A Historical Study of Anselm's Proslogion: Argument, Devotion and Rhetoric

By Toivo J. Holopainen

In A Historical Study of Anselm's Proslogion, Toivo J. Holopainen offers a new overall interpretation of Anselm's Proslogion by providing a historical explanation for the distinctive combination of argument and devotion that this treatise exhibits. Part 1 clarifies Anselm's outlook on the central arguments in the treatise by offering a careful analysis of the 'single argument', the discovery of which Anselm announces in the preface. Part 2 reassesses the conflicting views about faith and reason in the immediate background of the Proslogion (the Eucharistic controversy, the publication of the Monologion). Part 3 examines the Proslogion from a rhetorical perspective and argues that applying the 'single argument' in a devotional setting constitutes a subtle attempt to affect the audience's ideas about method in theology.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9004423206
• ISBN13: 9789004423206
• Release Date: August 2020
• Publisher: Brill
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.3"