On the Inherent Incoherence of Gaunilo's Island

Various attempts have been made to save Gaunilo's ‘ideal’ island by proposing different criteria for its maximal greatness or perfection. This paper addresses a recent proposal that ‘an ideal island is conceivable if it's defined as any island exhibiting an ideal ratio of great‐making isla...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Heythrop journal 2021-07, Vol.62 (4), p.691-693
Main Author: Danielyan, Edgar
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Experiments
Idealism
Islands
Philosophy
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:Various attempts have been made to save Gaunilo's ‘ideal’ island by proposing different criteria for its maximal greatness or perfection. This paper addresses a recent proposal that ‘an ideal island is conceivable if it's defined as any island exhibiting an ideal ratio of great‐making island properties’ (Milo Crimi, ‘Ideally sized islands: Reply to Danielyan, Garrett and Plantinga’, Analysis 77 (2), 273‐278) and shows that it fails because the idea of an island – indeed, of anything that is finite, delineated and circumscribed as a necessary condition of its conception ‐ cannot accommodate maximal greatness or perfection; neither can a determined quantitative relation between finite relata constitute a criterion of maximal greatness or perfection.
ISSN:0018-1196
1468-2265
DOI:10.1111/heyj.13056