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An Ontological Challenge from Ps.-ps.-Anselm, 404

In the ontologically challenged (and challenging) hypothetical tome De Paginis Quaerendis attributed (without evidence, rumor, or substance) to St. Anselm of Canterbury, we find (or would, if it were there) this curious addendum framed as a kind of apology to Gaunilo, who was apparently beginning to seem a little less foolish:

Like square circles and conventional aparadoxic unicorns, the page thus having been sought is deficient with respect to its being. Though the idea of it exist in your mind or God’s, or it linger as a memory on a superannuated site, it has presently no grasp on real-world continuance. Whether there be even a potential for it to achieve existence is, of course, a different question: while square circles are not even theoretically possible, unicorns could theoretically exist, according to the fathers. Therefore the page you have called may be yet to exist, or it may have existed once, but have lapsed into non-existence; or it may contain a contradictio in adiecto preventing it from ever existing. Who would learn more fully of this, let that one consult Aristotle’s On Coming to Be and Passing Away, though that estimable tome, intriguing as it is, will most likely not help you find the page you’re looking for either.

The perceptive and historically informed will note that, given the rather limited spread of Aristotelian texts in Latin West during the eleventh century, Anselm probably never saw Aristotle’s On Coming to be and Passing Away, but that would be straining at a gnat, given his discussion of the Internet. His entirely hypothetical interpretation of the computer age (which, had he actually written this, he would have anticipated by about a thousand years years — so cut him some slack), may suggest that if you think the page’s present existence is assured beyond all reasonable doubt, perhaps you are calling it by the wrong name. Accordingly, please review the URL. If that’s obviously wrong, correct it, and try again. If it’s not obviously wrong, but you think that the page has to exist, because it’s the web page than which no better can be conceived (and it would certainly be better if it really did exist), we’re flattered that you think so, and eager to oblige such earnest seekers after truth (or at least some wholesome imaginative fancy). We still hold with Aquinas in thinking that your argument is defective, but either way, let us know what ought to have been at this address, and, if you are sufficiently persuasive, we’ll try to bring the reality into line with your imaginings.


If you just want to find the page, of course, you may write the webmistress for help locating what you’re looking for.


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