SOVAE, Francesco
Francesco Sovae. — Scholar and philosopher, born in Lugano on 10 June 1743, died in Pavia on 17 January 1806. A Somask priest, he devoted his life to teaching and study. Professor at the University of Parma, he oriented his thought toward the sensism (v. CONDILLAC) of Condillac (v.); subsequently he taught moral philosophy, logic, and metaphysics at the Brera Lyceum in Milan; after many wanderings, due to the political events of his time, he held the chair of “analysis of ideas” at the University of Pavia.
A man of varied culture and manifold interests (literary, philosophical, pedagogical, scientific), he translated from Latin, Greek, and English; he authored numerous school manuals and was a good educator. He gathered the fruits of his philosophical teaching in the *Institutions of Logic, Metaphysics, and Ethics*, preceded by a *Compendium of the History of Philosophy* (Milan 1791, 2nd ed. there 1794), to which must be added *The Philosophy of Kant Explained and Examined* (Modena 1803; 2nd ed. Venice 1804).
Sovae is an easy popularizer and expositor, lacking originality and at times colorless, LOCKE, JOHN (v.) and the sensism of Condillac, occasionally tempered by extrinsic approaches to Scholastic philosophy. Thus, for example, after accepting Locke’s “metaphysics,” which concluded with a critique of the idea of substance (unknowable), he defines the soul as “a substance by its spiritual nature, that is, pure, simple, indivisible, essentially different from matter...” (*Works*, II, Florence 1797, p. 77). Nor does his critique of Kant go beyond the generic and the opposition to it of “experimental philosophy,” that is, Lockean empiricism.
SOBA (Heb. Sōbhāh, Sōbhā), Septuagint Ōwōbā, dā)
An Aramaic kingdom (more precisely Aram [V. ARAM] of S.) northwest of Damascus, in the valley of the Nahr el-Litānī, between Mount Hermon and Lebanon, perhaps mentioned in the names Subat, Subut, Subit of the Assyrian inscriptions.
They had to defend themselves against the Kingdom of S., mostly because it was engaged in small anti-Israelite coalitions, Saul (1 Sam 14:47), David (2 Sam 8:3; 10:6 ff.), and Solomon, who subdued it (2 Chr 8:3; cf. 1 Kgs 11:23–25). After Solomon’s time it is no longer mentioned: it was probably absorbed by Damascus and shared its fate until the Assyrian conquest.