"Ut illi non repugnet esse in materia". La dottrina di Zaccaria Pasqualigo (1600-1664) sulla natura della metafisica e del suo oggetto

Zaccaria Pasqualigo developed his doctrine concerning the nature of metaphysics and of its object in the twenties of the 17th century. It belongs to the group of reactions, in the Catholic milieu, to the theses propounded by Francisco Suarez on this topic. Pasqualigo develops a metaphysics whose formal object is not the transcendental being, but the being considered as the way of being of the quidditas rei omnino abstrahens a materia. However, the ‘prescinding from matter’ that is proper of this being is not understood by Pasqualigo as an indifference to what is material and to what is spiritual. On the contrary, according to this author the being that metaphysics deals with is intrinsically material. Therefore, metaphysics deals with material being considered apart from matter purely by means of an action of the mind. As a result, according to Pasqualigo metaphysics is a science superior to physics, but it is not a science superior to rational theology; actually, Pasqualighian metaphysics is almost completely separated from whatever kind of theology.