Abstract

In this paper, I attempt to demonstrate the role emotions play in the reflexive process of the rational knowledge of God in Anselm’s Monologion and Proslogion. Special attention has been paid to the Proslogion, containing the renowned “unum argumentum”, which itself was commonly understood as a special form of Anselm’s methodology of the “sola ratione” for the knowledge of God. It could be seen as a significant argument against the emotions as affective expression of the soul, disqualifying the relevance of the “affectus”. Introduced in the Monologion, the emotion is there a basic concept in the argument for the knowledge of God, and it assumes its full shape in the Proslogion. The aim of my contribution is to give an insight in the cognitive attitude, in respect to “affectus” as a “leading power” of the soul, as it unites with “ratio” and “fides” for the knowledge of God as a whole in the Proslogion.