Schlenker, Philippe. 2007. "Anselm's Argument and Berry's Paradox"  (manuscript, 8 pages, UCLA & Institut Jean-Nicod).

[Full paper in pdf]  



Abstract: We argue that Anselm’s ontological argument (or at least one reconstruction of it) is based on an empirical version of Berry’s paradox. It is invalid, but it takes some understanding of trivalence to see why this is so. Under our analysis, Anselm’s use of the notion of existence is not the heart of the matter; rather, trivalence is.