Proslogion

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The Proslogion is a work written by Anselm von Canterbury in the early scholasticism 1077/78. It is considered to be the first work in Western philosophy or the history of philosophy to contain an ontological proof of God , and therefore gained greater importance.

Origin of the title of the work

According to Anselm, the proslogion was written after the monologion and, like this one, originally had no and then another title. The original titles were " Exemplum meditandi de ratione fidei - example of how one ponders the ground of faith" and " Fides quaerens intellectum - faith that seeks insight", which reflect the basic medieval positions credo, ut intelligam and intellectus fidei . It was not until Archbishop Hugo von Lyon , who, as Anselm writes, ordered him by virtue of his apostolic authority to put the name of the author in front of the works, that Anselm renamed his works to " Monologion - self-talk" or " Proslogion - salutation".

Classification options for the work

The Proslogion written in the Bec monastery is a work written in Latin , which consists of a preface and a total of 26 chapters. The main concern of Proslogion, as Anselm writes, is to prove God through a "single argument - unum argumentum ", which prompted many interpreters and not least the meritorious editors Karl Barth and Franciscus Salesius Schmitt to split the work into two parts (Chapter II– IV and Chapters V – XXVI). This division was later criticized to the effect that it did not do justice to the entire work, so that, among others, Michael Corbin identified Chapter XV as the focus of the work, in which it says that God is “something greater” “than can be thought”, and therefore divided the work into a total of 11 sections, of which the first (A – E) and the last five (E'-A ') correspond symmetrically.

Classification according to Michael Corbin

chapter designation
A. I. prayer
B. II-IV God is how we believe he is
C. V-XII God is what we believe he is
D. XIII Eternity and Infinity
E. XIV Discovery of the unreachable light
F. XV God's over-incomprehensibility
E ' XVI-XVIII Recognition of the unreachable light
D ' XIX – XXI Eternity and Infinity
C ' XXII God is what he is and who he is
B ' XXIII God is known as the Father, Son and Spirit
A ' XXIV-XXVI Prayer to enter into the perfect joy of God that God promised through his Son

The ontological proof of God

The argument in Chapters II – V, which Anselm himself described as “unum argumentum”, gained greater notoriety , not least because of its reception by Descartes and Leibniz , the criticism of Thomas Aquinas and Kant, and Hegel's counter-criticism of Kant's criticism. The term “ontological argument” was first given to the “unum argumentum” through Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason , in which he tries to demonstrate the impossibility of an ontological proof of God.

introduction

Anselm dresses his proof of God in a prayer . It begins with the request that God give him the knowledge necessary for his plan. How this clothing should be evaluated is controversial. For this reason, Anselm is now and again ascribed a position on the science of faith (see intellectus fidei ), which emphasizes: Understanding a truth of faith is only possible from faith . With a different accent, some interpreters emphasize the autonomous position of reason in the penetration of all beliefs.

Accordingly, it is not only controversially discussed whether and under what conditions his statements are conclusive, but also whether they are intended as strictly logical proof.

argumentation

Anselm's concept of God is central to the argument : God is “that beyond which nothing greater can be thought” ( id, quo nihil maius cogitari potest ).

Anselm develops his argument in three steps. He would like to refute the fools from Ps 14 :ELB , who says in his heart that there is no God. First, Anselm explains that even a fool who denies the existence of God must admit that if he understands the concept of God presented, it exists in his mind ( esse in intellectu ), since everything that is understood is in the mind.

In the second step, Anselm argues as follows: That which cannot be thought of greater than this cannot only exist in the mind, otherwise it could be thought that it also exists in reality ( eat in re ) that which is greater. That, beyond which nothing greater can be thought , would then not be that beyond which nothing greater can be thought. From this, Anselm concludes that what cannot be thought of beyond that , must also exist in reality.

In the third step of the argument, Anselm puts forward the thesis that something beyond which nothing greater can be thought of can not even be thought of as not existing. It could be thought that something exists that cannot be thought of as non-existent. But that would be greater than something that can be thought of as not existing.

Enough

After Anselm has presented his arguments for the fact that that which can not be thought of greater than that not only exists but necessarily exists, an intervening prayer follows in which he identifies with God that which cannot be thought of greater than this .

Anselm concludes his proof of God with a prayer of thanks.

Criticism and counter-criticism

Anselm's proof of God was first criticized shortly after its appearance by the monk Gaunilo von Marmoutiers . The implications of a concept cannot include the existence of the thing it describes. Otherwise someone could also form the concept of a perfect island and, by analogy with Anselm's proof, conclude that its excellence proves its existence - which would be obviously absurd. Anselm responded to this objection by stating that his argumentation was applicable only to the concept of that beyond which greater things cannot be thought .

A second counter-argument relates to the fact that Anselm unfoundedly presupposes the higher value of necessary versus contingent or of real versus merely thought being.

A third counter-argument denies that there can be that beyond which greater cannot be thought , since something greater can always be thought of anything greater. In the spirit of Anselm, the answer to this is that what cannot be thought of greater than this should not be misunderstood as the “greatest conceivable” or “greatest conceivable”, but is greater than anything that can be thought. In Chapter XV of the Proslogion, Anselm confesses: "Lord, you are not only something greater than what cannot be thought, but something greater than can be thought."

For Kant's criticism of the ontological argument, see God proof .

The Kantian rejection of the ontological proof of God was already criticized by Hegel , and to the present day Kant's criticism is controversially discussed by philosophers and theologians.

Hansjürgen Verweyen, for example, in his analysis of the Proslogion, defends Anselm against Kant's criticism and agrees with the core of his argument: “If reason itself is undoubtedly real and the idea of ​​God is its deepest and actually driving force, then it must be itself in this movement to trace back to the real existence of God as the sole explanatory reason. This is then no longer an "ontological" argument, no longer an impermissible step from merely imagined to real being, but a step within a reality that reveals its own structure. "

Text editions and translations

  • Proslogion: Latin / German. Translation, notes and afterword by Robert Theis. Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-018336-7 . In it, pp. 76–89, Gaunilo's critical work Quid ad haec ressoibdeat Quidam pro insipiente (What someone could reply to instead of fooling ) and pp. 90–116 Anselm's reply Quid ad haec respondeat Editor ipsius libelli (What the author of this booklet replies to it ).
  • Proslogion: Investigations. Lat.- German Edition ed. by Franciscus Salesius Schmitt. Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart / Bad Cannstatt (1962) 1995, ISBN 3-7728-0010-6
  • Proslogion . lat. text and translation of chap. 2–4 in: Hansjürgen Verweyen : Asking about God: Anselm's concept of God as a guide . Ludgerus, Essen 1978, p. 90ff. Online text .
  • Can God's non-being be thought of? The controversy between Anselm of Canterbury and Gaunilo of Marmoutiers. Latin-German. Translated, explained and edited. by Burkhard Mojsisch , with an introduction by Kurt Flasch . Mainz 1989 (= excerpta classica , IV).
  • Opera omnia. Edited by Franciscus Salesius Schmitt. Seckau u. a. 1938–1961, supplemented reprint 1984, ISBN 3-7728-0011-4 Vol. 1, pp. 89-139.

literature

  • Christoph Asmuth: Proslogion (Latin, form of address) . In: Michael Eckert u. a. (Ed.): Lexicon of theological works. Stuttgart: Kröner 2003 ISBN 3-520-49301-2 , p. 600
  • Konrad Goehl , Johannes Gottfried Mayer : Deus in cogitatione existens. The appendix to Anselm von Canterbury's ›Proslogion‹ - or: Can Gaunilo's non-existence be thought of? - Attempt at a new translation of the ›Proslogion Appendix‹ (pp. 355–375) - System of thought guidance - Appendix. In: Konrad Goehl, Johannes Gottfried Mayer (Hrsg.): Editions and studies on Latin and German specialist prose of the Middle Ages. Festival ceremony for Gundolf Keil. Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 2000. ISBN 3-8260-1851-6 , pp. 339-402.
  • Miroslav Imbrisevic : Gaunilo's Cogito Argument in: The Saint Anselm Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2007 online .
  • Thomas Losoncy : Anselm's response to Gaunilo's Dilemma. An insight into the notion of 'Being' operative in the Proslogion in The New Scholasticism, Vol. 56, No. 207, 1982, p. 207-216.
  • Thomas Losoncy : The Anselm-Gaunilo Dispute about Man's Knowledge of God's Existence: An Examination in 25 Years of Anselm Studies (1969–1994): Review and Critique of Recent Scholarly Views, ed. Frederick van Fleteren and Joseph C. Schnaubelt, (Lampeter : The Edwin Mellen Press, 1996), pp. 161-181.
  • Peter Millican : "The One Fatal Flaw in Anselm's Argument", Mind 113 (2004), pp. 437-76.
  • Burkhard Mojsisch : Anselm of Canterbury. Evidence of God. In: Theo Kobusch (ed.): Philosophers of the Middle Ages. An introduction. Scientific book society. Darmstadt 2000, pp. 42-53.
  • Klaus Riesenhuber: The self-transcendence of thinking to being. Intentionality analysis as proof of God in “Proslogion”, Chapter 2 , in: Beckmann, Jan P., u. a. (Ed.): Philosophy in the Middle Ages. Lines of Development and Paradigms, Hamburg 1987, 39–59.
  • Jürgen Ludwig Scherb: Anselms philosophical theology, Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne, 2000. ISBN 3-17-016159-8 .
  • Gangolf Schrimpf: Anselm von Canterbury, Proslogion II - IV. Proof of God or refutation of the fool? Servant. Frankfurt am Main 1994.
  • Harald Schöndorf : Is the ontological proof of God a false conclusion? in: Doré, Joseph / Théobald, Christoph (eds.): Penser la foi. Recherches en théologie aujourd'hui. Mélanges offerts à Joseph Moingt. Paris 1993, 991-1003.
  • Hansjürgen Verweyen : Asking for God: Anselm's concept of God as a guide , Essen: Ludgerus 1978 (Christian structures in the modern world. Ed. By Wilhelm Plöger; 23). Online edition

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b cf. Proslogion Prooemium (preface)
  2. cf. Robert Theis in the afterword to the Proslogion of the Reclam series 18336 pp. 141–142
  3. On Gaunilo see Imbrisevic and Losoncy.
    See also Gaunilo of Marmoutiers in the English language Wikipedia.
    For the edition and translation of the Gaunilo text, see Edition Proslogion , Stuttgart 2005.
  4. Hansjürgen Verweyen: Asking about God . Anselm's concept of God as a guide. Essen: Ludgerus 1978. (Christian structures in the modern world. Ed. V. Wilhelm Plöger; 23), p. 38. Online text
  5. “However, the difficulty of finding being in the concept in general and also in the concept of God, if it is to be such, becomes insurmountable in the context of external experience or in the form of sensual perception like the hundred thalers in my state of ability as something conceived with the hand, not with the spirit, essentially something that is expressed, not visible to the inner eye, should appear - when that being, reality, truth is called what things have as sensual, temporal and transitory. If a philosophizing does not rise above the senses in being, then it is added that it does not leave the mere abstract thought in the concept either; this stands over against being ”(Wissenschaft der Logic (1813), Part Two, edited by G. Lasson, Hamburg (Phil. Bibl.), p. 355, quoted from Hansjürgen Verweyen: To ask for God . Anselm's concept of God as Instructions: Essen: Ludgerus 1978. (Christian structures in the modern world. Ed. Von Wilhelm Plöger; 23), p. 40.).
  6. Hansjürgen Verweyen: Asking about God . Anselm's concept of God as a guide. Essen: Ludgerus 1978. (Christian structures in the modern world. Ed. V. Wilhelm Plöger; 23), p. 66. Online text