Levasti's Saint Anselm

...On the other hand, together and acting conjointly, they alone produce the full, true knowledge...

...It is an illuminating study of the Saint's place in the history of philosophy...

...In the field of aesthetics he defends precisely what Anselm would condemn as mere fancies, just as the latter condemns pure rationalism in the field of intellectual science as chaotic or merely abstract thinking...

...Moreover, the rationalization would appear to be fully adequate if, again considering the philosophy of Anselm, we recall the limits he assigns to the rational faculty...

...Notwithstanding this the intuition of a truth undoubtedly meant for him its possible rational demonstration, and a correct demonstration at that, for (as Levasti states) according to Anselm, "philosophy cannot be contrary to either religion or theology...

...Returning to the original question, why is Gaunilo not convinced by Anselm's proof...

...He quotes Anselm as declaring "one must love love more than science," or "da amorem et accipe regnum...

...The thinking or consciousness of an image, whether fanciful or conceptual, does not follow however shortly the act of creation, but is, as Saint Anselm maintains, conjoint and contemporaneous with it...

...Indeed, in a retranslation of his own words, quoted by the commentator, "If the Christian succeeds in understanding, let him rejoice...

...According to him they are equally real...

...For him an intuition that is not understood is not full knowledge, and reason alone leads to false knowledge or mere abstractions...

...Now let us consider his concept of faith...

...Of course, it is impossible to rationalize the very thing that is not admitted: in this case there is nothing left to rationalize...

...Mine is not a simple adherence, but an occult possession whereby the object I am considering becomes directly clear to me...

...but if we did not have the Proslogium, the philosophic world would lack something necessary...

...and would thus allow his reason to go un-guided, aimlessly, blindly...

...it is faith that does not exclude effective cooperation, but which cannot be substituted: understanding comes only through believing...

...This was why he could not be convinced...

...but on the other hand his love of God surpasses that of Aristotle and Saint Thomas...

...Conjointly with the elan that is love, the latter maintains, in order to attain the fullest development of faith-the faith that is knowledge-you need to experiment, or experience, the particular object of faith...

...Says Levasti: "Other philosophers either before or after him-Aristotle or Saint Thomas-are more formidable: they have a more constructive mind, are capable of a broader vision...

...If he had not believed in the competence and instrumentality of true reason to achieve the full knowledge in friendly collaboration and perfect agreement with faith, he would not have done what he did constantly and consistently all his life: that is, apply reason to faith...

...whereas, judging from Levasti's account, the Saint's intuiton of God had all the required characteristics, that is, elan, experience, knowledge...

...Reason investigates within that radius, examines, refutes, concedes, accords...

...In my opinion, it is not so much the Saint's fault as that of the rationalist...

...Sometimes I have tried to conceive Hegel without Kant and Descartes, Descartes without Mar-senne, and Marsenne without Anselm: well, the missing of even a single link in the broken chain prevents the formation of the others, and if I take out Anselm I find it hard to believe that Descartes and Hegel would have reached their full idealism...

...LEVASTFS SAINT ANSELM By ANGELO LIPARI A CONSCIENTIOUS critic has revealed in the great figure of Saint Anselm (1033 or 34 to 1109) Benedictine monk, abbot of Bee, and later archbishop of Canterbury, a bold, inquisitive mind and a firm scientific spirit the like of which have seldom graced this earth...

...The two are inextricably, nicely bound together, and one cannot function properly without the other...

...It is knowledge that manifests itself with the possession of it...

...All this is true, but if I may be more daring than the very cautious Levasti, there is more...

...In a sense it is true that an intuition cannot be fully rationalized, and that Anselm's proof is really for the believer, but only in the sense that intuitive knowledge and intellectual knowledge mutually exclude each other...

...and it is touching to see him bravely undertake, with unwavering faith in his fundamental principle, to explain and document his mystical intuitions...

...Saint Anselm was a rationalistic mystic...

...his scope is restricted, indeed I might say scanty...

...Saint' Anselmo: Vita e Pensiero, by Arrigo Levasti...

...that is, he exercises his intellectual faculty and is at once the creator and first critic of his own images...

...It is penetration and acquisition, trust and union...

...We have only to substitute the two modern terms, intuitive and intellectual knowledge for faith and reason, to realize how clear and modern is Saint Anselm's understanding of the function of the spirit...

...I hope that my own little corollary is not extravagantly fanciful, but will meet with his and the reader's approval...

...One of his main points there is that Anselm was not an out-and-out rationalist...

...I believe the reason is because the pure rationalist, excluding the intuitive process, discards the very substance of Anselm's rational demonstration...

...he reasoned outside, not within the irradiation of the intuition...

...and it seems to me that he proves his point...

...And further on: "It is true that his real philosophic greatness consists only in his proof of God a priori...

...and the process is-faith, experience, knowledge, which constitute three fundamental states of faith, but so intimately bound together as really to form merely three aspects of the same faith: a faith-elan, which, as it perfects itself, becomes a unifying faith, and which, as it develops fully, becomes a faith that is knowledge...

...Now, it seems to me that if Levasti's account of the An-selmian philosophy, both theory and practice, is correct-and I believe it is-this highly original and very striking concept of the working of the human spirit not only amounts to the modern theory of the dual form of knowledge, but clarifies it, and in some respects even surpasses it...

...Laterza, Bari...

...Which is precisely what the Saint does with his intuition of God...

...It follows, then, that the intellect, or reason, is as necessary to faith as that faith must illuminate reason...

...Truly an intuition is knowledge, that is, fully and really an intuition, only in contact with and under the immediate control of the experiencing intellect...

...How could Gaunilo be convinced when he had never experimented God, and refused to subject himself to Anselm's experience...

...which is not so, either in accordance with the Saint's philosophy or with any one's personal experience...

...It is not because Anselm may have failed to rationalize fully his intuition : for this, in keeping with his philosophy, would imply an imperfect intuition...

...According to Levasti, the reason why Saint Anselm's a priori proof of God does not convince his critic Gaunilo, nor any rationalist or other unbeliever, is because an intuition "precisely because it is an intuition cannot be proved...

...for, "it is impossible to rationalize an intuition in a perfectly convincing manner...

...In my modest opinion, there is a very important point in the philosophy of Anselm that does not really escape the learned critic, although he does not dare to advance it, perhaps for fear of making the Saint "addirittura un pensatore moderno...

...And it is this conviction that determines his method of arriving at the truth, a method for which, if original with him, he is in my opinion truly great philosophically, even greater than for his ontological proof of God...

...Benedetto Croce, last of the great thinkers to tackle the problem of knowledge, says no more, nor is he any more specific ; indeed, he says less, and emphasizes one side of the question at the expense of the other...

...it being an established fact that it approximates itself greatly in similarity of natural essence...

...And after that, there could be no more argument...

...Levasti's study of his doctrine is thorough and profound...

...Morover, his was not merely a theory, but a remarkable, consistent and continuous practice, which was crowned by one of the greatest of philosophical successes...

...Croce concedes concept-images, but these are not for him any more true than the mere images of the fanciful artist, and only differ from the latter in that the essence of the image is a concept...

...In fact, in Levasti's masterly exposition, this great, intuitive genius is shown as one whose life was a constant and strenuous effort to demonstrate rationally the truths he intuitively knew...

...the first, we might say, contributes the adjective true, and the second the adjective full...

...He would reserve the intellect for the critic, and apparently does not realize that during the very process of creation the artist after all is and must be thinking...

...Croce in his Aesthetics maintains the independence of intuitive knowledge from intellectual knowledge, which as it were only by chance is generally found merely in close association with, or following immediately the intuitive process...

...Reason surpassing faith is a controsenso, destructive reason a danger...

...But then he is afraid to exaggerate the value of this "pragmatism of considerable importance," and yet is forced to admit that according to Saint Anselm "sperimentare e necessario...

...This method of Saint Anselm, which I hope is by now perfectly clear, and which in any case can easily be reconstructed by any one directly from Levasti's treatise, is in my opinion the philosopher's most important contribution to knowledge, even more important than his Proslogium because more fundamental and the sine qua non of the Proslogium itself...

...Neither is in a sense superior or inferior to the other, although faith may be said to be the nobler of the two...

...but it is precisely for this proof that he is a genius...

...It is thus that "thought becomes conscious, and enlightened reason operates usefully...

...They are two harmonious arches issuing one from the other and forming one construction, and well could the Saint exclaim gratefully to God, in Levasti's beautiful translation: "Quello ch'io credetti, te donante, gia cosi l'intendo, te illuminante...

...Faith excites the intellect, illuminates reason, and circumscribes the sphere of intellectual activity...

...Alone neither of them can disclose the full, true knowledge: faith may lead to purely fanciful images, reason to mere abstractions, even to chaos...

...But, as Levasti maintains, "Reason for him is not entirely autonomous...

...A reason giving explanations contrary to those of faith is for him inconceivable, since true reason is an illumination of God, Giver of the Faith...

...For the conviction that all intuitions are demonstrable constitutes the prime stimulus to all his philosophic activity, and it alone can explain his tremendous effort to prove even God a priori...

...Not that according to the Saint all the mysteries of the Christian religion are solvable by human reason, in spite of the fact that for him "every Christian dogma is as it were a compendium of the natural life bound fast to the supernatural...

...if not, let him venerate...

...Reason for him clarifies, amplifies, and eliminates...

...This was not only unfair, but illogical, in itself an irrational act...

...Now this, it seems to me from Levasti's own treatise, is precisely what Anselm, the rationalistic mystic, would never have admitted...

...Thus the Augustinian formula becomes in Saint Anselm "qui non crediderit non experietur" and "qui expertus non fuit, non intelliget...

...but always within the irradiation of faith...

...And he also declares that "Reason is the most important faculty of man, and it must judge all that is in man...

...In other words, faith and reason though inseparable and mutually subservient, are different essentially and each has a peculiar, distinct action which independently exercises a certain influence on the formation and operation of the other, according to Saint Anselm...

...and neither is complete without the other, although each has a different and distinct function partially autonomous...

...the latter examines, clarifies and amplifies the former...

...The substance of my argument is all taken from Levasti's book, and especially from Chapter III, in which he discusses Faith and Reason according to Saint Anselm...

...There is a minute examination of the important polemic with Gaunilo...

...He does not consider intellectual knowledge an essential factor of the intuition, nor does he assign to intuitive knowledge the role of guide to reason...

...in any case an intuition does not need the services of the intellect in order to be...

...and if they are two, they are yet one, two in one...

...In fact, it is this basic conviction of the perfect conciliation between true faith and true reason, or, we might say, between science and religion, that informs and characterizes all his spiritual activity and teaching...

...Levasti has rendered a real service both to the middle-ages and to our own by resurrecting and expounding so lucidly the theory and practice of this great philosopher...

...As we have seen, for Anselm the full and true knowledge is neither fanciful nor imaginary like that of the Crocian artist, nor purely abstract like that of the extreme rationalist...

...It was really a question of method, not properly a case of philosophic disagreement...

...while the De Veritate, the De Libero Arbitrio, the Cur Deus Homo, together with various other minor monographs, also receive adequate treatment...

...It is fascinating to follow this humble, determined seeker of eternal truth in his ecstatic ascents to the world of pure spirit, and there realize with him the true essence and character of things...

...Levasti points out that it is essentially the Augustinian concept summed up in the formula, credo ut intelligam: that is, it is the light that makes us see limpidly, the secret to understand...

...The Monologium and the famous Proslogium are carefully scrutinized, faithfully interpreted, and commented upon with rare acumen...

...According to Anselm the intuitive form illuminates, limits and directs the intellectual...

...He did precisely what Anselm condemned: he wanted to reason abstractly, not concretely...

...Thus Saint Anselm is obviously more specific and precise than Croce...

...a millennium before him he penetrated deeper in the essence of knowledge, saw more clearly, and not only had, but surpassed our modern concept...

...Faith and reason are two harmonious arches of one and the same construction: one might say issuing one from the other...

...This sort of immediate, natural incarnation "is not a succession of states," Levasti continues, "not first a faith that prepares and then a mind that knows, but a combined action of faith and reason...

...Less scrupulous than he, and without the historian's heavy sense of responsibility, I may perhaps be permitted to present it for what it is worth...

...So much for reason, which for Anselm is thus seen to be intimately associated and bound up with faith: it is, we might say, a supreme, essential organ of the spirit, having a definite function, and divinely ordained for the achievement of the full knowledge within the radius and under the direct illumination of faith...

...It is a process very similar to the development of mystical love, says Levasti, and in fact the critic finds that for the Saint "love is the vital centre of faith," and "live faith is synonymous with love...

...We may speak of different aspects of the intuition, as Anselm does, but not of successive stages, in which the intuition is first pure and simple, something existing in concrete form apart from the intellectual consciousness of the intuiter, and later seized, observed and criticized by the intellect...

...But if we accept the intuition, and recall that in the Saint's concept this implies intellectual consciousness, or direct experience, then it seems to me that it is not only entirely possible to rationalize it fully, but its demonstration within the radius of the intuition, as the philosopher prescribes, is its full, adequate rationalization...

...But he also shows that to Anselm "I believe in order to understand" means, "I feel all perfused with faith, this becomes soul of my soul, it incorporates me with the Church, it fuses me with the Body of Christ...

...To be sure Anselm declares that "The rational mind is the only one of all creatures that can rise to the investigation of the summa essen-tia, and is also the only one through which it can itself advance most in the discovery of itself...

...All his works might have been destroyed without great loss to us...

...He rejected the very fact that was the theme of the argument...