BASA

56 P. A. Streveler certain remarks of William of Occam which, are not directed precisely at Anselm's argument, but which are naturally applicable to it. The second is the critique of Gregory of Rimini. Occam's critique, it will be seen, rests upon a very subtle logical point, which is somewhat unique in medieval philosophy and which anticipates views in modern symbolic logic. Occam was recognized even in his own day as somewhat of an innovator, although we have since learned that there were others of his contemporaries of even more radical stature. The second critique I gather from Gregory of Rimini, a younger contemporary of Occam, whose thought evinces certain affinities to that of the latter. Rimini's fame among logicians of modern symbolic logic who attempt to see anticipations of later more sophisticated developments in medieval philosophy, rests upon his doctrine of the complexe significabile which seems to be a subtle anticipation of our modern notion of a proposition, or at least of the Fregian notion of the « object » of thought. It should be remarked also, by way of introduction, that a great deal of the ideas and interpretations as well as of the scholarly references utilized in this paper came to me through discussions with my former teacher and friend of happy memory, the late, Julius R. Weinberg. A very simple formulation of the ontological argument is the following: 3 Let T = « That than which no greater can be thought ». one, of course, needs to be expanded to show the contradiction (1) If T does not exist outside the mind as well as in the mind, then T is not T. (2) But, surely, T is T. (3) Therefore it is not the case that T exists in the mind but not outside the mind. (4) Therefore, it is the case that T exists outside the mind as well in the mind. The logical form of the argument is a reductio of the type modus tollendo tollens, and seems to be formally valid . Premise 3 This schema is taken from J. R. W EINBERG, A Short History of Medieval Philosophy, (Princeton U. Press) p. 68. 1 do not think it is incumbent upon me in this paper to enter into an elaborate analysis of the ontological argument itself. Although this formulation of the argument is, doubtless, oversimplified, 1 think it is faithful to Anselm's intentions as as well as his pronouncements.