Anselm''s Argument - Divine Necessity

Anselm of Canterbury gave the first "ontological" argument for God's existence as necessary. Yet philosophers have mostly neglected to examine what modal concepts he uses, and what their metaphysical basis is. Brian Leftow sets out Anselm's modal metaphysics, and defends all but one premise of Anselm's best argument for God's existence.

List of contents

• Introduction


• 1: The Metaphysics


• 2: The Applications


• 3: The Problems


• 4: The Argument


• 5: Brouwer


• 6: Hume


• 7: Kant


• 8: Swinburne


• 9: The Parallel Argument


• 10: Imagining Nothing


• 11: Thinking of Nothing


• 12: Five More Objections


• 13: Perfect Being Contingency?


• 14: Essence Options


• 15: Other Non-Concreta


• 16: Contingency Concluded


• 17: The Less-Maker Argument


• 18: Envoi

About the author

Brian Leftow is the William P. Alston Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at Rutgers University and an Emeritus Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. He was previously the Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford.

Summary

Anselm of Canterbury gave the first "ontological" argument for God's existence as necessary. Yet philosophers have mostly neglected to examine what modal concepts he uses, and what their metaphysical basis is. Brian Leftow sets out Anselm's modal metaphysics, and defends all but one premise of Anselm's best argument for God's existence.

Additional text

a detailed and robustly defended Anselmian account of perfect being necessity against challenges that have emerged in the history of philosophy after St Anselm

Product details

• Authors: Brian Leftow, Brian (Rutgers University) Leftow, Brian (William P. Alston Professor of the Leftow, Leftow Brian
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 28.02.2022
• EAN: 9780192896926
• ISBN: 978-0-19-289692-6
• No. of pages: 332
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: antiquity to present day; PHILOSOPHY / Metaphysics, PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / Medieval, RELIGION / Philosophy, Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology, Philosophy: metaphysics and ontology, Philosophy of religion, Western philosophy: Medieval & Renaissance, c 500 to c 1600, Medieval Western philosophy