Rubius, Antonius (Rubio, Antonio) (1548–1615)

Summary

Rubius (sometimes spelled “Ruvius”) was born in Villa de Rueda, Spain, and joined the Jesuit order in 1571. He was a student of Franciscus Toletus at the Colegio Máximo de Alcalá de Henares and served as professor of philosophy at the Colegio Máximo de San Pedro y San Pablo in Mexico from 1576 to 1601. He received his doctorate from the University of Mexico in 1594 and was appointed Jesuit procurator in Rome in 1601. He spent the remainder of his career teaching at Alcalá, where students learned logic from his commentary on Aristotle's logic, popularly referred to as the Logica Mexicana (Robles 2003, 399). His commentary on Aristotle's Physics was likewise widely used as a textbook and both works went through several editions. Descartes had to study at least some of his works at the Collège de la Flèche, as evidenced by his request to Marin Mersenne on September 20, 1640: “I beg you to send me the names of the authors who have written textbooks of philosophy and to tell me which are the most commonly used, and whether they have any new ones since twenty years ago. I only remember some of the Conimbricenses, Toletus and Rubius” (AT III 185, CSMK 153–54).

If we compare Rubius's 1611 Physics commentary to those of Toletus and the Coimbrans, it stands out as having the freest format. It is divided into treatises and questions, with each treatise only briefly summarizing standard Aristotelian accounts of important concepts in Aristotle's Physics. The questions, by contrast, are much longer and focus on select issues and opposing views (Hattab 1998, 30). This reflects a trend, starting in the seventeenth century, away from standard commentaries toward treatises that dispense with detailed expositions of Aristotle's text and instead address important questions. Rubius also diverged from tradition on substantive issues. Like Francisco Suárez, he denied the real distinction between essence and existence and affirmed that matter was partially subsistent, arguing that it existed by nature as really distinct from form (Robles 2003, 399). Along with Suárez, Rubius represents a form of late Scholasticism that begins to approach key tenets of Cartesian metaphysics.

See also Conimbricenses; Distinction (Real, Modal, and Rational); Jesuit; Scholasticism; Suárez, Francisco; Toletus, Franciscus