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Evaluate the arguments with which Anslem defended his argument for the existence of God against the criticisms of Gaunilo.
In most philosophical textbooks The Proslogion Argument of St Anselm is reduced to an ontological argument with little or no attempt to go beyond the common understanding of St Anselm’s argument where its failure as an argument is almost certainly presupposed leading many commentators to suppose that St Anselm rather than providing a convincing argument for the existence of God is really only composing a prayer or “spelling out his understanding of God already known to him by his religious faith.”
However in recent years, instigated by G.E.M Anscombe and continued by a minority of philosophers such as James McEvoy, there has been an attempt to revisit the argument of St Anselm, to understand the original Proslogion in order to avoid following the long tradition of misunderstanding most commonly associated with the translation provided in the Summa of Guillaume d’Auxerre.
Thus in order to evaluate the arguments with which Anselm defended his argument against the criticism of Gaunilo it is important to revisit, though briefly, the original argument as it appears in the Proslogion otherwise this evaluation of Anselm’s response might be susceptible to the same misunderstanding that has followed the “Ontological Argument”
Anselm’s argument takes hold in Chapter 1 when he states “Deus est aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari potest/posit”, “God is that than which nothing greater can/could be thought.” There are three factors which give Anselm’s premiss a unique character or as James McEvoy states it “dialectical power” . These are as McEvoy illustrates “the comparative form of the adjective ‘great’”. Which thrusts the mind “beyond the ordinary concept of greatness or power”; the negation insofar as it distinguishes the fact that the premiss is not a definition of God as is commonly misconceived. The negation highlights the “absolute character” of the premiss and to this extent the misconception that Anselm is saying God = X is refuted to allow the premiss to simply explain “that nothing greater than God can be thought.” The third factor contributing to the unique character of the premiss is the reference to thought which McEvoy rightly claims is necessary because “the progress of the argumentation makes appeal to a formal contradiction”. It is these three factors combined that work to give the premiss its power, with either one removed the premiss would lose its effect but with all three components intact the premiss works “like a rocket that thrusts the mind towards that-which-will-always-remain-greater than our thought.”
Gaunilo failed to grasp what McEvoy coins “the triple finesse” of the premiss which allowed St Anselm to refute with relative ease the objections toward his argument, however this will be focused on in due course. If the “triple finesse” of the premiss can be grasped then a fresh translation of Chapter 2, such as that forward by James McEvoy, can be proposed. “And surely that than which a greater cannot be thought cannot exist in the mind alone. For if it exists even only in the mind, something that is greater still can be thought to exist in reality as well. If then that which a greater cannot be thought exists in the mind alone, this same reality than which no greater can be thought is that than which a greater can be thought. But this is obviously impossible. Therefore there is no doubt that something than which a greater cannot be thought exists both in the mind and in reality.”
James Mc Evoy, following on from Anscombe, highlights the fact that the sentence in bold can be interpreted in two different ways depending on the way it is punctuated. I paraphrase in order to maintain his distinction: 1. Si enim val in solo intellectu est, potest cogiatari esse et in re, quod mais est. (For if it even exists solely in the mind, it can be thought to exist in reality also, which is greater.) 2. Si enim vel in solo intellectu est, potest cogiatari esse et in re quod mais est. (Meaning: something that is greater [still] can be thought to exist in reality also).
As was mentioned earlier Gaunilo failed to grasp the “triple finesse” of Anselm’s premiss and thus he belongs to the large group of philosophers who side with the first interpretation. As McEvoy suggests Gaunilo spoke “variously and indifferently spoke of maius omnium, maius omnibus/maius omnibus quae cogitari possant, or even summum quod est.”
Indeed Gaunilo, On Behalf of the Fool, directly criticised Anslem’s Proslogion arguments stating: “It is said [by Anselm] that God’s existence is proved… because what one understands is necessarily such that it exists not only in the mind but also in reality. And this is proved by the fact that it is greater to exist both in the mind and in reality than in the mind alone. For if this same being exists in the mind alone, anything that existed also in reality would be greater than this being, and thus, that which is greater than everything, (maius omnibus) would be less than something and would not be greater than everything, which is obviously contradictory. Therefore, it is necessarily the case that that which is greater than everything, being already proved to exist in the mind, should exist not only in the mind but also in reality, since otherwise it would not be greater than everything.”
The reason for Gaunilo’s criticism is evident; he believed the argument of St Anselm to be ontological. Anselm was able to respond directly to this criticism as well as the two other objections formulated by Gaunilo and indeed included these objections in his Proslogion in an attempt to dissuade others from making these misconceptions. Anslem replied directly stating: “You often reiterate that I say, that that which is greater than everything (maius omnibus) is in the intellect, and that if it is in the intellect it exists also in reality, for otherwise that which is greater than everything would not be that which is greater than everything. However, nowhere in all that I have said will you find such an argument. For “that which is greater than everything” and “that than which nothing greater can be thought,” are not equivalent for the purpose of proving the real existence of the thing spoken of.”
St Anselm emphatically rejects Gaunilo’s idea that the “opposition between mind and reality… designates existence in reality as the factor that decisively determines the contrast between ‘being greater than’ and ‘being less than’”.
From this vantage point one can clearly see just how emphatically Anselm rejected Gaunilo’s misconception to such an extent, as was mentioned earlier, that he ensured their dialogue would be encompassed in future editions of the Proslogion in order that others would avoid making this misconception. The fact that some of the most brilliant philosophers such as Aquinas followed Gaunilo’s fate, as far as the “Ontological Argument” is concerned, does not detract from the success of Anselm’s rebuttal but can be attributed to the transmission and translation of the Proslogion through the years, an idea which is supported by the fact that Aquinas did not have access to the original Proslogion but rather depended on the translation found in the Summa of Guillaume d’Auxerre.
If St Anselm was guilty on anything it was his attempt to “put down the briefest of arguments, one reduced to its bare essentials.” Taken on its own Chapter 2 of the Proslogion gives no indication as to “what is greater” but rather this is explained in more detail in Chapter 3. The scant detail in chapter 2 may have been responsible in part for Gaunilo’s first objection but was most certainly responsible for his second objection. In relation to “that which is greater” Gaunilo’s “Quod mais est” demands a further explanation. Indeed Anselm obliged, again with the intention of further elaborating the point so as to avoid future confusion.
Anselm identifies “that which is greater still” as “that concerning which one cannot even think that it does not exist.” That is, the One whose non-existence is inconceivable. To further explore what St Anselm means we must consider the Fool, who thinks of God as not existing, or who is at least capable of not existing. However if it is possible to think that he must be capable of existing, then it would be contradictory and impossible to think of him as not existing at the same time, thus he is the One whose non-existence is inconceivable. Thus it “leads us to think of Him as greater than anything one may think of as not existing, or even as being capable of being thought not to exist.”
As James McEvoy notes, it was not until Anscombe that this point of Anselm’s argument was fully understood. She demonstrated that St Anselm’s argument undermines the idea that the argument is ontological. She highlights that there is nothing in what Anselm writes that indicates that it is “the fact of existing that makes something “greater” than something else that exists in thought only”. James McEvoy further supports this idea by stating “The maius is not determined by existing in reality and in thought, as opposed to existing in thought alone.” As he points out this is a point that Anselm explicitly makes clear in Chapter 3 when he states: “For it is possible for something to be thought to exist, which could not be thought not to exist – which is greater than that which can be thought not to exist.”
Due to Gaunilo’s previous misunderstanding he proposed the idea of the lost island, that is, according to Anselm’s logic, if he could conceive of the most perfect island the most perfect conceivable then it must exist in reality as well as in the mind. However Gaunilo, without realising it, was comparing the greatest actual island with the greatest possible being and was in fact reducing God to the greatest actual being. Again Gaunilo’s misconception was pointed out by Anselm who showed that no matter how perfect the island was it was still made up of parts as well as having both a beginning and an end, thus Anselm illustrated that his argument could not be applied to contingent things and went further in Chapter 2 by stating:
“If anyone says that he thinks that this being does not exist, I reply that, when he thinks of this, either he thinks of something than which a greater cannot be thought, or he does not think of it. If he does not think of it, then he does not think that what he does not think of does not exist. If, however, he does think of it, then indeed he thinks of something which cannot even be thought not to exist. For if it could be thought not to exist, it could be thought to have a beginning and an end – but this cannot be. Thus he who thinks of it thinks of something that cannot be thought not to exist; indeed, he who thinks of this does not think of it as not existing, otherwise he would think what cannot be thought.”
Of the three arguments that can be distinguished from Gaunilo the idea of the perfect island is the only objection that Anselm adequately refutes according to philosophy text books down through the ages. However the first two objections, as far as the majority of philosophers are concerned, are still flawed insofar as Anselm’s rebuttals have not been fully understood. This however does not detract from the success with which Anselm rejects the criticism of his contemporary nor could Anselm ever have expected the widespread misunderstanding of his point. Indeed for many the misconception by some of the greats of philosophy such as Aquinas has puzzled many revisionists of the Proslogion argument who can only be comforted in the knowledge that Aquinas’ misconception, like many others, was not their own but rather the result of an error in the transmission and translation of the Proslogion. Indeed so deep-rooted is the misconception of the majority both now and in the past, that it is unlikely that the full weight of Anselm’s argument and his replies to Gaunilo will ever be fully known among the masses. However this does not detract from his success in providing a valid and even convincing argument. Whether or not, if attention is turned to the true premiss and in turn a true understanding of the argument is reached, it may become apparent that there are certain flaws in the argument which call into question its validity however for the minority of philosophers it remains a valid, if unsuccessful, argument that depends on the presupposed truth of God’s existence.