Abstract
With his notion of the intentional species, Francisco Suárez reevaluates the role of causality within a realist theory of knowledge. Taking into account various traditional accounts, e.g. Avicenna’s, Aquinas’s and Durandus’s, he develops a novel approach according to which the accidental features of material objects are necessary, though not sufficient causes for knowledge. In rejecting the Aristotelian claim that cognitive processes are passive, he thinks that knowing is essentially an active reaching out to the objects known. His interpretation of causality in cognitive processes also leads him not only to reassess the mind-world-relation, but also to advance a theory as to how higher and lower cognitive capacities are intertwined. The dependency of the higher ones, such as the intellect, on perceptual processes requires to accommodate the traditional dictum that lower entities do not cause essential effects in higher ones. Hence Suárez stresses the intrinsic congruence of all cognitive powers on a rather non-causal footing