On the Borders of Being and Knowing Late Scholastic Theory of
Supertranscendental Being Edited by Victor M. Salas Sylvester
Mauro, S.J. (1619–1687) noted that human intellects can grasp
what is, what is not, what can be, and what cannot be. The first
principle, "it is not possible that the same thing
simultaneously be and not be," involves them all. On the Borders
of Being and Knowing begins with Greeks distinguishing “being”
from “something” and proceeds to the late Scholastic doctrine of
“supertranscendental being,” which embraces both. On the way is
Aristotle's distinction between “being as being” and “being as
true” and his extension of the latter to include impossible
objects. The Stoics will see “something” as the widest object of
human cognition and will affirm that, as signifiable, impossible
objects are something, more than mere nonsense. In the sixteenth
century, Francisco Suárez will identify mind-dependent beings
most of all with impossible objects and will also regard them as
signifiable. By this