The arguments of the Proslogion
Looking back on the sixty-five chapters of complicated argument in the Monologion, Anselm found himself wishing for a simpler way to establish all the conclusions he wanted to prove. As he tells us in the preface to the Proslogion, he wanted to find
a single argument that needed nothing but itself alone for proof, that would by itself be enough to show that God really exists; that he is the supreme good, who depends on nothing else, but on whom all things depend for their being and for their well-being; and whatever we believe about the divine nature. (P, preface)
That "single argument" is the one that appears in chapter 2 of the Proslogion. (We owe the curiously unhelpful name "ontological argument" to Kant. The medievals simply called it "that argument of Anselm's" [argumentum Anselmi].)
The argument goes like this. God is "that than which nothing greater can be thought"; in other words, he is a being so great, so full of metaphysical oomph,......
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