Anselm: New scholasticism

Besides his three main theological works, Molologion, Proslogion, and Cur Deus Homo (Why God Became Man) , he wrote studies on semantics, truth, and freedom. In his final, unfinished work, On power and Powerlessness, Possibility and Impossibility, Necessity and Liberty, he tried to unravel the mystery of how a soul could come into existence.

Unlike ancient Greek philosophy, which was essentially the work of individuals, Scholasticism was an attempt to build philosophy as part of a "Christian society" whose purpose in turn was to transcend both individuals and nations. As the corporate product of social thought, scholastic reasoning depended on obedience to authority as espoused by the traditional forms of thought codified within the supposedly "revealed" Christian religion under the auspices of the church. As a result, philosophy was subjugated to thelolgy and rigidly controlled by the authoritarian hierarchy of the church.

On Free Will he identified the necessary conditions for the concept of free will. In On the Devil's Fall he used the idea of the fall from grace by a God-created Satan to argue that the existence of evil is compatible with the existence of an all-good God.

Anselm's facility with linguistic analysis paved the way for his most faous work, Proslogion. In it, Anselm originates the famous ontological argument for the existence of God. Later thinkers were vehemently divided over it. Those inclined toward a Platonic or Neoplatonic realism about universals in which the role of essences is emphasized over materialism - such as Descartes, Spinoza, and Hegel - each accepted some form of the ontological argument as valid and profound. Those under the influence of Aristotelian nominalism - such as the Empiricists - rejected the argument as mere verbal trickery; thus Aquinas, Hume, and Kant all dismissed it.

除了他的三大神学著作，Molologion, Proslogion,和Cur Deus Homo(为什么上帝成为人)，他还写了语义学，真理和自由的研究。在他最后一部未完成的作品中，关于权力与无能、可能性与不可能性、必然性与自由，他试图揭开灵魂如何产生的奥秘。

古希腊哲学本质上是个人的工作，而经院哲学不同于古希腊哲学，它试图把哲学建设成“基督教社会”的一部分，而“基督教社会”的目的则是超越个人和国家。作为社会思想的共同产物，学术推理依赖于对权威的服从，而权威是由传统的思想形式所支持的，这些思想形式在被认为是“神昭示”的基督教中，在教会的支持下编纂而成。结果，哲学屈从于法理学，并被教会的威权统治阶层严格控制。

关于自由意志，他确定了自由意志概念的必要条件。在《魔鬼的堕落》一书中，他用上帝创造的撒旦从恩典中堕落的观点来论证邪恶的存在与全善上帝的存在是一致的。

安瑟尔姆的语言分析能力为他最出色的作品《Proslogion》铺平了道路。其中，安塞姆引发了著名的关于上帝存在的本体论论证。后来的思想家对此产生了激烈的分歧。那些倾向于柏拉图主义或新柏拉图主义的关于普遍性的现实主义的人，他们强调本质的作用而不是唯物主义，例如笛卡尔、斯宾诺莎和黑格尔，他们都接受某种形式的本体论论证，认为它是有效而深刻的。那些受亚里士多德唯名论影响的人，如经验主义者，反对这种论点，认为它仅仅是一种口头上的欺骗;因此，阿奎那、休谟和康德都摒弃了这一观点。