Ontological Arguements Flashcards
What type of arguement is Anselm’s first Ontological arguement
A priori deductive
- not dependant on experience
- premises provide absolute support for the conclusion
Anselm’s First Ontological Argument
P1: God is the greatest possible being, ‘that than which nothing greater can be concieved’
P2: It is greater to exist in both the understanding and reality, than merely in the understanding
P3: The greatest possible being, if it is genuinely the greatest, must exist both in the understanding and reality
C: Therefore God exists in both reality and the understanding
Guanilo’s Objection to Anselm
- Reduction ad absurdum
If we imagine something, such as an island, as the most perfect type of it’s kind, then it follows using Anselm’s logic that it is greater for something to exist in reality as well as the imagination, that the perfect or greatest possible island must exist in reality as it is not perfect if it only exists in the imagination and not reality
- By reducing the arguement to absurdity using the example of an island it shows how the arguement has faults
Anselm’s Second Ontological Arguement
-refines his definition of God
P1: By definition, God is a being than which none greater can be imagined
P2: A being that necessarily exists in reality is greater than a being that does not necessarily exist
P3: Thus, by definition, if God exists as an idea in the mind but does not necessarily exist in reality, then we can imagine something that is greater than God
P4: But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God
P5: Thus, if God exists in the mind as an idea, then God necessarily exists in reality
P6: God exists in the mind as an idea
C: Therefore, God necessarily exists in reality
Aquinas’ criticism of Anselm
- We need to first demonstrate that God exists in order to know what his essential qualities are
- Perhaps all Anselm has done is to prove if God exists then he must exist necessarily being the kind of thing he is
- He is beyond our full comprehension
- We cannot truly say he exists due to our understanding of his nature as he is so far beyond our comprehension we cannot establish with certainty, just from defintions
What an Anselm defender could reply to Aquinas
- Could argue that the argument doesn’t depend on our having a complete understanding of the concept of a being than which none greater can be conceived.
- For instance, while we don’t have a complete understanding of the concept of a natural number than which none larger can be imagined, we understand it well enough to see that there does not exist such a number.
- No more complete understanding of the concept of a maximally great being that this is required.
Descartes’ Ontological Arguement
P1: God is a supremely perfect being
P2: A supremely perfect being contains all supreme perfections
P3: Existence (as well as omnipotence, omniscience, supreme goodness) is a supreme perfection
C: Therefore God, a supremely perfect being, exists
“ From the fact that I cannot conceive of God without existence, it follows that existence is inseparable from him, and hence that he really exists”- Meditation 5
Kant’s first objection to Descartes’ Ontological argument
- Firstly, the premise is only hypothetical
- He referred to Descartes’ triangle analogy to argue that although it is logical necessity for a triangle to have three angles it is not a logical necessity for the triangle to exist.
- You can accept the triangle has three angles and that it does not exist. This is the same for God.
- Essentially Kant’s point here is that to define something is to say that if anything exists that matches that definition, then it will be as the definition states. However, whether anything does in fact exist which matches that definition is still open to question.
Kant’s second objection to Descartes’ Ontological argument
- ‘existence is not a predicate’
- to talk of something existing is no the same as talking of something being a certain colour or having a quality
- Descartes argument is a priori
- For example, if you were to say ‘Steve plays tennis’ it tells you something about the subject but if you were to say ‘Steve exists’ then at the level of a priori definition, I have not communicated any new information about the subject.
- So ‘exists’ can’t be a predicate like ‘plays tennis’
- This means existence is not a property a thing can either have or not have.
- Therefore, Descartes’ argument fails as he uses existence in the wrong way
Hume’s objection to Descartes’ Ontological argument layout
P1: The ontological argument attempts to show God exists a priori
P2: But a priori knowledge is confined to relations of ideas
P3: Relations of ideas are truths whose denial leads to logical contradiction
P4: There is no logical contradiction in denying God exists ( I can conceive both ‘God exists’’ and ‘God does not exist’ )
P5: Therefore God’s existence cannot be demonstrated a priori
P6: Nothing exists necessarily, the only things which can be necessary are statements which are true by definition (analytic truths/relations of ideas)
Hume’s objection to Descartes’ Ontological argument
- Hume denies that a definition of God can furnish proof of his existence as for Hume everything we know can be divided into ‘relations of ideas’ and ‘matters of fact’
- The first consists purely of things true according to definitions and these tell us nothing about the way the world is or what exists.- We can only know about the way the world actually is and what exists through empirical investigation by using our senses.
- So for Hume, Descartes is trying to prove something about what exists, which is a matter of fact but no claim about what actually exists can be made a priori, independently of experience.
Malcom’s Ontological Argument Simplified
- Malcolm believed he has got around Kant’s objection because when Kant says ‘exists’ is not a predicate of God then he is right if he is saying ‘contingently exists’, but Malcolm believes it is still coherent to say that ‘exists necessarily’ is a predicate of ‘God’.
Malcolm’s Ontological Argument Outline
P1: God is the greatest conceivable being
P2: This excludes contingent beings which depend on other things so are not as great as necessary beings, which do not depend on anything else.
P3: The existence of God is either logically necessary or logically impossible ( because of some internal contradiction in its properties )
P4: There is no contradiction in this idea of God
C: Therefore, God’s existence is necessary
Paradox of the Stone against Malcolm
- Malcolm asserts that the proposition ‘God exists’ is not logically contradictory
- The paradox of the stone shows that the idea of an omnipotent being in fact IS logically contradictory
- Paradox of the stone argument
- Therefore if there is at least one thing God can’t do, God is not omnipotent.
- It is wrong to say that ‘God exists’ is not self contradictory
Hick’s objection to Malcolm’s Ontological argument
- logical necessity is not the same as ontological necessity
- Hick attacks Malcolm’s arguement on the grounds that it confuses two different kinds of necessity
- Hick believes Malcolm has argues the following:
- God’s existence is either logically necessary or logically impossible
-God’s existence is not logically impossible (as it is not a contradiction)
-Therefore, God’s existence is ontologically necessary
- God’s existence is either logically necessary or logically impossible
But 3 does not follow as 1&2 are about logical necessity and 3 is about ontological necessity
This is a fallacy of equivocation
