Ok we are in philosophy class discussing St. Anselm. This is a quote, which is a premise to an onthological argument of his:
That is straight out of my book. Granted its a translation from its original latin.
Now, whether or not it is correct, that is just rought on the palate. Something ‘seems’ wrong with it though, right? My professor is not a native english speaker so I tried to correct him. I told him it should be:
Another girl chimed in and said that she thought it should be:
Grammatically speaking, what is the correct way to phrase this sentence, and why? If you could use a reputable source I would appreciate it. Even if I have to bite my tongue because I am wrong I would like to bring a reference in to class.
If more than one is correct, which is most correct?
Well, this is drifting a bit. Keep in mind that the original actually says, “God is a being than which none greater can be conceived.” Anselm avoids the subjunctive of “to be”, as you can see from the Proslogion.
Objective case. Whom is objective, not subjective.
I was trying to be nice and pretend you had meant subjective instead of subjunctive, even though you probably didn’t, but it just hit me how wrong that was.
Bah. Now that I’m in a bad mood, I’m also going to say that your original correction of “God is a being of which none greater is possible.” is not an improvement but basically illiterate.
Turn it around and see if your “corrections” would sound correct.
No being greater than God is possible.
No being greater of which God is possible.
No being greater that which God is possible.
I think we can agree that #1 is clearly superior, can we not?
Philosophical reply:
I don’t much care for that translation. As Liberal points out, it changes the “can be conceived” to “is possible,” which is not the same thing at all. As I recall it, Anslem uses this concept to ontologically “prove” the existence of God. The argument being that if a mind could conceive of something greater than God, the creation (the mind) would be greater that the Creator, which is absurd. Ergo God must exist. (No, it doesn’t carry much weight with me, either.)
Thus the notion of the conception in relation to the “real thing” is essential to the proof, and is not (IMO) adequately conveyed by “is possible.” But I’m not exactly a major Anselm scholar, and we’re looking at one phrase out of context, and I’ve always thought Anselm was full of crap, anyway, so I won’t make a big deal out of it.
The translation I studied more than 20 years ago (S.N. Deane) rendered the phrase as “God is that, than which nothing greater can be conceived.” As English syntax it’s a little odd, but the meaning is clear.
Disregarding Latin translations etc, and just taking the sentence in the title as is, shouldn’t it be “God is a being than whom none greater is possible”
Anyway, i’m hardly crawling back to class I think it was a good question. Considering that I have never run across this tense before it could be considered rather arcane, and probably the sort of knowledge that a translator would be privy to. Though as you guys pointed out it is just a confusing way to do it in the first place.
So should it have been ‘than whom’?
Exapno do you know Latin by chance? Was Anselm trying to avoid in his own language?
The phrase in question is: Deus est id quo majus cogitari non potest.
I am not a Latin scholar, but my Wheelock says that “id” is “that.” “Quod” is “who.” So based on that and the translation I cited earlier, I think “that” is better than “who” or “whom.”
I think the English word “being” may be misleading you. It’s not really there in the original (IMO). Anslem’s not talking about an entity or person, he’s defining a concept.
Why are you keeping the "which"s? In each sentence, the “which” still refers to “God”; the only change is the preposition of which it is an object. So I think that should be:
No being greater than God is possible.
No being greater of God is possible.
No being greater that God is possible.
Either way, two and three are both illogical.
And I should point out that while I can possibly understand the second suggestion, which would sort of make sense if it were “God is a being of which no greater is possible,” greater being an noun, the third suggestion is appallingly stupid. Apparently someone thinks that “that which” must automatically be correct because it sounds “smart.”
Screw grammar: the original sentence is poor because it takes too much effort from the reader to understand, thereby distracting from the actual message of the writing.
It appears that a better translation (depending on the exact emphasis the translater wants to put across) might be:
God is that being for which it is impossible to conceive anything greater. [To emphasis this as a definition of God]
or
God is the greatest being it is possible to imagine. [To keep the flow of the argument streamlined]
Others are possible of course. But the real test is whether the sentence communicates effectively. As a general guide, not following the ‘rules’ of grammar makes things hard to understand, but the bottom line is always whether the particular sentence does its job and getting an idea across clearly and easily.
I think it was a good question. Considering that I have never run across this tense before it could be considered rather arcane, and probably the sort of knowledge that a translator would be privy to. Though as you guys pointed out it is just a confusing way to do it in the first place.