Abstract
The ontological argument of Saint Anselm, one of the most famous in the entire history of philosophy, has fascinated men’s minds for centuries. And yet, as Hartshorne1 makes abundantly clear, much of its subtlety has been missed by some of the keenest commentators. Although it has been discussed again and again, little work seems to have been done, even up to the moment, in probing at all deeply the logical forms needed for an exact statement.2 Part of this is due no doubt to the subtlety of the argument itself, but part of it is due to the fact that the key ideas involved are not of the kind that easily lend themselves to being handled within the standard kinds of logic.
“Ergo, Domine Deus, Qui Das Fidei Intellectum, Da Mihi ut, Quantum Scis Expidere, Intelligam Quia es, Sicut Credimus, et Hoc es Quod Credimus.”
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References
Charles Hartshorne, Anselm’s Discovery (Open Court, LaSalle, Ill.: 1965).
Cf. Desmond Henry, The Logic of Saint Anselm (Clarendon Press, Oxford: 1967).
On quasi-quotes or corners, see W. V. Quine, Mathematical Logic (W. W. Norton Co., New York: 1940), pp. 33 ff. or Truth and Denotation, pp. 34 f.
The translations are from Saint Anselm, Basic Writings (Open Court, Chicago: 1962).
Loc. cit., p. 146.
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© 1974 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Martin, R.M. (1974). On the Logical Structure of the Ontological Argument. In: Whitehead’s Categoreal Scheme and Other Papers . Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9620-8_8
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