Reading Anselm: Context and Criticism

A conference to be held at Boston College, 27-30 July 2015.

For more details go to conference website.
This Blogsite is dedicated to the work and legacy of Anselm of Aosta, Bec and Canterbury, who died in Canterbury on 21 April 1109.

© 2008-2015 Ian Logan. All rights reserved.
To notify me of recent publications, forthcoming events or anything of interest to Anselm scholars, please contact me using the form provided:


Friday, 30 March 2012

Coming soon

... Saint Anselm of Canterbury and His Legacy, edited by Giles Gasper and Ian Logan.

Born out of the 2009 Canterbury conference, this volume, published jointly by the Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies, Toronto, and the Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Durham University, will be out shortly. It's taken longer than a Hollywood blockbuster to produce, but it will have been worth the wait.

Friday, 2 March 2012

Recent Publications - March 2012

Books

James McSherry, 'Anselm: In the Steps of the Fathers' in Outreach and Renewal A First-Millennium Legacy for the Third-Millennium Church, Cistercian Studies Series 236, 2011, pp.203-212.

Articles

C.M. Kaufmann, 'New Images for Anselm's Table Talk: an Illustrated manuscript of the Liber De Similitudinibus' in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 74 (2011) 87-120.

Saturday, 29 October 2011

Recent Publications - October 2011 - Updated

Articles

C.I. Barrett, 'A Careful Reading of St. Anselm’s Ontological Argument' in Philosophy and Theology, 23 (2011) 217-230.

Saturday, 17 September 2011

Recent Publications - September 2011

Articles

C. Heathwood, 'The relevance of Kant's objection to Anselm's ontological argument' in Religious Studies, 47 (2011) 345-357.
Ian Logan comments: Oops! This paper shifts from (i) Kant's objection undermines Anselm's argument (btw Kant had not read Anselm), to (ii) a plausible reading of Kant's objection undermines Anselm's argument to (iii) a plausible reading of Kant's objection is relevant to at least one popular and defensible reading of Anselm's argument. In fact, as a reading of Anselm it is not defensible (whether or not it is a defensible ontological argument is a different matter). From the very beginning of this article, the author goes astray - misled as are many non-Latinists by the appalling translation of S.N. Deane, so beloved of American philosophers of religion. The motto is 'Read Anselm before you write about him!' Another suggestion is that before you start taking too seriously the notion that 'existence is not a predicate' (or a first order concept/predicate, etc.) you really ought to read Colin McGinn's Logical Properties, in particular the chapter on 'Existence'.

Saturday, 20 August 2011

Recent Publications - August 2011 - Updated

Articles

Y. Nagasawa, 'Anselmian Theism' in Philosophy Compass, 6 (2011) 564-571.
Ian Logan comments: In this defense of what Nagasawa refers to as 'Anselmian Theism', he writes: "Anselm defines God as ‘something than which no greater can be thought (conceived)’." Well, Anselm didn't think he had defined God. For the dialectical tradition in which Anselm operated, if God could be defined, He would be the differentiated species of a genus and therefore would not be God. The key feature of Anselmian theism (if there were such a thing) would be the notion that God is greater than whatever we can think about Him. In fact, He must be greater than can be thought, if He is that than which a greater cannot be thought, since otherwise we could think of something greater than Him, i.e. something that is so great it is greater than can be thought. If we are going to discuss Anselm then we need to take account of such points. Otherwise, I'm not sure what the term 'Anselmian' should be taken to mean.

Saturday, 6 August 2011

Recent Publications - August 2011

Articles

T.A. Heslop, 'St Anselm, Church Reform, and the Politics of Art' in Anglo-Norman Studies, 33 (2011) 103-126.
On 'the politically charged glazing scheme that Archbishop Anselm installed at Canterbury cathedral'.

Sunday, 10 July 2011

'AC Grayling's private university is odious'

An excellent polemic against Grayling's private 'atheist seminary' by Terry Eagleton : AC Grayling's private university is odious.