The article offers a critical biography, description and characteristic of method, fonts and doctrine of Master Paul of Soncino († 5 August 1495), friar of the Dominican Order, in particular his Acutissimae Quaestiones Metaphysicales. The life and work of this philosopher falls within the ambit of Italian Thomism of the 15th century. Between his masters we commemorate Peter Maldura of Bergamo and Dominic of Flanders. His exposition of Aristotle’s Metaphysic proceeds from a peculiar synthesis of Arabic Commentator Averroes and Thomas Aquinas. Soncinas’ work and position was frequently discussed up to the 15th century.

Two kinds of individuals are distinguished: abstract and concrete. Whereas abstract individuals belong to our conceptual sphere, concrete individuals (i.e. particulars) individuate the world of matter. A subject inquiring the external world projects abstract individuals onto the concrete ones (i.e. pieces of matter). Our theory offers a solution to various ontological and epistemological puzzles concerned with individuals, e.g., the Ship of Theseus, Polish Logician, problems with reidentification, or proper names.

The genuinely Aristotelian conception of possibilia (possible non-existing entities) does not admit their own potency to coming-to-be (“objective potency”), nor, consequently, does it ascribe any kind of “weak” existence to them. Nevertheless we can (and need) admit possibilia as legitimate objects of rational discourse. In its concluding part this paper proposes a definition of the logically possible, as well as a definition of the ontologically possible (which is possible not only because its notion is noncontradictory, but also due to the existence of its potential causes).

The aim of the article is to critically assess the widespread surmise according to which Descartes was in certain important aspects of his thought infl uenced by Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputations. In the article this question is addressed with regard to the problem of the ontological background of the representational acts of a finite mind. Descartes’ position is reconstructed on the basis of an analysis of Meditation III and consequently of Descartes’ polemic with Johan de Kater in the First Objections and Replies; the reconstruction is accomplished by means of terms and concepts commonly used in the late scholastic thought of the end of the 16th century. An analysis of the key passage of Section 2 of Disputation 54 of the Metaphysical Disputations of Suárez (concerned with the distinction between extrinsic denominations and beings of reason) then shows, first, that Suárez’s position concerning the ontology of mental representation does indeed agree with that of Descartes, not Kater; second, that the implications of Suárez’s critique of certain theses concerning the identity of extrinsic denominations and beings of reason probably form an important part of the conceptual framework presupposed in the polemic between Decartes and Kater.

Aristotle’s subtle distinction between the forms of friendship and his concept of loving friend as one’s other self propose a solution to the fundamental objection to any eudaimonian theory of slavery, namely that friendship – as basically non-moral phenomenon – is but an egoistic device of one’s happy life. Aristotelian theorems are based on his concept of analogy and on a philosophically specific notion of “self”. Since both of these are rooted in Platonism, Aristotle has toevolve them dialectically in a critical distance to Plato. Still, his dialectical theory of friendship needs to be rooted not in metaphysics but in political theory after all. Political friendship as a utopian perspective taken by each of the citizens in their pursuit of a close relationship with any other indicates a notion of “infinity as perfection” which presents the decisive step beyond Plato and toward the later course of the history of philosophy.