On Creation, Conservation, and Concurrence: Metaphysical Disputations 20, 21, and 22

Rating:
Summary: A Brilliant Work and Translation
Review: This is the conclusion, according to Freddoso, of his translated works on Francisco Suarez. Freddoso has put together a first rate text that note only provides his reader with Suarez's text (Metaphysical Disputations 20-22) but an introduction to the material that entails one quarter of the text.

The value of the introduction of this text cannot be overstated. Freddoso gives his reader so much detail (to aid the reader in what Suarez is communicating in these disputations) that even a lay reader who had merely a cursory understanding of the issues would gain a better grasp on Suarez's views. In the intro, Freddoso describes some of the distinctions Suarez is making between esse and essentia, the composition of substantial form and primary matter, the composition of substance and accident, and the Aristotelian concepts of 'act' and 'passive potency'(actuality and potentiality). Furthermore, Freddoso details that Suarez, in the same vein as Aristotle, takes efficient causality to be "a relation holding between agents and their effects at the very time at which the effects are produced." Of course here Freddoso describes Suarez's intent to distinguish between ut quod and ut quo (substance which exercises a power to which the result is attributed and the power by which a substance operates). So as one can see, Freddoso clearly describes the ontological preliminaries needed to understand Suarez's text (and the examples that I have given barely scratch the surface, that's how detailed his intro to this text really is!!).

The actual text of Suarez includes detailed and exhaustive footnotes from Freddoso to help the reader not only understand some of the various nuances of the Latin that Suarez is using, but also philosophical concepts, terms, etc. which are perhaps overlooked by the untrained eye. The footnotes are very helpful in gaining a better understanding of all the concepts and general/specific ideas that Suarez wants his reader to understand.

Overall, this text is an invaluable tool for later medieval studies. Freddoso has done an excellent job in his introduction, footnotes, and translation of this one of kind work (this is the only English translation of disputations 20-22). If you are interested in later medieval philosophy, metaphysics, or Aristotelian influence in the arena of metaphysics then you will not want to be without this text! Thank you so much Dr. Freddoso for such a wonderful text!