Of these discussions the last, from the Summa Theologiae, is the best known and is often taken as representative of Thomas’ response to Anselm. Yet it would seem, on the face of it, unsatisfying as a refutation. Gareth Matthews’ comment expresses a very widely shared reaction: "Instead of showing that Anselm’s argument is invalid, Aquinas seems content to state, without counterargument, that the alleged conclusion does not follow." To many, Thomas’ critique represents no advance beyond Gaunilo in understanding Anselm, but (...) merely reproduces Gaunilo’s objection against Proslogion III in Pro Insipiente VII, and his critique has even evoked from one of the most influential modern proponents of Anselm’s argument the remark "This is not very perceptive, is it?" Such an attitude has, as one might expect, hardly been modified by the satisfaction with which Thomists often regard Thomas’ rebuttal while ignoring both the logic of the argument and the details of Thomas’ reply to it. (shrink)

John Palmer, author of Plato’s Reception of Parmenides (Oxford, 1999), here essays a radically new interpretation of Parmenides and his relation to Presocratic predecessors and successors, challenging received Anglo-American views (Heidegger and his epigones are ignored) on numerous fronts. Palmer sees the prevailing narrative in the first two volumes of Guthrie’s History as modified by Owen, Barnes, and Kirk/Raven/Schofield, and means not to revise but to overturn it (although on his own account, especially of recent scholarship on the early thinkers (...) and their relations, it is not clear that this has not already substantially occurred). Moreover, he means us to abandon entirely the dominant belief that Parmenides .. (shrink)