Fonseca, Pedro de

FONSECA, PEDRO de. - Portuguese philosopher and theologian, b. at Proença-a-Nova in 1528, d. at Lisbon on 4 Nov. 1599. He entered the Society of Jesus at the age of twenty. From 1555 to '61 he taught philosophy at the College of Arts of the University of Coimbra, where he won very great fame, to the point of being called the Portuguese Aristotle. Because of poor health, he had to give up teaching; he took it up again only for one year, in 1564, when he taught theology to his young confreres. He held various offices in the government of the Society, and in particular was assistant and visitor of Portugal.

In 1564 he published at Lisbon Iustitutiorum dialecticarum libri VIII, which reached its 34th ed. in 1625. His principal work, however, is the commentary on Aristotle: Commentariorum in libros Metaphysicarum Aristotelis Stagyritae volumina quatuor. The first volume came out at Rome in 1577. In the third volume, published in 1596, F. says that thirty years earlier he had conceived a doctrine that illuminated for him the questions of providence and predestination: it was the conception of "middle knowledge," and thus he seems to claim priority over Molina, whose Concordia is from 1588. On the other hand, Molina held that F. had known and used his ideas before they were printed. It may be that, having lived together for many years (from 1555 to 1567), F. and Molina had discussions together about those questions, so that afterward it was not clear from whom came the first idea of the system that bears the name of Molina.

Carlo Borer