Ontological Arguments

Question 1

Kant said that you can reject…

Answer 1

A triangle and it’s 3 sides. You can therefore reject the idea of God and the ‘predicate’ of existence.

Question 2

Kant said that existence isn’t..

Answer 2

A real predicate. “Being is evidently not a real predicate”.

It cannot be added to the concept of something
100 thalers in your mind has the same value as in reality

Question 3

What did Kant say about rejecting the subject?

Answer 3

“If I reject the subject as well as the predicate, there is no contradiction”

Question 4

What book does Kant’s rejection come from?

Answer 4

Critique of Pure Reason

Question 5

What is an analytic statement?

Answer 5

A statement that is true by virtue of its meaning. The predicate is contained within the subject.

Question 6

Kant said that “…. is evidently….”

Answer 6

Being is evidently not a real predicate

Question 7

How did Kant show that existence isn’t a real predicate?

Answer 7

Existence doesn’t add to a concept. “God is omnipotent” contains two concepts, God and omnipotence. “God is” has only one.
100 thalers in the mind and in reality have the same value- the concept is the same.

Question 8

Kant said that before we say that God is necessary, we must…

Answer 8

Establish that God exists a posteriori . “God exists” is not an analytic truth.

“Whatever our concept of an object may contai , we must always step outside of it in order to attribute it to existence”

Question 9

Overall, Kant is trying to say that…

Answer 9

We cannot deduce the existence of God from the concept of God

Question 10

Where is Descartes’ argument from?

Answer 10

Meditation V

Question 11

Where does Hume’s argument come from?

Answer 11

Dialogues concerning Natural Religion Part 9

Question 12

Where does Leibniz’s argument come from?

Answer 12

New Essays on Human Understanding

Question 13

Where does Malcolm’s argument come from?

Answer 13

‘Anselm’s ontological arguments’

Question 14

Where does Plantinga’s argument come from?

Answer 14

God, Freedom and Evil: essays in philosophy

Question 15

Summarise Descartes’ argument

Answer 15

Descartes considers the essential nature of a triangle, which is to have 3 sides
Existence is part of God’s essence
The definition of God, according to him, is a supremely perfect being
Existence is a perfection, so God must exist

Question 16

Summarise Gaunilo’s argument

Answer 16

If Anselm’s logic is applied to a ‘perfect island’ we can see that it is flawed. An island greater than any other island doesn’t have to exist!
We need empirical proof of God’s existence
We cannot define him into existence

Question 17

Summarise Anselm’s reply

Answer 17

An island doesn’t have intrinsic maxims I.e. They aren’t
essentially great or not. What would make an island the greatest?
Islands are contingent not necessary
An island is not defined by being the greatest being

Question 18

Summarise Leibniz’s supplement

Answer 18

Descartes assumes that the concept of God is coherent
Leibniz defines perfection as ‘a simple quality which is positive and absolute, and expresses without limits whatever it does express’
Horsepower isn’t a perfection but power is
Nothing about a perfection restricts another so they can all exist in one being

Question 19

Summarise Hume’s argument

Answer 19

Nothing that is distinctly conceivable implies a contradiction
Whatever we can conceive of as existent, we can conceive of as non existent
So there cannot be a being whose non existence implies a contradiction
In other words, claims about existence are synthetic

Question 20

Summarise Malcolm’s argument

Answer 20

Anselm is providing a different argument in proslogian 3
Necessary existence is a perfection
If God exists, his existence is necessary. If he doesn’t, his existence is impossible
Gods existence would only be impossible if the concept of God was self contradictory
It’s not, therefore God exists necessarily

Question 21

Summarise plantinga’s argument

Answer 21

A being with maximal excellence must be omnipotent omnibenevolent etc in every possible world
THERE is a possible world in which there is a maximally great being
This being would have to exist in all possible worlds
So it must exist in ours

Question 22

Give An objection to Leibniz

Answer 22

What makes a quality ‘positive’?

Are any qualities really simple?

Question 23

Give an objection to Malcolm

Answer 23

The idea that God isn’t contingent rests on the definition Malcolm gives

Question 24

Give a really cool quote thing

Answer 24

Not depending on anything characterises the nature of God’s existence, if God exists; but existence does not characterise God.

Question 25

Give 2 quotes from Anselm’s argument

Answer 25

If a perfect being ‘can even be thought of, it is false to say that it does not exist’

‘Whatever is understood exists in thought ‘

Question 26

What did Gaunilo say about the island?

Answer 26

That it must be show that ‘the hypothetical excellence of this island exists as a real and indisputable fact’

Question 27

What did Malcolm say about a contingent God?

Answer 27

He would be a ‘limited being which by our very conception of him, he is not’

Question 28

What did Kant say about ideas?

Answer 28

We cannot ‘ increase our stock of knowledge by the aid of mere ideas’

Question 29

Give a Hume quote

Answer 29

‘Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as not existent’