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“Anselm of Canterbury,” Pp. 138-151 in Jorge JE Gracia and Timothy B Jasper Hopkins, “Anselm of Canterbury,” pp. 138-151 in Jorge J. E. Gracia and Timothy B. Noone, editors, A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 2003. Reprinted here by permission of the pub- lisher (Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, England). The short bibliography on pp. 150-151 is here excluded. Anselm of Canterbury JASPER HOPKINS Anselm (b. 1033; d. 1109) flourished during the period of the Norman Conquest of England (1066), the call by Pope Urban II to the First Crusade (1095), and the strident Investiture Controversy. This latter dispute pitted Popes Gregory VII, Urban II, and Paschal II against the monarchs of Europe in regard to just who had the right—whether kings or bishops—to invest bishops and archbishops with their ecclesiastical offices. It is not surprising that R. W. Southern, Anselm’s present-day biographer, speaks of Anselm’s life as covering “one of the most momentous periods of change in European history, comparable to the centuries of the Reformation or the Industrial Revolution” (1990, p. 4). Yet it is ironic that Anselm, who began as a simple monk shunning all desire for fame, should nonetheless today have become one of the most famous intellectual figures of the Middle Ages. And it is even more ironic that this judgment holds true in spite of the fact that he wrote only eleven treatises or dia- logues (not to mention his three meditations, nineteen prayers, and 374 letters). Anselm was born in Aosta, today a part of Italy but in Anselm’s time a part of the Kingdom of Burgundy. Italians usually refer to him as Anselm of Aosta (when they are not referring to him as Saint Anselm), whereas almost everyone else names him Anselm of Canterbury, after the identifying seat of his archiepiscopacy. Most of what we know about Anselm’s life derives from three primary sources: viz., from his own collection of his letters and from the two informative works Vita Anselmi (Life of Anselm) and Historia novorum in Anglia (History of Recent Events in England), written by Eadmer, a monk at Canterbury who was Anselm’s contemporary. To a much lesser extent, further impressions of Anselm’s thought may be gleaned from the Dicta Anselmi (Anselm’s Sayings), compiled by Alexander, also a monk at Canterbury. The foregoing sources tell us that Anselm’s father was Gundulf; his mother, Ermenberga; and his sole sibling, his sister Richeza. After his mother’s death (ca. 1050) Anselm’s relation with his father became progressively more strained—to the point that he left home in 1056 and travelled within Burgundy and France, perhaps staying with relatives of his mother. In 1059, at the age of 26, he arrived at the Benedictine monastery at Le Bec, France, where he aspired to study with his compatriot, Lanfranc of Pavia, then prior of the community. Within a year of his arrival he decided, in great part through Lanfranc’s influ- ence, to take the vows of a monk and to remain at Bec. In 1063, when Lanfranc was made Abbot of the Abbey of St. Etienne in Caen, Anselm was elected to replace him as Prior of Bec. Fifteen years later (September 1078) he was chosen by his fellow-monks as abbot. And another fifteen years later (March 6, 1093) he was invested as Archbishop-elect of the see of Canterbury—invested against his personal wishes but in accordance with what he himself, 138 along with the others, understood to be the will of God. His consecration to the office came on December 4, 1093. Anselm became archbishop at a time when there were two rival claimants to the papa- cy, each having excommunicated the other. Anselm had already given his allegiance to Urban II, rather than to Clement III; England’s King William Rufus (William II, son of William the Conqueror) was soon to do likewise. All too early on, Anselm quarrelled with Rufus over the service of knighthood that was owed to the king by the Canterbury archdio- cese because of the lands that it held by permission (under feudalism) of the Regal Overlord. The quarrel became so grave that Anselm left England, with William’s consent, for a self- imposed, three-year exile (November 1097 to September 1100), whose main purpose was to confer with the pope, Urban II. After Anselm’s departure Rufus confiscated the Canterbury land-holdings. Upon Rufus’s death under suspicious circumstances (August 2, 1100), Anselm was invited back to England by the new king, Henry I, Rufus’s younger brother, who promised to restore the Canterbury lands. Anselm returned, yet fell into conflict with Henry over the issues of homage and of investiture. In April of 1103 Anselm again left England to take counsel of Pope Paschal II, who had become pope (August 13, 1099) dur- ing Anselm’s previous absence from England, though after Anselm had left Rome. Not until September of 1106 did Anselm once again return to England, having become reconciled with Henry, whom he had threatened to excommunicate and whom Henry had threatened not to allow back into the country. Anselm died in Canterbury on April 21, 1109 and was buried in Canterbury Cathedral. After a fire his body was relocated within the cathedral, and its whereabouts forgotten. Anselm is lastingly important not so much for his ecclesiastical resoluteness and his tenacious commitment to libertas ecclesiae but rather for his abiding intellectual accom- plishments. The primary influences upon his thought, apart from Lanfranc’s tutoring in dialectic, are AUGUSTINE, BOETHIUS, and Aristotle. Anselm knew only portions of Aristotle’s philosophy, with whose thought he was familiar only through Boethius’ Latin translations. In particular, he knew Aristotle’s De interpretatione and De categoriis, together with Boethius’ commentaries thereon. Furthermore, he knew Boethius’ own works on the hypothetical syllogism (De hypotheticis syllogismis), the categorical syllogism (De syllogis- mo categorico), as well as Boethius’ De consolatione philosophiae (The Consolation of Philosophy) and his Tractatus theologici (Theological Tractates). Likewise, he was acquaint- ed with Cicero’s Topics but not with Boethius’ accompanying commentary. Anselm’s knowl- edge of Plato was secondhand, mainly through Augustine’s comments, though he might pos- sibly also have read Calcidius’ or Cicero’s Latin translation of the Timaeus. In terms of the impression that Anselm made on subsequent generations, we may be certain that his greatest impact proceeded from (1) his Proslogion (An Address [of the Soul to God]) (P) and (2) his Cur Deus homo (Why God Became a [God-]man) (CDH). In lesser ways, various future thinkers also took some account of (3) his doctrine of the Trinity, (4) his statements about faith and reason and (5) his early writings on truth, freedom, and evil. These are the five areas of his thought from which one may extract his essential ideas. Proslogion and debate with Gaunilo We must keep in mind that the Proslogion is a unified work, in spite of the fact that our inter- est in it tends to gravitate towards chapters 2 to 4, which contain the richly provocative, and extremely controversial, “ontological” argument for God’s (necessary) existence.In rightly 139 assessing the Proslogion, we must look beyond these initial chapters in order to take full account of what Anselm himself tells us: that the Proslogion (written ca. 1077-8) is an attempt to restate more simply and tersely the ideas that were previously set down in the Monologion (M) (completed in 1076). Although the Monologion, too, proposed considera- tions ostensibly enabling one to conclude that God exists (M 1-4), most of the Monologion deals with determining, sola ratione (i.e., by reasoning alone, apart from Scriptural revela- tion), the nature and the attributes of the Divine Being. Accordingly we must not forget that the Proslogion, likewise, focuses not just on determining that God is but also on determining what God is. In arriving at its conclusions—the same major conclusions as reached in the Monologion—the Proslogion uses a new strategy. This strategy begins with unum argumen- tum—a single consideration—and reasons from it to the existence and the nature of the one and only God. Thus Anselm makes use of a single consideration, not of a single argument; for this consideration (that God is Something than which nothing greater can be thought (of)) gives rise to several different arguments, each of which has an identity of logical structure. Oftentimes this structure is misinterpreted. One prominent historian of philosophy, for exam- ple, identifies the argument-form as syllogistic: God is that than which no greater can be thought: But that than which no greater can be thought must exist, not only mentally, in idea, but also extramentally: Therefore God exists, not only in idea, mentally, but also extramentally. (Copleston (1947-75), II: p. 162) Yet Anselm's reasoning is decidedly not syllogistic but, rather, proceeds by way of reductio ad absurdum: (1) Whatever is understood is in the understanding. (2) If one understands what is being spoken of when he hears of Something than which noth- ing greater can be thought, then Something than which nothing greater can be thought is in the understanding. But: (3) When one hears of Something than which nothing greater can be thought, he understands that which is being spoken of. Thus: (4) Something than which nothing greater can be thought is in his understanding. (5) Either That than which nothing greater can be thought is in the understanding only, or That than which nothing greater can be thought is in the understand- ing and exists also in reality. Assume: (6) That than which nothing greater can be thought is in the understanding only.
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