The Remainder of Gaunilo's Text
Gaunilo's treatise is divided into eight sections. The first seven of these sections are criticisms of Anselm's argument from the point of view of a rational non-believer. The last section (8) is simply praise for the remaining chapters of the Proslogion. The full title of Gaunilo's treatise is: 'What Someone on Behalf of the Fool Replies to these Arguments'. This means Gaunilo does not write as a fellow Christian who believes, rather, he pretends to be a rational non-believer. The scholarly debate has focused on section 6 (the Lost Island Refutation). Very few scholars engage with the remaining sections of Gaunilo's text. There, Gaunilo's puts forward powerful criticisms against the ontological argument, some of which are later re-formulated by other critics of the Proslogion (for example by Aquinas).
Read more about this topic: Gaunilo Of Marmoutiers
Famous quotes containing the words remainder and/or text:
“Then I had only prisoners’ thoughts. I awaited the daily walk which I took in the yard, or my lawyer’s visit. I managed the remainder of my time very well. I have often thought that if I was made to live in a dry tree trunk, without any other occupation but to watch the flower of the sky above my head, I would have gradually gotten used to it.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“If ever I should condescend to prose,
I’ll write poetical commandments, which
Shall supersede beyond all doubt all those
That went before; in these I shall enrich
My text with many things that no one knows,
And carry precept to the highest pitch:
I’ll call the work ‘Longinus o’er a Bottle,
Or, Every Poet his own Aristotle.’”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)