Summarium: In hac dissertatione de propriis passionibus earumque ad essentiam relatione tractatur. Propriæ passiones (sive propria) sunt reales rei affectiones quæ per se sive naturaliter insunt, tamen de essentia rei non sunt sed ex ea “resultare” dicuntur; quæ “resultantia” ad modum relationis cuiusdam explanatoriæ intelligitur. Exempli gratia, risibilitas Socratis dicitur resultare ex ipsius essentiali humanitate, solubilitas salis in aqua dicitur resultare ex indolibus essentialibus salis et aquæ. In hac dissertatione quæro: quomodo intelligenda est hæc relatio resultantiæ passionum ex essentia? Est quidem relatio “explanatoria”, sed cuius generis præcise? Aliqui (ut Kit Fine) volunt eam esse consequentiam logicam; alii (ut Michael Gorman) dicunt eam esse relationem fundandi, et alii prorsus (ut David Oderberg) relationem causalitatis formalis. Ego hic sententiam repræsento atque defendo Francisci Suárezii, Hispani philosophi et theologi scholastici, qui A.D. 1597 scripsit hanc resultantiam optime intelligndam esse ut genus singulare causationis efficientis, quod ipse “emanationem” apellat. Thesis igitur, quam in hac tractatione defendo, est, proprias passiones ex essentiis emanare. Ad hoc efficiendum novam passionum taxonomiam suadeo, passionum in essentiarum metaphysica et epistemologia vim et necessitatem explico, varietatem causationis efficientis (et præ ceteris emanationem) fuse discutio, et tandem extensum pro Suárezii sententia argumentum abductivum propono, alias sententias singillatim impugnando, Suárezii sententiam ratione fulciendo illamque alias superare ostendendo.

Abstract: The subject of this essay is propria and their relation to essence. Propria, roughly characterized, are those real properties of a thing which are natural but nonessential to it, and which are said to “flow from” the thing’s essence, where this “flows from” relation is understood to designate a kind of explanatory relation. For example, it is said that Socrates’s risibility flows from his essential humanity; and it is said that salt’s solubility in water flows from the essential natures of both salt and water. The question I raise and attempt to answer in this essay is: In what sense do propria “flow from” essences? What kind of explanatory relation is this exactly? Some suggest that it is a relation of logical consequence ; others, of grounding ; and still others, of formal causation. In this essay, I reintroduce and defend a view suggested by the late scholastic Spanish philosopher and theologian Francisco Suárez, who in 1597 wrote that effluence is best understood as a very special kind of efficient causation, which we can call the relation of emanation. The thesis of this essay, then, is that propria emanate from essences. Along the way, this paper offers a new taxonomy of types of propria; it explains the significance of propria for the metaphysics and epistemology of essences; it discusses at length varieties of efficient causation ; and then it offers an extensive abductive argument in favor of Suárez’s account, whereby the former accounts of effluence are critiqued, each in turn, and Suárez’s view is motivated and ultimately shown to be superior to its competitors.

Key Words: Francisco Suárez; essence; propria; necessary accidents; per se accidents; proper accidents