Abstract

In this paper, Anselm’s argument for the uniqueness of God or, more precisely, something through which everything that exists has its being is reconstructed. A first reading of the argument leads to a preliminary reconstruens with one major weakness, namely the incompleteness of a central case distinction. In the successful attempt to construct a more tenable reconstruens some additional premises which are deeply rooted in an Anselmian metaphysics are identified. Anselm’s argument seems to depend on premises such as that if two things have the same nature, then there is one common thing from which they have this nature and in virtue of which they exist. Furthermore it appears that infinite regresses are excluded by the premise that if everything that exists is through something, then there is something through which it is “most truly”.