Author

Pedro da Fonseca

1528–1599

Jesuit

Pedro da Fonseca (1528–1599) was born at Proença-a-Nova in Portugal and entered the Society of Jesus in 1548. He studied at Coimbra and Évora, taught philosophy at Coimbra and theology at Évora, and later served his order in Rome as assistant for Portugal and in Portugal as visitor of the province.

Known in his time as the Portuguese Aristotle, he led the project that produced the Coimbra commentaries on Aristotle, a course of philosophy used throughout Europe. His own commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, with a new Latin translation from the Greek, and his Institutiones dialecticae were reprinted many times. He is often credited with the first formulation of what was later called middle knowledge, developed by Luis de Molina.

The library holds his Isagoge philosophica, an introduction to logic based on Porphyry's Isagoge. It shows the teaching of the Jesuit colleges at its source.

Works

Texts currently available in the library.

1

Isagoge Philosophica

1591

Pedro da Fonseca's Isagoge is a scholastic work conceived as a systematic introduction to the doctrine of universals and intended for the general use of the sciences. Fonseca presents it as richer in doctrine, more reliable with regard to truth, and better suited to teaching than Porphyry’s work of the same name. Its first part defines and explains the five predicables, while the second compares them, examining their common features and differences; chapters 7 through 11 are devoted individually to each predicable. Although he acknowledges that much of the material derives from the earlier logical tradition, Fonseca regards chapter 12 as especially original, since it addresses kinds of universals unknown to pagan philosophers and related to the nature of Christ. The work thus combines logic, metaphysics, and Christian theology, offering an orthodox and systematic reworking of Porphyry’s Isagoge while maintaining close thematic ties with the Jesuit philosophical tradition and with the later Conimbricenses Commentary.