LeMans and Proslogion 15

Abstract

It is an exciting time for medieval philosophy. Recent archival research done by Stephen Kearns (2021) at the site of the Librarium Babelii (first discovered by J. L. Borges in 1941; for a detailed report see Borges 1984) has uncovered the long-lost autograph of Drosslogion, the important work by medieval philosopher LeMans which formed the basis for Anselm’s parody so-called ‘ontological argument’. Kearns’ reconstruction of the argument from the original Pig-Latin is meticulously done. In this paper, I hope to offer evidence that Anselm, in the same work that he offers his parody argument, gives a direct reply to LeMans’s. Rather than offering merely a parody, he additionally offers an argument which directly entails the unsoundness of LeMans’s. Kearns’ reconstruction of the original argument runs as follows: Some liberties have been taken with the original text. For instance, while classical Pig-Latin has no articles, definite or otherwise, medieval Pig-Latin does. That being said, the argument is, I believe, a faithful reconstruction of the original. Kearns notes, of LeMans’s argument, that ‘it is unclear how one might rationally support [Anselm’s] argument without also advocating [LeMans’s]’ (Kearns 2021: 452).