Well, that's why we use logic.... — Arcane Sandwich

Logic is a tool for science, but science is not logic. By "science" I mean pretty much the scientific method.

Now I have to refresh my memory. The scientific method comprises:
Ask
Observe
Hypothesize
Prediction
Test
Analyze results
Draw conclusions
Communicate

At the observe step, clearly the idea is that an observation must be made, presumably of something observable.

If phenomenon means to be-perceived then no. Science according to the example I have given consists in the study of perceivable or Non-perceivable reality. And I think you agree. — JuanZu

I think maybe you do not recognize how fundamental my question to you is. In order to do any science you have to perceive something somehow, yes? Or no? And if the thing is a lot smaller than a breadbox, then what is perceived is measurements by instruments. None of this precludes or estops theorizing and testing the theories, but it all eventually comes down to some observable/perceivable phenomenon, if even just a measurement. I'm at that level of simplicity.

What a strange qualification. — Arcane Sandwich

It goes back to establishing some precision in language. Working scientists presuppose willy-nilly what they need to in order to do their work, but we as aspiring metaphysicians, to do our work, have got to try to be as clear as we can about what we presuppose and whether particular presuppositions matter, to see if we're misled or well-led by them.

(1) There are appearances (phenomena).
(2) So, there is something that appears (noumeon).
Kant seems to think that if (1) is true, then (2) must be true a well. — Arcane Sandwich

I'm betting sure that Kant never said that any noumenon "appears." But as an education is a valuable thing worth having, I'll gladly pay off.... Now I'll attempt to channel Mww, probably a mistake on my part. But I think he would point out that what appears is the phenomenon, that is, a creation of mind. The noumenon is no creation of mind, and being itself thereby not a phenomenon, never appears. Here, I'll ping @Mww and maybe he'll clean up any misstep of mine.

Please tell how a science about unperceivables works - keep in mind the qualification that nothing can be observed/perceived.

The machine makes the particles travel,,,, — JuanZu

There is no question that as a practical matter things are just as you say they are. But this thread is not about such practical matters. And it is useful here, as it is anywhere, to pause for purposes of navigation to make explicit exactly where we are and what is happening. Science is a method for studying phenomena. If you do not agree, we need to stop here and work this out.

Phenomena are what actually happens, relative to what might otherwise happen. And in a lot of modern science, the phenomena that are studied are on the gauges of machines and the readouts of printers. And that's it, period. Now, an analysis of phenomena can lead to theories, and the theories can be tested, and so on. But in many cases the "thing" studied is never directly observed, never itself a phenomenon. And except in areas both obscure and arcane none of this matters - well, sometimes it can matter. But for us in this discussion, it matters because it makes a difference - a difference that makes a difference.

Empiricism concerns phenomena. Our OP seems to think that is a matter of the perceivable v. the unperceivable. But I shall leave to you a question he so far has ducked: can there be a science of anything that is not perceived, that is not in some way or other a phenomenon observed?

Just curious: what's your IQ? You're under no obligation to answer, obviously. — Arcane Sandwich

Ok. That's your third strike. You're out. You're obviously not interested in your own topic.

What do you think of van Fraassen work? He's an Empiricist. — Arcane Sandwich

No thoughts at all; don't know of him. Why don't you try being a participant in a conversation instead of playing the troll?

But our topic is perceivable v. unperceivable. I hold that if nothing is perceived, then nothing happens....
— tim wood
Ok, cool. So let's do a scientific experiment to test your hypothesis, then. — Arcane Sandwich

How would you propose doing any experiment on no information, no data, nothing being perceived?

This part of your posts lacks substance. — Arcane Sandwich

Not at all. You appear to claim that geologists know something about a place they cannot perceive. Indeed they cannot see it directly or go there directly, but they do perceive what machines record, and that's what their conclusions are based upon.

What's the precise and exacting solution to the Sorites Paradox, then? Let's start with that. — Arcane Sandwich

You're argumentative without substance or discipline. As such, useless. Stick to the topic. Or, if you want to change it, then make it clear you're changing it. That is, how, exactly is the problem of the heap relevant?

Geology is full of surprises. In the American southwest is very flat land out of which rise very tall and steep structures. The natural question being, "Where in the world did they come from?" Maybe a little more than a century ago, one man understood, perhaps in a sudden insight, that it was the wrong question, the right question being, "Where in the world did everything else go?!" That is, he understood that the very tall structures were once underground, and that all the vertical hundreds and even thousands of feet of earth, across hundreds of square miles, had disappeared. He might have been on horseback when he figured it out - more power to him if he remained mounted when he realized the truth.

And lots of those surprises laid out by Nick Zentner in public lectures on Youtube. Here's one of interest to an Australian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ3CvFbGu3g

First 25 minutes or so.

You don't have to agree with me, — Arcane Sandwich

We're not at the agree/disagree line yet. I keep asking you to be more precise and exacting in your comments, because our subject matter requires such. But you don't seem to understand the need, and the lack thereof makes your comments nonsensical.

No one sees the earth's core, but there are apparently a number of sophisticated tests that allow qualified persons to make statements about it. That is, they look at dials and meters and various outputs, which is what is perceived, and then they think about it. And I imagine you're aware that recent popular science reports some interesting conclusions about the earth's core from their researches.

But our topic is perceivable v. unperceivable. I hold that if nothing is perceived, then nothing happens. That settled, we can get back to how, if, or whether substance is the same as the object. You may define it that way and that's fine, but then the test will be if that understanding is consistent with what is generally understood.

No. They - presumably geologists - read instruments, the readings being perceived.

The one that perceives is the machine, but that is not perceiving, it is interacting. — JuanZu

No. Recording. Machines neither perceive nor interact. Admittedly they can be made to seem as if they do, but supposing they do is merely anthropomorphizing them. And information is not information until it becomes information, which is to say put to use by a person in some way.

Geology is all about perceiving. How do you suppose anyone knows anything, by magic? Devices are set up, and whatever they record Is perceived - then interpreted. If nothing perceived, then no information, no knowledge.

Those are ideas, The question is about things perceivable and things unperceivable - however that might work. I'm thinking that if you have not perceived or cannot perceive an object, then you cannot do science with it. Of course people can have ideas that they can test, but to test them requires perceivables. If not, a counterexample would be welcome.

I would say that much of science, especially physics, is composed of objects and relationships that are not directly perceived. — JuanZu

Whether directly or indirectly perceived, wouldn't you agree that all science is about what is perceived? Or, what would be an example of science done with anything not perceived?

If each "ordinary object" is a distinct philosophical substance, then what distinguishes object from substance?
— tim wood
They are the same thing, tim. Nothing distinguishes them, precisely because they're not different sorts of things.
If objects share substance,
— tim wood
They don't. — Arcane Sandwich

It's still the same old question: if the apple is on your kitchen table, what do you know about it and how do you know it? And if all you know is your perceptions, then how can you know anything about anything that is not your perception.

My reply to that possible objection: in speaking of magnetism and not electromagnetism, I'm referring to the phenomena of attraction and repulsion — Arcane Sandwich

Which is necessarily perceptible because it is a phenomenon - look it up!

And if object=substance, what does "metaphysics of ordinary objects" even mean? Perhaps you mean thinking about your thinking about the thoughts that you're thinking - yes? it becomes a question of what, exactly, you're talking about and until that's cleared up, this an exercise in non-sense.

These sorts of ordinary objects may seem fairly unproblematic,... they are at least as puzzling, if not more so. — Daniel Z. Korman

Perhaps try reading your own citation, or at least make clear to me why you cited it?

And by this do you mean that philosophical substances are a many, at least as many as there are ordinary objects?
— tim wood
That sounds like reasonable thing to say, even though I never thought about it that way. Sure, why not? — Arcane Sandwich

If each "ordinary object" is a distinct philosophical substance, then what distinguishes object from substance? If objects share substance, then how are such objects distinguished?

What is it, exactly? It's an ordinary object. — Arcane Sandwich

And yet, since anything and everything you might say, think, or cognise about it is or is informed by your perception, you cannot, have not, said anything about it itself. Calling it an ordinary object won't do, not least because it leads to the questions, how do you know? and what is an ordinary object?

...they would be something like ordinary objects. — Arcane Sandwich

And by this do you mean that philosophical substances are a many, at least as many as there are ordinary objects? Or that ordinary objects are a one, being all the same?

The reason has already been stated: one of them (the apple) only has perceptible qualities, while the other one (the magnet) has both perceptible and imperceptible qualities. — Arcane Sandwich

The difficulty with this is the need to be rigorously exact as to what exactly you're referring to. An apple - your apple - what exactly is it, where exactly is it? And how do you know that one thing only has perceptible qualities and the other both perceptible and imperceptible qualities Actually, what is an imperceptible quality? There's a good chance the dispute - such as it is - arises from confusion, resolved or at least refined in careful definition. Not to say that definitions resolve all problems - pace all older Australians - but they make the way easier.

No, I'm not on about refuting "philosophical substances". I believe that they are real. — Arcane Sandwich

Great! Real is a qualification. And presumably common to all things that are. What sort of real thing, then, would it be?

Or maybe one could treat apples and magnets differently, from a metaphysical point of view. — Arcane Sandwich

You would need a reason to do so.

But there is no philosophical substance or res extensa underneath, so to speak, supporting those qualities. The apple just is those qualities. — Arcane Sandwich

If you're on about refuting "philosophical substance," you're about 250 years too late. But also yours is a fallacy of false alternatives and amphiboly. You haven't defined "apple," and maybe as to what it is, there are other possibilities.

The apple just is those qualities. — Arcane Sandwich

Perhaps think of it this way:

Assume Hume is correct - that's the hypothesis. Try to say something about the apple that is not based in perception. It seems there is much that can be said, but all of it perception-based. But what does your perception inform? It does not inform the apple, instead the apple informs your mind through the media of your perceptions. The apple, then, is in your mind, and if you try to say anything about what is informing your mind through your perceptions, you Kant - pun absolutely intended. Hume, then, is correct, but inasmuch as that seems incomplete, it is incomplete, because it is silent on just what, exactly, is informing your perceptions. Kant completes the theory. As to exactly how, I suspect you know what to read. And there is actually a good way in here on TPF, the posts of our downeast resident master of all thinks Kant, Mww. Peruse his posts for insight, and then onto Critique of Pure Reason.

So, St. Anselm's question is (1) whether or not God exists only as an intentional object of human thought, an entity with dependent existence, or (2) is an entity with independent existence. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It collapses, I think, into the question of the real existence of God - and the only definition of the term "God" so far is the that than which & etc. The qualification of "independent existence" also seems useful. I take that to mean it is something that an idea, being something that "exists dependently," is not. And that distinction being exactly that between ens rationis and ens reale.

In order for Anselm to answer the question you attribute to him, he would first have to ask it. I do not believe he ever did. I choose this as a sample sentence of Anselm's:

"Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the
understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one,
than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is
no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it
exists both in the understanding and in reality."

So much is wrong with this it's tiring even to think about breaking it down. But if you think it stands as a proof, then that effort becomes necessary. Do you think it proves anything? If yes, what?

If not a proof, then, what is it? I doubt Anselm thought it proved anything. The clues lie in his preliminary remarks. It is a meditation on his beliefs.

Thank you for a lengthy non-answer to a simple question. The question was,

It is time for you to make explicitly clear what exactly you think Anselm's proof proves and briefly how/why. Just Anselm and you, no one else. Can you do that? — tim wood

I'll even help. Whatever is crude here you're welcome to refine or discard:
1) Issue. Whether God exists in reality.
2) Rule. Whatever can be conceived is exceeded in greatness by its existence in reality.
3) Argument. God, conceived as that than which & etc. - as the limit of greatness - and by application of the rule that the greater greatness exists in reality, must therefore exist in reality.
4) Conclusion. God exists in reality.

So. Do you hold that Anselm does, or does not, prove that God exists in reality?

Yes, you're lazy. We know. It's written all over. — Leontiskos

It is time for you to make explicitly clear what exactly you think Anselm's proof proves and briefly how/why. Just Anselm and you, no one else. Can you do that?

I do not think it proves anything, excepting that if some certain claims are granted some certain conclusions can be drawn from them. But that is merely an exercise in argumentation and not a proof. That is, if you think Anselm's proof is based on some certain claims, then show how he proves them - or prove them yourself.

"...no inconsistency is involved in being able, for any given thing either in the intellect or in reality, to think something greater..." — Banno

Nor meaning, either.

Wittgenstein made a point about tautologies being what defines a statement in terms of logic. — Shawn

So what did he say?

I don't think the substitution will do. We can have ideas about ens reale. For instance, we have the ideas "man," "fox," etc. Yet presumably these also exist outside the mind. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You apparently do not understand your own terms. Or maybe you do. I should like to see you make the sandwich of which you have an idea. Of course you won't need anything at all from the grocery store, yes? Or for that matter anything at all that can be called real, or that exists, right? It's ideas all the way down that you're somehow going to make real.

Now I agree you can think about a corned beef on rye, and you can make or buy a real corned beef on rye sandwich. And I will wager that you can tell the difference between the idea of a sandwich and a real sandwich. You can, can't you?

The two terms distinguish what can be real, and what, as idea, cannot be. That's what it says. Maybe read it again?

ens reale and ens rationis — Count Timothy von Icarus

Two definitions from our friend:
1) "Ens reale is a Medieval Latin noun that translates to "real being". It refers to an entity that has the potential or actuality to exist beyond the human mind."
2) "Ens rationis is a Medieval Latin term that means "being of the mind" or "abstract logical entity". It refers to something that exists only in the mind, and not in the real world."

Our only definitions of "exist" and "real(ity)" so far in this thread are those of Leontiskos, above, who offers ordinary understandings of the terms. So far so good?

For clarity's sake will you accept the substitutions for 1 & 2, "thing" and "idea"?

An immediate consequence for Anselm's is that what is in his understanding is an idea, and thereby cannot exist in reality - is not any kind of thing at all.

So let's stop for a moment so you can correct any errors of mine. The - my - argument is that given definitions 1 & 2, and Anselm's claims, then the God that in the understanding is that than which & etc. cannot exist in reality. Have at it!

As to Klima, his conclusions, as I read them in the section of his paper called "Conclusion:...," seem reasonable to me. This one sentence as summary, "Indeed, in general, this kind of concept-acquisition seems to be essential for mutual understanding between people conceptualizing the world (and what is beyond) differently, thereby being committed to radically different "universes" of thought objects."

That is, for people to communicate they need to try to understand each other.

So we know, or think we know, that Anselm absolutely presupposes the existence in reality of God - as that than which & etc., and from which he adduces many qualities he attributes to God. And his demonstration to the fool is not that the fool doesn't believe, but rather that the fool denies what he (the fool) himself in fact does believe.

But a lot of folks, failing to understand Anselm's, manage to persuade and excite themselves that because it can be thought, it must exist. Now, I do not want the headaches of Porsche ownership, being altogether happy with the superiority of fantasies of racing through he countryside, as against the less than ideal qualities of a real Porsche. Still, though, if I could bake up a batch of them in the heat of fervent ideation, I would. I've tried. It doesn't work.

So this thread is about a standing both failure and refusal to understand Anselm, and an attempt to make something out of parts of a non-understanding of Klima's paper that it isn't.

Yes, it's pretty basic. A real Porsche is greater than the idea of a Porsche. I haven't seen anyone present an argument against this. — Leontiskos

This is pretty stupid. A real Porsche may well be greater than the idea of a Porsche for someone who wants a Porsche. But there are people who appreciate their idea of a Porsche but are quite sure a real Porsche would be less "great" for lots of reasons. So much for the real being "greater" than the idea.

Roark takes it.... — Count Timothy von Icarus

And this is the problem. Roark takes it, Anselm takes it, Klimas takes it. So-and-so takes it. And it's the taking that's in question. Look, I can prove the moon is made of green cheese, thus:

If bananas have zippers, then the moon is made of green cheese. Bananas have zippers (I take it so) therefore the moon is made of green cheese. How about it? You buying it that the moon is made of green cheese? If not why not? And how is my argument about the moon different in substance from Anselm's argument?

Answer, it isn't. Both absurd, mine just more obviously so. The moon really is not made of green cheese, and Anselm's God does not exist, using @Leontiskos's meaning of "exist."

and to think of anything as that than which nothing greater can be thought requires thinking of it as an existing thing. — Tony Roark, Conceptual Closure in Anselm's Proof, 9

I should like to see the demonstration of this. That or at least a somewhat rigorous definition of what it means to exist. Above @Leontiskos offered that the ordinary understanding would suffice. But it has been pointed out that anything that exists has fixed qualities and quantities, and it is easy enough to imagine beings with greater quantities and qualities.

This whole argument becomes tedious. Anselm himself says that he is talking about what he (already) believes. Thus, God exists, therefore God exists. And that's all there is. Going further breaks language, logic, and common sense.

And Klima's conclusion, that some have not yet read, is neglected.

I addressed this in my ↪post to Kazan. — Leontiskos

Pay attention! Above I specified my response was to a remark by Janus that you endorsed!

(I think this gets at tim wood's point as well.) — Leontiskos

It's simple. You appear to think that omnipotence is the greater. That in order to be the than which & etc., the than which & etc must be omnipotent. But I conceive of a being that has no need of omnipotence, and that being the greater.

As to the good or morality, your being must be absolutely good and moral, yes? But as I asked above, which question you ignored, what is the meaning of absolute good? And further, if omnipotent, what constraint to be either moral or good? Again, not theology, but just the simple meaning of words, and the problems that can arise from imputing absolutes.

I don't follow this reasoning at all. Is there an argument behind it? — Leontiskos

Sure! Above Janus said and you endorsed that God, as that than which & etc, must be omnipotent, omnipotence being the greater. I simply observe that while perhaps one can be that than which & etc., or be omnipotent, that to be both becomes contradictory. @kazan gets it, why don't you? Or are you being disingenuous?

If anyone unclear as to what Collingwood is about, please PM me and I will attempt to clarify it.

I think the error is, "He is omnipotent, which means he can do anything, which means there are things to be done, which means that he is obliged to do them." Those last two (bolded) inferences both look to be false, and particularly the last one. — Leontiskos

In what way or sense false? If you're defending Anselm, then defend. If you find error in what I write, then make clear what the error is. Omnipotence means in this context God's being able to do anything. Surely if there is anything he cannot do, then he is not omnipotent. Surely a perfect God, or at least one "than which &etc, would not have unnecessary or superfluous powers, so omnipotence directly implies something to be omnipotent about - something, a task, that needs doing for something to be perfected. And only God can do it, and thus thereby Himself obliged.

This isn't theology, it is just the meaning of words.

I am able to reproduce here what R.G. Collingwood says about Anselm in his An Essay on Metaphysics, a short chapter but worth the read.
-----------------------
XVIII
THE PROPOSITION ‘GOD EXISTS’

In the last chapter but one I had occasion to comment on the way in which a ‘logical positivist’, wishing to recommend the doctrine that ‘metaphysical propositions’ not being verifiable by appeal to observed fact are pseudo-propositions and meaningless, quoted as examples propositions about God, such as the proposition ‘God exists’. To him the proposition ‘God exists’ would seem to mean that there is a being more or less like human beings in respect of his mental powers and dispositions, but having the mental powers of a human being greatly, perhaps infinitely, magnified.

In a sense any one is free to mean anything he likes by any words whatever; and if the writer whom I quoted had made it clear that this was only a private meaning of his own, the meaning he personally intends to convey when he says things about God, I should not have interfered. But he professed to be explaining what other people mean when they say the same things; and these other people, from what he says, I suppose to be Christians. In that case the question what the words mean is not one to be capriciously answered. It is a question of fact.

What Christians mean when they say that God exists is a complicated question. It is not to be answered except after a somewhat painstaking study of Christian theological literature. I do not profess to be an expert in theology; but I have a certain acquaintance with various writers who are thought to have been experts in their time; and I have no fear of being contradicted when I say that the meaning I suppose to be attached by this author to the proposition ‘God exists’ is a meaning Christian theologians have never attached to it, and does not even remotely resemble the meaning which with some approach to unanimity they have expounded at considerable length. Having said that, I am obliged to explain what, according to my recollection of their works, that meaning is.

But I shall not try to explain the whole of it. For my present purpose a sample is quite enough. According to these writers (I am speaking of the so-called Patristic literature) the existence of God is a presupposition, and an absolute one, of all the thinking done by Christians; among other kinds of thinking, that belonging to natural science. The connexion between belief in God and the pursuit of natural science happens to be a subject with which they have dealt at some length. I shall confine myself to it.

For the Patristic writers the proposition ‘God exists’ is metaphysical proposition in the sense in which I have defined that phrase. In following them here, I am joining issue with my ‘logical positivist’, who evidently does not think it is anything of the kind. In his opinion it has to do not with the presuppositions of science but with the existence of a quasihuman but superhuman person. And the department of knowledge (or if you like pseudo-knowledge) to which a proposition concerning a matter of that kind would belong is, I suppose, psychical research; or what booksellers, brutally cynical as to whether these things are knowable or not, classify as ‘occult’. There can be no conceivable excuse for classifying it under metaphysics.

If the proposition that God exists is a metaphysical proposition it must be understood as carrying with it the metaphysical rubric; and as so understood what it asserts is that as a matter of historical fact a certain absolute presupposition, to be hereafter defined, is or has been made by natural science (the reader will bear in mind my limitation of the field) at a certain phase of its history. It further implies that owing to the presence of this presupposition that phase in the history of natural science has or had a unique character of its own, serving to the historical student as evidence that the presupposition is or was made. The question therefore arises: What difference does it make to the conduct of research in natural science whether scientists do or do not presuppose the existence of God?

The importance of the metaphysical rubric has been well understood by those responsible for establishing and maintaining the traditions of Christendom. The creeds in which Christians have been taught to confess their faith have never been couched in the formula: ‘God exists and has the following
attributes’; but always in the formula: ‘I believe’ or ‘We believe in God’; and have gone on to say what it is that I, or we, believe about him. A statement as to the beliefs of a certain person or body of persons is an historical statement; and since Christians are aware that in repeating their creeds they are summarizing their theology, one need only accept Aristotle’s identification of theology with metaphysics to conclude that the Christian Church has always taught that metaphysics is an historical science.

I do not say that it has taught all the implications of this principle. For example, it has not consistently taught that there can be no proof of God’s existence. Inconsistency on this point is easy to understand.
The words are ambiguous. That God exists is not a proposition, it is a presupposition. Because it is not a proposition it is neither true nor false. It can be neither proved nor disproved. But a person accustomed to metaphysical thinking, when confronted with the words ‘God exists’, will automatically put in the metaphysical rubric and read ‘we believe (i.e. presuppose in all our thinking) that God exists’. Here is something which is a proposition. It is either true or false. If true, it can be proved: if false, it can be disproved. Unless it is proved it cannot be known at all; for like all absolute presuppositions a man’s belief in God can never be discovered by introspection. If ‘God exists’ means ‘somebody believes that God exists’ (which it must mean if it is a physical proposition) it is capable of proof. The proof must of course be an historical proof, and the evidence on which it is based will be certain ways in which this ‘somebody’ thinks.

A famous example lies ready to hand. If Gaunilo was right when he argued that Anselm’s ‘ontological proof of the existence of God’ proved the existence of God only to a person who already believed it, and if Anselm told the truth when he replied that he did not care, it follows that Anselm’s proof, whatever else may be said either for it or against it, was sound on this point, and that Anselm was personally sound on
it too. For it follows not only that Anselm’s proof assumed the metaphysical rubric but that Anselm personally endorsed the assumption when it was pointed out to him, whether he had meant to make it from the first or no. Whatever may have been in Anselm’s mind when he wrote the Proslogion, his exchange of correspondence with Gaunilo shows beyond a doubt that on reflection he regarded the fool who ‘hath said in his heart, There is no God’ as a fool not because he was blind to the actual existence of un nommé Dieu, but because he did not know that the presupposition ‘God exists’ was a presupposition he himself made.

Anselm’s proof is strongest at the point where it is commonly thought weakest. People who cannot see that metaphysics is an historical science, and therefore habitually dock metaphysical propositions of their rubric, fancying that Anselm’s proof stands or falls by its success as a piece of pseudo-metaphysics, that is, by its success in proving the proposition that God exists, as distinct from the proposition that we believe in God, have allowed themselves to become facetious or indignant over the fact, as they think it, that this argument starts from ‘our idea’ of God and seems to proceed thence to ‘God’s existence’. People who hug this blunder are following Kant, I know. But it is a blunder all the same. When once it is realized that Anselm’s proof is a metaphysical argument, and therefore an historical argument, it can no longer be regarded as a weakness that it should take its stand on historical evidence. What it proves is not that because our idea of God is an idea of id quo maius cogitari nequit therefore God exists, but that because our idea of God is an idea of id quo maius cogitari nequit we stand committed to belief in God’sexistence.

It is because Anselm’s proof so explicitly takes its stand on history that it provides so valuable a test for a metaphysical turn of mind. A man who has a bent for metaphysics can hardly help seeing, even if he does not wholly understand it, that Anselm’s proof is the work of a man who is on the right lines; for a man with a bent for metaphysics does not need to be told that metaphysics is an historical science, and at his first meeting with Anselm’s proof he will realize that it is historical in character. I do not suggest that persons with a bent for metaphysics are the only ones who can do valuable work in metaphysics. Kant is an instance to the contrary.
-----------------------------------------

Do you think it isn't? Do you think premise (1) does not bring with it omnipotence? — Leontiskos

Omnipotence is the greatest power. It doesn't follow it is the greatest good or knowledge. God is traditionally conceived as being the greatest everything, so all other things being equal an omnipotent God would be greater than a God whose powers were limited. — Janus

My point is that God is usually held to be perfection perfected (this definitely not the God of the Bible). If it be insisted that He is omnipotent, that implies that He can do anything, implying that there are things to be done, implying that of the things to be done, they are at present in an unperfected state needing to be perfected, implying God a kind of glorified maintenance man obliged to go about perfecting what needs to be perfected. Omnipotence, then, straight out implies an imperfect God and an imperfect creation, contradicting any notion of a perfect all-everything being.

I know you think the early Christians did not believe that God exists, but luckily we don't have to discuss that theory in this thread. — Leontiskos

Then you know something that is not so.

If God is "that than which nothing greater can be thought" then he is necessarily omnipotent, from which it would seem to follow that he can meet any criteria he likes. — Janus

Just like Zeus, eh? Btw, do you stop to think about what omnipotent means and implies? Is omnipotence the greater thing?

Then there is the question of what, exactly, a thought object is, and if it is of a being than which & etc., then what do we know about the idea? And in particular how that idea, or any idea about the idea, becomes constitutive of anything "existing in reality"?

Anselm's ontological argument presents a few riddles — sime

Presents no riddles once understood. And understanding can be got from Anselm himself in his opening to his discourse, reference to which the OP generously supplied above. He believes, and his proof is a paean to his belief and through his belief to what he believes. That is, it's about belief - it's that simple.

Well this looks like an argument against God, — Leontiskos

How can that be, as God is not defined in any way except as a being than which & etc.? My argument is against - or at least questioning - another argument. And that argument, which is not really Anselm's and not really Klima's, but that may be yours, is that God, because of the presumed dual efficacy of being a thought object that is always better and because to exist in reality is always better than being a thought object, necessarily exists in reality. And these dual principles are simply assumed when they need to be proved.

But we can plod. How are "exist" and "reality" defined for Anselm's argument? I assume he means like cats and dogs and tables and chairs, what they are and in the most general terms, where they are. That is, this here cat, that dog, this table, those chairs, where they happen to be. And I think it's pretty clear that Anselm's God cannot meet these criteria. Nor, for that matter, do (I think) any of the original Christian thinkers think that He could or did.