TY - CHAP
T1 - That Anselm’s God Exists and Gaunilo’s Island Does Not
AU - Campbell, Richard
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Scholars were greatly indebted to Max Charlesworth for publishing in 1965 the Latin text of Anselm’s Proslogion, together with his own translation and commentary. The intense discussion this argument has received since then has, however, clarified a number of points about the logic of this argument. Its first premise is not a definition of God, and that identification is one of the conclusions of a three-stage argument. Also, the much-discussed issue of the relation of Chap. 3 to Chap. 2 has now been clarified: that the premise with which Anselm begins Chap. 3 is entailed by the conclusion of Chap. 2. For that reason, substituting a description of anything other than God for Anselm’s formula, such as Gaunilo’s Lost Island, entails that that thing both can and could not be thought not to exist. So, no such substitution is legitimate.
AB - Scholars were greatly indebted to Max Charlesworth for publishing in 1965 the Latin text of Anselm’s Proslogion, together with his own translation and commentary. The intense discussion this argument has received since then has, however, clarified a number of points about the logic of this argument. Its first premise is not a definition of God, and that identification is one of the conclusions of a three-stage argument. Also, the much-discussed issue of the relation of Chap. 3 to Chap. 2 has now been clarified: that the premise with which Anselm begins Chap. 3 is entailed by the conclusion of Chap. 2. For that reason, substituting a description of anything other than God for Anselm’s formula, such as Gaunilo’s Lost Island, entails that that thing both can and could not be thought not to exist. So, no such substitution is legitimate.
KW - Karl Barth
KW - Max Charlesworth
KW - Ontological argument
KW - Peter Geach
KW - Proslogion, translation of
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85089022824&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-18148-2_10
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-18148-2_10
M3 - Chapter
T3 - Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures
SP - 115
EP - 137
BT - Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures
PB - Springer Science and Business Media B.V.
ER -