A Reply On Behalf Of The Fool By Gaunilo
R E P L Y O N B E H A L F O F T H E F O O L
B Y G A U N I L O
W E now go on to consider the reply written to St. Anselm's Proslogion soon after it appeared, by Gaunilo, a monk of the abbey of l\farmoutier near Tours. Ifwe accept the account of the great
eighteenth-century scholar Dom Edmond Martene,1 Gaunilo was the son of Gauthier, viscount of Tours. Gaunilo himself
had held the title of Count of Montigni, was treasurer of the famous Chapter of St. Martin at Tours, and had been married.
Then, after certain family misfortunes which, Dom Edmond says, 'God made use of to bring home to him the instability of
the pomps of the world and the benefits of generously dc٠pising
them so as to follow the maxims of the Gospel',2 Gaunilo seems
to have undergone a religious conversion. Abandoning the world he first of all founded the priory of St. Hilaire-sur
Hiere, and then (his wife presumably having died) he became a monk at the monastery of Marmoutier which had been very generously favoured by his parents. Marmoutier had had a
long and illustrious history, tracing its origins to St. Martin of Tours in the fourth century and, according to some, having
St. Patrick of Ireland as one of its early members. 3 At the time of St. Anselm and Gaunilo the abbey had a considerable reputa tion for both monastic piety and scholarship. We know, for
example, that St. Anselm thought well enough of Marmoutier to recommend the knight Cadulus, who had resisted certain
dramatic persuasions of the Devil, to become a monk there, 4 and we also know that many monks from Marmoutier were
involved in the foundation of other monastic communities 1 See E. Martene, Histoire de l'abbaye de Marmoutier, 2 vols., published and anno tated by C. Chevalier in the series Memoires de la societe archeologique de Touraine, xxiv, xxv, 1 874-5. For Gaunilo see vol. i, pp. 363-7. Martene had finished this work in 1 707 but it was not published until the edition cited above. According to Chevalier, Martene's history is based entirely upon the monastery records ;
Dom Martene, he says (p. x), 'made a thorough inventory of the chartulary of Marmoutier and copied out in full the most important parts of it. Thanks to these rich materials he composed in two folio volumes the Histoire de l' abbaye de Marmoutier avec Les preuves'.
2 Ibid., vol. i, p. 364.
3 Ibid., pp. 88-94.
• Eadmer, Vita, r, xxv; Southern, pp. 42-43.
CO M M ENT A R Y
in both France and England during the reign of William the Conqueror. Again, contemporary with Gaunilo at Marmoutier were scholars such as the historian Thiery, Sigo (who knew both Greek and Hebrew) , and Raoul Mechante-Couronne who had studied in both France and Italy and was a celebrated student of medicine.1 Particularly under the famous Abbot
Albert ( 1032-62) the monks at Marmoutier appear to have given more than usual attention to scholarship.
Martene estimates that Gaunilo was probably born in 994 and it is known that he was still alive in 1 083. If this is so then it means that Gaunilo was some forty years older than St.
Anselm and almost eighty-four years of age when, presumably in 1 078, he wrote his reply to the Proslogion.
No other writing by Gaunilo is extant, which is a pity since, as we shall see, he shows very great philosophical ability. Even if his thinking is not on the same plane as that of St. Anselm,
Gaunilo clearly knows what a philosophical argument is and discerns very acutely where the crucial point of the Proslogion
argument lies.2
[ 1 .] Gaunilo begins by briefly summarizing Anselm's argument in the Proslogion : (i) the notion of 'that than which nothing greater can be thought' is in the mind ; (ii) if it is in the mind it must also be postulated to exist in reality, since otherwise it would not be that which is greater than everything ('maius omnibus') . Gaunilo's equation of St. Anselm's formula 'that than which nothing greater can be thought' with 'that which is greater than everything' is, as we shall see later, contested by
St. Anselm, who claims that his proof will only work with the original formula.
[ 2.] Gaunilo now proceeds to the attack. First, in what sense is 'that than which nothing greater can be thought' in the mind?
In one sense we can 'think of' 'false things' ('falsa') ; that is to say we can have thoughts that have no corresponding objects in the extra-mental world. Clearly, then, the notion of 'that than which nothing greater can be thought' must exist in the
1 Martene, vol. i, pp. 353-69.
2 R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm and His Biographer, p. 65, says of Gaunilo's reply:
'I ts existence serves as a warning against underestimating the level of philosophical cultivation in communities which have left little trace of their intellectual attain
ments.'
A R EPLY ON BEHALF OF THE F O O L [1]-[2 ]
mind in a different way from these things, for we cannot in their case infer from the fact that they exist in the mind or can be thought of that they therefore must exist in reality.
Put in logical terms Gaunilo's point is that, just because a concept is significant or meaningful, it does not mean that it is true or instantiated. And, put in this way, it is obvious that Gaunilo misses Anselm's whole point, which is precisely that in the case of this one concept alone, the concept 'that than which nothing greater can be thought', one can legitimately infer from the fact that it is meaningful (together with another premiss) to the fact that it is true or instantiated. With respect to all other concepts or things 'in the mind' Anselm would agree with Gaunilo that this kind of inference is illicit.
Gaunilo, however, goes on to claim that if 'that than which nothing greater can be thought' cannot exist 'in the mind' in the same way as 'false things' do, then it must be 'in the mind' in such a way that, when it is understood, it is understood also to be actually existing. Gaunilo here contrasts 'being thought of' with 'being understood', the first ('cogitare') having the sense of 'being able to be conceived of or entertained in the mind', without reference to whether there is a real object in the world corresponding to what is conceived of, and the second
('intelligere') having the sense of directly understanding some actually existing object. But, Gaunilo argues, 'that than which nothing greater can be thought' cannot be understood, or exist 'in the mind', in this latter way, for then there would be no distinction between this notion being 'in the mind' and its being actually instantiated ; in other words, God could not be thought not to exist. However, St. Anselm has already ad mitted that this distinction can be made and that there is a sense in which God can be thought not actually to exist. Put summarily Gaunilo's argument comes to this : either there is a distinction between existing in the mind and existing in actual reality, in which case Anselm has to prove by an 'unquestionable argument' that the notion of 'that than which nothing greater can be thought' is such that, ifit is understood or 'in the mind', we can infer certainly that it exists also in reality; or, there is no
distinction between existing in the mind and existing in reality, in which case whatever can be thought of actually exists, which would be absurd.
C O M MENTARY
[3.] The next section is a little obscure, but the sense of what Gaunilo has to say here seems to be as follows. 'That than which nothing greater can be thought' is not 'in the mind' in the same definite and determinate way in which the plan or preconception of a picture is 'in the mind' of the artist. The artist has the plan of the picture really in his mind or in his soul ; he has formed the idea in his mind and he does not merely entertain a notion about something. Gaunilo seems here to be referring to St. Augustine's doctrine that I am capable of knowing my own soul and its acts of thought and volition in a
more direct and positive way than the way in which I know other things distinct from my soul. And it is precisely in this case that, according to Augustine, I can legitimately move from the order of thought to the order of reality, in that if l can say 'I think', or even 'I am deceived', I can infer 'I exist'.1 In the one case I know or understand that by means of which I understand (the mind or the soul itself) ; in the other I know something 'different from the understanding which grasps it'.
The conclusion seems to be, then, that 'that than which nothing greater can be thought' is understood, or thought of, or 'in the mind' only in a weak and imperfect way that will not allow any inference to be made as to its actual realization.
[ 4.] Gaunilo reinforces this point by arguing that when I hear the formula 'that than which nothing greater can be thought'
I certainly take in the words, but I do not have any kind of clear and distinct notion of what has been said. Thus, I do not know what is meant or signified by the formula, nor whether there is anything corresponding to it in actual reality. If I hear someone talking about some individual man who is unknown to me, I can nevertheless know something about him, namely that he is a man. Even if I do not know anything about him individually I can at least know what kind of thing is being talked about, or, as Gaunilo puts it, I know him at least by
'species and genus'. But even here, of course, I cannot infer that the person who is being talked about actually exists, because the speaker might be telling a lie or simply making up a story about some fictional character. The only way, in fact,
1 See De Libero Arbitrio, II. iii ; Pontifex, p. Bo ; De Trinitate, xv. xii ; P.L. xiii.
1074.
A R E PLY O N B E H A L F O F T H E F O O L [3)-[5)
that I can be said to think of 'that than which nothing greater can be thought' or have it 'in mind', is in the trivial sense that I take in 'the sound of the letters or syllables'. I do not know what they mean, nor indeed whether they have any meaning at all, nor, if they do have meaning, whether what they mean actually exists in reality. Thus we can distinguish the three following cases : (i) I understand the words, in the sense that I take them in without understanding what they mean, and, a fortiori, without understanding whether what they signify actually exists ; (ii) I understand the words as meaning something, though without understanding whether what they mean actually exists ; (iii) I understand the words as meaning something that actually exists. And Gaunilo's point is that the formula 'that than which nothing greater can be thought' is 'understood' not in sense (iii) , nor even in sense (ii), but in the trivial sense (i) .
[5.] Anselm's argument is that, if 'that than which nothing greater can be thought' is 'in the mind', it must also exist in reality, otherwise it would not be the greatest thing of all. But Gaunilo claims to have shown that it is not 'in the mind' in any way that would allow us to infer its actual existence. We should have to show that 'that than which nothing greater can be thought' meant something, and we should also have to show that it did not exist in the mind in the same way as 'false and doubtful things' do. But the only way of proving this is precisely to prove that there exists something corresponding to the notion of 'that than which nothing greater can be thought'. In other words, we should have to prove first of all 'that this greatest of all exists in reality somewhere' . 1 To sum up : We need to show that 'that than which nothing greater can be thought' exists
'in the mind' in a different way from 'false and doubtful things', for we cannot infer from the fact that these latter exist 'in the mind' that they therefore exist in reality. And if we cannot show that it exists in the mind in a different way (such that it will allow an inference to its actual existence) then it must be proved that it exists in actual reality, just as we have to prove
in the case of our ordinary concepts that they are instantiated in actual reality.
C O M MENTARY
[6.] Gaunilo now produces his celebrated example of the 'Lost Island'.1 We can conceive of an island 'more excellent than all other lands', an island than which no more excellent can be thought. Now, on St. Anselm's premisses, this most excellent island must actually exist, for if it did not actually exist it would not be the most excellent island. But if someone argued in this way, says Gaunilo, we should think that either he was joking or that he was a complete fool.
The gist of Gaunilo's arguments, it will be noticed, is to claim that it is never possible to argue from the fact that we can conceive of something to the fact that that thing actually exists; or, that it is never possible to argue that because a con cept is meaningful it is therefore true or instantiated. For every concept there is a distinction between its meaningfulness (its existence 'in the mind') and its actual instantiation in reality;
the question of the instantiation of some concept is always a further question and always requires separate proof. Gaunilo, that is, is anticipating Kant's argument that existential proposi tions are always 'synthetic', in that 'exists' is not a predicate that can be contained analytically in the notion of any subject.
[7.] The same argument, Gaunilo says, avails against St.
Anselm's argument in Chapter III of the Proslogion. If it is proved that there is some supreme being then we can say that it must exist necessarily, that is, it must exist in such a way that it cannot be thought not to exist. But we must first prove the existence of this being, and then we can infer 'everything else which necessarily cannot be wanting to what is greater and better than everything'. 2
The latter part of this section is rather obscure. The drift of Gaunilo's argument seems to be that, in the weak sense of 'thinking' ( 'cogitare') , it is always possible to think of God as not existing, that is to say, 'God does not exist' is not a sclf contradictory proposition. In this sense of 'think' I can think of
God as not existing, just as I can think of myself as not existing.
And if this is so, then when we say that God is such that He 'cannot be tlzouglzt not to be', the term 'thought' here must have a different and stronger sense. St. Anselm, Gaunilo suggests, ought to say that God is such that He cannot be 'understood'
2 p. 165. See also Aquinas, Sum. Theo!. i, Q. ii, a. i.
A R E P LY O N BEHALF O F THE F O O L [6]-[8]
('intelligere') not to exist, 'understood' having the stronger sense of connoting the existence of its object. If this is indeed what Gaunilo means here it is a very interesting criticism for it brings out the point that the theist is committed to holding both that the proposition 'God exists' is not in one sense a logically necessary one (since it may be denied without self-contradic tion) and yet that the conclusion of any proof of the existence of God must be that the proposition 'God exists' is, in some other sense, a logically necessary one (since the inconceivability of God's non-existence is precisely what distinguishes God's existence from the kind of existence that things in the world enjoy) .
(8.] Gaunilo ends with a charming piece of praise for the Proslogion and its author. Even if there are weak points in St. Anselm's arguments, nevertheless the rest of the book is of great value and should be accepted 'with great respect and praise' .1
I p. 167.