The problem with Anselm's Other Argument relates, rather, to the book's aim. The most generous course is to take the aim as to establish and assess a new Anselmian argument, one suggested by a passage in his Reply, the 'other' or the Metaphysical Ontological Argument. Smith does indeed succeed in this aim, but he could have accomplished it without writing most of the first two thirds of the book. Even the third of the book dedicated to the 'other' argument is leisurely and digressive. Smith could have made his point as or more effectively than he does here in a twenty-page article. And, although he has propounded a new argument, it resembles various versions of the Modal Ontological Argument in that it forces the atheists, not to accept that, given premises they would grant, it follows that God exists, but to accept, not merely that God does not exist, but that necessarily he does not exist -- hardly the sort of a concession they would make only through gritted teeth.
Alternatively, the aim of the book can be taken as being to say something about Anselm. Such a construal makes much more sense of the many pages devoted to showing that he did not propose a Modal Ontological Argument and the evident attention given to connecting the Metaphysical Ontological Argument to Anselm's text. Yet this approach would not be a generous one because in any ordinary, historical sense of what Anselm did, he quite clearly neither put forward a Modal Ontological Argument of any of the sorts discussed by contemporary philosophers nor the Metaphysical Ontological Argument as reconstructed by Smith. Smith, indeed, accepts that Anselm did not actually state this position, or various others he attributes to him, but he believes that the arguments are implied by the text. Smith works out what arguments are, and what are not, implied by Anselm's text by a process of seeing, through ingenious argument, what does or does not follow logically from various positions stated there. There may be some quasi-legal sense in which the distinctions he thus draws show what is or is not Anselm's property, but they throw no light at all on what interests an historian, i.e., what Anselm thought. Argument, of which Smith is clearly a master, is never sufficient to determine what someone, even so great an arguer as Anselm, thought. What is required is a sense of historical and biographical plausibility, nurtured by a concern for history -- for what actually took place. And, despite his learning and his scholarly punctiliousness, Smith seems to have no interest in history at all. Historical texts give him the opportunity for an ever-so-clever display of philosophical legerdemain, and Anselm himself slips through his fingers.--John Marenbon,
I have quoted the final two paragraph's of Marenbon's review of A.D. Smith's Anselm's Other Argument. Before I get to analysis, three disclaimers: first, I have never met Marenbon (I think) and have had no professional interaction with him (although I have read some of his work on Abelard); second, I met A.D. Smith only once, and we disagreed fiercely (over the proper interpretation of Spinoza)--his criticism improved one of my papers (but we never managed to agree); third, I have not read Anselm's Other Argument. What follows is compatible with the possibility that Marenbon is entirely right about his criticism(s) and that I would have little sympathy for Smith's enterprise myself.
But it is worth noting that the last paragraph is entirely an ex cathedra, argument from authority (argumentum ad verecundiam). First, Marenbon offers no evidence for his claim that Smith's reconstruction is historically and biographically implausible. Such a claim would require considerable work because it always runs the risk of conflating the historian's lack of imagination or limitations for the subject matter's conceptual imagination. Even when we think there is an obvious risk of anachronism, it does not follow that there is, in fact, genuine anachronism. For example, Al-Farabi and Mill have very little in common, and wrote in very different intellectual contexts. So when somebody says that Al-Farabi anticipates some of the most characteristic Millian doctrines in his analysis of the democratic city, one may be not just surprised, but also suspicious of the claim. Yet, Al-Farabi and Mill are both very careful readers of Plato and that reminds us what is or is not plausible depends a lot on one's frame of reference.
Second, it is worth pausing at Marenbon's claim that what "interests an historian" is "what Anselm thought." Now, this is actually quite controversial. For to infer what X thought from what X wrote (the evidence) is no easy matter. For in general all one has is the text (with some biographical and historical/institutional detail provided by other texts). One need not accept that Marenbon's claim always involves the so-called intentional fallacy (Cf. Wimsatt and Beardsley), nor the Derridaean claim that there is only text, to recognize that it is by no means obvious we have access to what Anselm really thought on the basis of his writings. At best we have what Anselm wanted us to think he thought. Even authors friendly to Marenbon's claim (say Quentin Skinner 1969) recognize that Marenbon's is far too optimistic of what is historically possible; rather according to them, one has to imaginatively construct a kind of counter-factual audience from historical, contextual evidence to evaluate what it may have understood of the author's intentions.
Third, Marenbon's claim involves a rather limited conception of what interests an historian--even if it is the kind of thing he heard when he was a student. The interests of historians have shifted dramatically over the centuries (if not millennia). But even the most methodologically conservative historians may also wish to learn how Anselm was understood by others or could have been understood by others. And, of course, there are lots of other purposes that a historian may have. (In fact, Marenbon seems not to have noticed that there has been quite a bit of methodological reflection on these issues by professional historians of philosophy during the past decade.)
Fourth, there is an odd inconsistency in Marenbon's position: for, on the one hand, he denies the legitimacy (as a species of history) of attributing to an author what is "implied by the text," presumably because it goes beyond the explicit evidence. That is, it requires some kind of inference to go from the text of X to the implication of that text. A strict positivist would indeed raise worries here. But as it happens, even Marenbon allows that we're dealing with logical inference, and it is not obvious what blocks such an inference; even if one rules out polysemy or esoteric techniques, all writers routinely imply more than they state. (If they didn't they would become unnecessarily detailed.) Yet, on the other hand, Marenbon thinks it is legitimate to infer from the text to an author's "thought." So, Marenbon has offered no resources to rule out A.D. Smith's aims (if they are his aims) and does so on grounds that would undercut his own purported aims.
As an aside, it's likely, of course, that many authors fail to notice "what does or does not follow logically from various positions stated," but on the whole scholarly communities do not end up studying those authors. And, while it is a plausible assumption that no human author sees all the logical entailments from her stated positions, one cannot assume she does not see any or few. In our age David Lewis was, in fact, legendary for the capacity to see implications (recall). Even lesser lights, like John Hawthorne and his teacher Jose Benardete, are quite capable of discerning (routinely) seven or eight 'moves' deep from a position. It does not follow, of course, that such authors expect all their readers to see all their intended moves; but, it is worth reminding ourselves, that authors, which have a strong sense of the divine presence, may have thereby sufficient audience for all their implied claims.
Finally, while it is touching that Marenbon channels his inner Von Ranke ("what actually took place") [although Marenbon's unwillingness to explore carefully and in detail logical entailments prevents him access to a powerful tool of discerning what might have happened in the past], it does not follow he exhibits much genuine "concern for history." In fact, it is his stance -- lacking generosity and an unwillingness to learn from others -- that is very damaging to the status of history of philosophy in the profession. For, rather than caring about what one might call, living history, Marenbon's preferred methodology entombs the past.
All the even numbered points (2nd, 4th, and finally) especially!
And "channelling one's inner von Ranke" is one for the Ages.
Posted by: Victor Caston | 12/24/2022 at 09:52 PM