  Nicolas Bonetus places the doctrine of the formalities at the center of a new, and systematically elaborated, science of metaphysics, which focuses on the doctrine of the transcendentals and reserves the consideration of the divine to natural theology. Bonetus considers the concept of being, insofar as it is univocal to real being and being in the mind, as the subject of metaphysics. From this univocal concept of being, which signifies some determinate intelligible content distinct from other intelligible contents, he distinguishes an all-encompassing notion of being which signifies “everything positive which is outside of nothing, whether it is real being, or being in the mind, whether categorical, reducible to categories, or outside of all categories.” The consequence is that ‘being’ as the subject of metaphysics, as a determinate formality distinct from other quiddities, is dissociated from the first object of the intellect, and convertible with the transcendental properties ‘one’, ‘true’, and ‘good’ only according to a diminished degree of transcendentality. A comparable tendency can be witnessed in the thought of Francis of Marchia. In answering the question concerning the first intention of a thing, Francis distinguishes between a material and formal priority of concepts. The concept of ‘thing’ (res) is the first concept in the sense of material priority, which is related to the priority of the subject of metaphysics. The concept of ‘something’ (aliquid) is the first concept in the sense of formal priority, which is related to the priority of the object of the intellect. The dissociation of the subject of metaphysics and the first object of the intellect is squared with the dissociation of a general metaphysics, which deals with the transcendentals and builds the road toward a special metaphysics, which deals with the divine. (See Folger-Fonfara 2008.)