Arguments based on reason

Question 1

What is a priori argument?

Answer 1

it depends on logic rather than sense experience.

Question 2

why would some people argue a priori arguments are more persuasive?

Answer 2

because they relay on deductive logic. If the premises are true then they lead to certainty.

Question 3

A posteriori arguments can only lead to what?

Answer 3

Lead to a strong probability because they rely on sense experience, and a new evidence or better explanation could be found.

Question 4

how can posteriori arguments be more persuasive?

Answer 4

They can lead people to see evidence for themselves.

Question 5

What is meant my analytic propositions?

Answer 5

They are true by definition and needs no experience or evidence to support it. ‘bachelors are unmarried men’ is an analytic proposition.

Question 6

What is meant by synthetic proposition?

Answer 6

A synthetic proposition needs evidence and experience to support it. ‘ There is a red car outside my house’ is a synthetic proposition.

Question 7

Who is Anselm?

Answer 7

he argued the ontological argument he lived in the eleventh century and was a Benedictine monk who became archbishop of Canterbury.

Question 8

why was Anselm’s argument written?

Answer 8

it was written for ‘ faith seeking understanding’ not as an attempt to convert unbelievers.

Question 9

Who did Anselm make reference to in his argument?

Answer 9

He made reference to the ‘fool’ who does not understand that God must exist: ‘ the fool says in his heart, “ there is no God” (pslam 53:1, New international version)

Question 10

where does Anselm’s ontological argument appear in?

Answer 10

Writings called proslogion.

Question 11

Anselm’s argument takes two closely related forms called what?

Answer 11

The first and the second form.

Question 12

what is the first form?

Answer 12

• God is ‘ that than which nothing greater can be thought’.
• A real, existent being is greater than an imaginary being.
• Therefore God must exist because the concept of God is not as great as the real existent God.

Question 13

What is the second form?

Answer 13

• God is’ that than which nothing greater can be thought’
• Contingent beings, which are beings that depend on other things for their experience, are inferior to necessary beings, which depends on nothing and exist eternally.
• God is inferior to nothing else, and so must have necessary existence.
• Therefore God exists necessarily.

Question 14

who is Descartes?

Answer 14

He was a seventeenth- century mathematician and philosopher who argued the ontological argument.
He gave his ontological argument in his book Meditations.

Question 15

What did Descartes argue?

Answer 15

He argued that people are born with some ideas already imprinted in their minds, including the idea of God.

Question 16

We know God to have what?

Answer 16

All perfections as his attributes. God is the supremely perfect being.

Question 17

Existence to Descartes is what?

Answer 17

Existence is perfection, therefore God must exist as he cannot lack any of the perfections.
Existence cannot be separated from God, just as all three angles adding up to 180 degrees cannot be separated from a triangle, or a mountain cannot be separated from its valley. `

Question 18

How did Gaunilo criticise the ontological argument?

Answer 18

He was a French Monk and eleventh century contemporary of Anselm.
He said flaws in Anselm’s argument was obvious if we replace ‘God’ in the argument with ‘Lost island’

Question 19

What did Gaunilo mean by using the Island instead of God?

Answer 19

We can imagine the most excellent island- such an island would not be the most excellent unless it existed in reality- therefore are imagined island must exist.

By using island instead of God we see flaws in the argument.- just defining something as superlative doesn’t make it exist

Question 20

What was Anselm’s response to Gaunilo?

Answer 20

The ontological argument only works for God, because God exists necessarily whereas an island exists contingently.

Question 21

How did Aquinas criticise the ontological argument?

Answer 21

Aquinas was a Italian monk from the thirteenth century,
- Aquinas said that God cannot be demonstrated through a priori argument, because it is not self- evident that God is ‘ that than which nothing greater than a thought’

Question 22

Aquinas said people have different ideas to what?

Answer 22

People have different ideas about what God is, and they are able to conceive of God not existing. The human mind cannot comprehend God.
‘Non existent God’ cant be a contradiction in terms because people manage to imagine a world with no God.

Question 23

Anselm’s argument thought what?

Answer 23

Aquinas only shows that many people have a concept of God, but it does not show that there is an existent reality which matches that concept.

Question 24

What did kant criticise?

Answer 24

Immanuel kant was a eighteenth- century German philosopher.

Kant addressed his criticisms of the ontological argument mainly to Descartes.

Question 25

where did Kant criticise the ontological argument?

Answer 25

He criticised the ontological argument in his book critique of pure reason.

Question 26

What did Kant argue?

Answer 26

He argued that existence is not a predicate.

Question 27

What is a predicate?

Answer 27

It is a descriptor or characteristic.

Question 28

Kant said existence Is not what?

Answer 28

A characteristic of something. If we know something exists, we do not know anything about its characteristics. We know instead, that there is an actual example of this thing.

Question 29

what did Russell criticise?

Answer 29

Bertrand Russell was a twentieth- century British philosopher.
Russel criticised the logic of the ontological argument by using the example that ‘the present king of France is bald’

Question 30

what did Russell mean by using the example of ‘ the present king of France is bald’ to criticise the ontological argument?

Answer 30

Statements about the present king of France can be neither true nor false because there is no present king of France.
Likewise making statements about the attributes of God are only meaningful if there is an actual God; the statements themselves do nothing to answer this question.