Common Real Being and the Scope of Metaphysics according to Fray Juan de Fuica O.F.M. (17th-18th Centuries, Chile)

In this essay, I introduce the reader to some major themes of the metaphysical thought of Juan de Fuica (ca. 1660-17??), a Chilean Franciscan Friar, who, in his activities as professor of philosophy, explained and developed, with many traces of originality, the philosophy of John Duns Scotus. In his cursus on metaphysics, Fuica presents the object of metaphysics, that is, the objective concept of the real being in common. Above all, he shows that being can receive a relative essential definition, in which one can find the aspect of “non-repugnance” or “non-contradictoriness”, which is effectively common to the real being and the being of reason. Fuica, thus, makes an original contribution to the understanding of the scope of metaphysics and its connection to mental objects and the human mind broadly speaking.