Monday, 3 May 2010

Bertrand Russell Interviews St. Anselm of Canterbury

Entertaining account of Anselm's argument - see if you can disaggregate the errors from the insights!

2 comments:

  1. For much on Bertrand Russell and St. Anselm, see Gregory Landini, "Russell and the Ontological Argument", Russell 29 (2009): 101-28.

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  2. Thanks for the reference. I also discuss Russell's treatment of arguments such as Anselm's in 'On Denoting' in my book, Reading Anselm's Proslogion. Russell thinks that all Anselm shows is that there is no more than one member of the set of 'that than which nothing greater can be thought'. I think that is correct, but that Anselm also shows that there is at least one such member.

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