on all accounts be said to be of the minimal kind.

5. The Production of Artifacts

Let us now, after this exposition of the ontological status of artifacts, also look at the relation between the artifact, on the one hand, and the artisan (‘artifex’), on the other. What kind of causation does the artisan exert to bring about the artifact?41

Suárez treats this question in disputation 25, on the exemplary cause. The treatment of exemplary cause is perspicuous as it comes after the treatment of all the other causes, and right before the treatment of the interrelation of the different kinds of causes.

To jump immediately to the main point Suárez makes here, exemplary causation does not constitute its own kind of causation beside the other four. Rather, the exemplary cause is a kind of efficient cause42. Suárez portrays his as a minority view, referring only to Alexander of Hales (ca. 1170/1185–1245), Bonaventure (1221–1274), Duns Scotus (ca. 1265/1266–1308), and Hervaeus Natalis (ca. 1260–1323) as previous thinkers who had held it. The working of an artisan is likened, by Suárez, to the working of God creating the things in the world from, precisely, exemplars. However, just as created things are different from the ideas in the mind of God43, so also is the exemplar in the mind of the artisan—directing his or her action—different from that which is produced by the artisan. Actually, the artisan cannot preconceive what comes out of this process. So although the artisan works on the model of an exemplar, what results is not determined merely by this exemplar, but also by other circumstances44.

To be more precise, the exemplar is a formal concept existing in the mind45, rather than a (future) artifact existing objectively in the mind of the artisan46. The exemplar rather plays a causal role in the production of the artifact, as the exemplar is part of the art that directs the will, which in turn elicits the executing power47. The resulting artifact is the terminus of the chain of efficient causes where the exemplar plays a role, and where the artifact usually ends up “imitating” the exemplar48; but this does not mean that the resulting artifact was somehow already present in that which was in the mind of the artisan in this production49.

There is an interesting contrast here with final causation. An end exists precisely objectively in the mind, and it (metaphorically) “moves” the will toward it50. The exemplar, though, does not play this “passive” role, as does the end, of “being willed”, but rather is that—once again—that plays an “active” part in directing the will toward a certain (practical) terminus51.

Note, though, that an artifact could also be an end. Insofar as it has unity, it can both be known (as being true) and willed (as being good). Hence, we can know about a hammer and understand what it is (the true), and we can also wish to have it and to hammer with it (the good)52. In this latter role, the hammer functions as an end. It could even be the case that the wish for a hammer leads us to construct one. There must, though, be two clearly separated stages in this process, for Suárez: one leading us to the point of constructing it, the other the construction itself. It is in the second stage that the exemplar plays its role.

To sum up, Suárez distinguishes the exemplary cause from the final cause, and counts it as a kind of efficient cause. The exemplar in the mind of the artisan is in no way identical to the artifact produced, but plays the role of one efficient cause among many in the production of this artifact. Though the unity of the artifact might play a role in the leading up to the production of it (in that the artisan thinks of it—the true—and then wants to produce it—the good), the exemplar rather plays its role in the stage of the actual production of the artifact.

6. Concluding Summary

In the debate inherited from the Middle Ages on the ontological status of artifacts, between artifact realists and artifact nominalists, Suárez clearly sides with the realists. However, in this realism, Suárez wants to keep the “added element” in artifacts to a minimum, placing him more precisely as a minimal realist on artifacts. The artificial form, that accounts for a unity in a qualified sense of artifacts, is a kind of a quality. As opposed to the other kinds of qualities, though, the kind of quality that an artificial form belongs to—figure or shape—is not its own “thing”; it does not have its own entitative being. It is rather a mode of quantity. This accidental unity is acquired through the process of production, and through the exemplar existing in the mind of the artisan.