Arguing Anselm's Argument

Interpretation surrounding Saint Anselm's celebrated Proslogion often divides across analytical (philosophical) and non-analytical (historical, phenomenological, etc.) lines, with focus on the argument(s) of Chapters 2 and 3 isolated from the rest of the text. Interpretations may vary significantly, but the lines of interpretation continue along these divisions, thus propagating the distinction. Alternative tools, however, expose difficulties of such a division of the Proslogion ; they permit analytical justification of claims, concerns and intuitions of historical, phenomenological, and other interests, implicating a more complex re-interpretation of the presuppositions supporting the isolation of Chapters 2 and 3.
Based on an approach to reading developed from semiotics and text linguistics, this analysis challenges the major line of analytic interpretation of the Proslogion . This paper argues that the Proslogion has a structure different from the previously realized one, and that the structure consists of three nested frameworks within a devotional whole, faith leading the heart to illuminate the intellect, which in turn can grasp the syllogisms of chapters 2–3/4. Such a textual structure suggests strongly different conclusions about the core significance, utility, and meaning of the Proslogion as "argument".