American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

Volume 95, Issue 2, Spring 2021

Suárez’s Notion of Analogy
Scotus’s Essential Order in Disguise?

Suárez’s theory of analogy is commonly considered problematic, insomuch as it attempts to combine the assertion of perfect unity and precision of the concept of being with the insistence that it is not univocal but analogical. In this article I first attempt to identify the precise nature of the problem in Suárez’s account (critically evaluating some older and recent approaches) and then propose an interpretation of Suárez’s notion of analogy according to which what Suárez calls “analogy” is basically the same thing as Scotus’s essential order (sans the formal distinction). I suggest that Suárez’s distancing from Scotus is often merely verbal, and that much of the confusing aspect of his doctrine stems from his idiosyncratic terminology. In corroboration of my interpretation I adduce the assessment of Suárez by the Scotist B. Mastri, and I provide some broader context to clarify Suárez’s relation to other theories of analogy, medieval and post-medieval.