From the Proof of God’s Existence to the Abacus

0432544 - FLÚ 2015 PL eng J - Journal Article
Otisk, Marek
From the Proof of God’s Existence to the Abacus.
Śląskie Studia Historyczno-Teologiczne. Roč. 47, č. 1 (2014), s. 49-58. ISSN 0137-3447
Institutional support: RVO:67985955
Keywords : early scholastic philosophy * Anselm of Canterbury * universals * proof of God’s existence * seven liberal arts
Subject RIV: AA - Philosophy ; Religion

This paper deals with observing the peripatetic motives and influences of Boethius on the education and thinking of the late 10th and 11th centuries. The connection between Anselm‘s proofs of God‘s existence from Monologion and Proslogion and so called mensa geometricalis, i.e. the abacus, a counting board used for arithmetical calculations and geometrical demonstrations circa 1,000 A.D., is presented as the entirely natural way of peripatetic interpretation of the intellectual world of Anselm of Canterbury, initiated by Franciscus Salesius Schmitt, through a search for other traces of Aristotelian heritage in the 11th century and in the period around the year 1,000 (primarily under the influence of Boethius‘s texts).
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0236900