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30 J . Hopkins been corrected by his having written: « Now, if this thing than which nothing greater can be thought existed solely in the understand– ing, then whatever existed also in reality would be greater than it » . Though Gaunilo does not include the italicized words, he intends for the reader to supply them. Consequently, he does regard Anselm's formula even though he does not see exactly how the formula fonctions in Anselm's argument. 1.3. Anselm's additional misreading of Gaunilo . So Gaunilo's abbreviation maius omnibus is not, as such, unfair to Anselm, though it is misleading. Indeed, it misled Anselm; and Anselm in turn has misled almost everyone else. Unfortunately, this is not the only respect in which Anselm has misinterpreted Gaunilo; for if he had not misread another passage he would never have charged Gaunilo with a flagrant self-contradiction. In particular, Anselm misconstrues Gaunilo's definition of intelligere as it occurs in On Behalf of the Pool 2. This can only happen because Anselm does not detect the rationale of Gaunilo's objections, just as Gaunilo did not discern the logic of Anselm's argument. In Section 2 Gaunilo is painting out that Proslogion 2 presupposes the following principle: x is in A's understanding 11 whenever A understands the words of someone who purports to be talking about x. But surely, to paraphrase Gaunilo, I sometimes understand people who speak falsely and people who speak about unreal things. So if the criterion for something's being in my understanding is simply that I understand someone's words, then I can have in my understanding that to which no real abject corresponds. So N too-whose description I understand when I hear it-might be in my understanding in just this way. Or are you, Anselm, going to tell me that N cannot be in my understanding in this way but must be there in the way that something is there when I understand 11 « In intellectu » («in the understanding ») is as idiomatic for Anselm as «in mind » is for us. McGill worries that « in the understanding » sounds too spatial, and consequently he prefers the translation « in relation to the understanding ». Yet, on p. 19 McGill reverts to «in the understanding of the painter ». Surprisingly, he finds no analogous problem with « held in thought »and «in his imagination» (p. 17, p. 19). Why should «in the understanding » sound more spatial than «in the imagination»? McGill's distinction seems invidious; and bis worry is unnecessary. See John HICK and Arthur McGILL, eds., The Many-faced Argument (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 4, n. 10.

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