Arguments based on reason

Question 1

What is a posteriori?

Answer 1

• Teleological and cosmological- physical world.

Question 2

What is a priori?

Answer 2

• Ontological- purely uses reason.

Question 3

Where does the term ontological come from?

Answer 3

Greek words- Ontos (Being), Logos (study of).

Question 4

Who started the ontological?

Answer 4

Anselm:
Book Proslogian.

Question 5

What is Anselm’s first premise?

Answer 5

That than which no greater can be conceived.

Question 6

What is Anselm’s second premise?

Answer 6

God may exist in the mind alone or in reality as well.

Question 7

What is Anselm’s third premise?

Answer 7

Something which exists in reality and mind is greater than something that simply exists in mind.
Thus, God must exist in reality.

Question 8

What is Anselm’s letter a response to?

Answer 8

The fool.
Psalms 14:1, ‘fools say in their hearts there is no God’.
- Trying to provide ‘reductio ad absurdum’ to the atheist view.

Question 9

What did Anselm see God’s existence as?

Answer 9

• A predicate (attribute that is defining) of God.
• God cannot lack existence in reality, as it would thus not be God.
• When analysing the word ‘God’, it is obvious that he exists.

Question 10

Anselm and analytic statements:

Answer 10

• A bachelor is an unmarried male, subject is bachelor, predicate is unmarried male.
• God exists, God subject, existence is predicate.

Question 11

Who challenges Anselm?

Answer 11

Gaunilo.

Question 12

Gaunilo:

Answer 12

• Also a benedictine monk.
• Wrote, ‘On behalf of the fool’.
• Monk himself, hating on the argument.

Question 13

Gaunilo’s argument:

Answer 13

• Gossip: many things exist in mind, doesn’t mean they exist in reality.
• Defining existence: You cannot prove what is said (de dicto) exists in reality (de re). Cannot define him into existence.

Question 14

Gaunilo’s example:

Answer 14

• Perfect Island does not exist in reality, but we can still imagine that t is perfect.
• Applies Reductio Ad Absurdum.

Question 15

Anselm’s reply to Gaunilo:

Answer 15

• Says Gaunilo missed the point.
• God is a ‘special case’, God isn’t A perfect thing but THE perfect thing.
• Islands can always be improved, like cooler water, God cannot be improved.

Question 16

Who contemporarily critiques Gaunilo?

Answer 16

Plantinga.
There is no ‘intrinsic maximum’ to an island.

Question 17

Anselm continues argument:

Answer 17

• Second version in Proslogian, Chapter 3.
• An Island is Contingent (relies on other things for existence), but God is necessary.

Question 18

Kant:

Answer 18

• Kant objects to Anselm’s premise three. Things that exist in the reality and the mind are greater than just existing in the mind.
• Essentially says something existing makes it better. Kant objects, ‘existence does not function as a predicate’.
• Wouldn’t describe someone as having existence.
• ‘Amelia is fabulous’, ‘fabulous’ would be predicate, not ‘is’.

Question 19

Kant and language analysis:

Answer 19

• Analytic and synthetic statements.
• Definitions as analytic, cannot be disputed.
• Synthetic- about existence, need to be proven. Herbert is an unmarried bachelor.
• God is a being, need proof to back him up.
  Therefore, existence is not a predicate. Predicates of God are omnipotence.

Question 20

Who defends Anselm’s argument?

Answer 20

• Descartes.

Question 21

Descartes:

Answer 21

• God is the ‘supremely perfect being’.
• To be truly perfect, something needs to exist.
• ‘Existence is a predicate of perfection’.

Question 22

Descartes example:

Answer 22

• A triangle has three sides and 3 angles that add up to 180 degrees. Truth of mathematics cannot be doubted.
• Three sides tells us the nature of a triangle, existence tells us about God.
• Cannot divorce the ‘supremely perfect being’ from necessary existence, like you cannot divorce three sides from a triangle.

Question 23

Bertrand Russell:

Answer 23

• Existence is not a predicate.
• Men exist, Santa is a man, Santa must exist, but he doesn’t.
• Existence isn’t a quality.