The Argument

Abstract This chapter presents Anselm’s modal argument for God’s existence. It shows that the argument is valid. It also evaluates some of its premises for truth. One premise asserts that a perfect being would exist necessarily. The rest of the book examines this. Another denies that a possible being has contradictory properties. Another turns out to be true given the Brouwer system of modal logic. One premise commits Anselm to a controversial thesis that is at the core of Meinong’s views, that an item can have attributes whether or not it exists. The chapter suggests that Anselm would do well to drop this premise, and suggests a substitute.