ontological argument Flashcards
who is st Anselm?
11th century philosopher and theologian. arch bishop of Canterbury
what does “ontological argument” mean?
ontological arguments are arguments from nothing but analytic, a priori and necessary premises to the conclusion that God exists. ‘Ontos’ meaning ‘being’.
what body of work did Anselm put his ontological argument in?
the proslogion
what was Anselm responding to?
Psalms 14 “the fool says to himself ‘there is no god’”
what was Anselm’s suggested definition of god?(first premises)
“God is ‘a being which nothing greater can be conceived’.”
what was Anselm’s second premises?
Something that really exists is bound to be greater than something that just exists in thought – The real thing is always better than the version in thought.
what was Anselm’s third premises?
If there is no being greater than God, God must exist in reality as well as in thought – Apply Step 2 to Step 1 and logically God must exist. The reason is that if God only existed in thought we would be able (as a result of the definition we started with) to think of something greater, that is, a real God. So if we can conceive of God it would be contradictory to say he doesn’t exist.
from the premises Anselm concluded that:
existence is a necessary predicate of god.
who is Gaunilo?
an 11th century french monk.
what was the name of the body of work containing Gaunilos criticism?
“On Behalf of the Fool”
what was Gaunilos criticism?
if a friend told him about the most perfect lost island that was better than anywhere else in the world, he could imagine that. If his friend then went on to say, the island would be even better if it was real rather than just in Gaunilo’s imagination, then, according to Anselm’s argument, that island must exist. But, Gaunilo said, just because you can conceive of something, it doesn’t make it exist. Facts are needed. Gaunilo made his point by arguing that if Anselm’s argument can be used to prove the existence of a non-existent island, it’s flawed. You can’t move from thought to reality.
how did Anselm respond to Gaunilos criticism?
you couldn’t possibly compare God with an island because you are not comparing like with like. We know that an island had a beginning and it is likely to come to an end one day. The word for this unstable state of existence is contingent, which means that something can existence, or need not exist. An island could come into existence as a result of many factor like the geological structure, weather conditions or perhaps human activity. An island certainly doesn’t have an eternal existence, we can visualise it like Anselm said: ‘have a beginning and an end and composed of parts’. By contrasts, he argued, God is unique and eternal. He is a necessary being.
who is Descartes?
The seventeenth century ( French philosopher
what body of work contained Descartes ontological argument?
Meditations on First Philosophy
what was Descartes ontological argument?
God is a supremely perfect being.
A being which is the most perfect possible being would necessarily contain all the attributes of perfection (beauty, eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent, existence etc)
Therefore god must exist.
