The Ontological Arguement Flashcards
Who came up with the ontological arguement?
Anselm of Canterbury
List the philosophers who supported the ontological arguement
Descartes, Malcolm, penelhum and plantinga
List the critiques of the ontological arguement
Gaunilo, Russell, Hick and Kant
What is ontology?
A field within philosophy concerned with what there is and what existence means
Tye ontological arguement uses deductive reasoning. What is deductive reasoning?
This means that if you agree with the premise of the arguement, it is logical or necessary to agree with the conclusion. However, you are, of course, able to disagree with the premises
What does Anselm define god as?
A being than which nothing greater can be conceived
How does Anselm prove his is omnipotent?
God would be greater if he were omnipotent, therefore god is omnipotent, since god is that which nothing greater can be conceived
What does in intellectu mean?
In the mind
What does in re mean?
In reality
How does Anselm prove god exists?
Something that exists in reality is greater than something that exists in the mind. God must therefore exist in reality, since god is that which nothing greater can be conceived
Anselm uses reductio and absurdum reasoning. What does this mean?
This is a way of disproving an arguement by showing it’s logical consequences are absurd or contradictory. He suggests it would be absurd to think of the greatest conceivable being as not existing in reality
Summarise Anselm’s deductive arguement for god’s existence
P1: god is the greatest conceivable being
P2: to be the greatest conceivable being, God has necessary existence and must exist in reality
C: god exists
How is the ontological arguement different from the teleological and cosmological arguements?
It uses a priori reasoning instead of a posteriori reasoning
Define necessary existence
A being which cannot be thought not to exist and wasn’t brought into being by anything else
Define contingent existence
A being or entity which depends on something else for its existence as it can be conceived of as not existing
Define a priori reasoning
A form of reasoning independent of experience - through reason alone
Define asiety
The idea of a.being which is independent and exists in and of itself, being self causing
Anselm made reference to which psalm in his writings about the ontological arguement?
53
Recite psalm 53
‘the fool says in his heart “there is no god”. They are corrupt and their ways are vile’
What is the god of classical theism?
Largely seen as the judeo Christian sense of god
What four characteristics are most commonly associated with the god of classical theism?
- omnipotent
- omnibenevolent
- omnipresence
- omniscient
What is a synthetic statement?
One where the predicate is not necessarily part of the subject
What did Anselm believe about the statement ‘god is the greatest conceivable being’?
He thought this was an analytic a priori statement - the existence of God is part of the concept of god
What was guanilos response to Anselm’s ontological arguement called?
The list island refutation
Explain the lost island refutation
Replace the world god with island and it is easy to see how Anselm’s arguement is flawed. If o e arguement was sound then the other must also be sound. But clearly they aren’t, so they’re both unsound. Guanilo beloved you could not move from thought to reality
Briefly describe guanilo
- contemporary to Anselm
- French monk
- his letter to Anselm was called ‘on behalf of the fool’
How did Anselm respond to guanilos critique?
Says that guanilo had ignored the fact that God has necessary existence. God has necessary existence, whereas everything else in the universe has contingent existence
How long after Anselm’s time did Aquinas’s criticisms come?
Around 200 years
Explain Aquinas’s first problem with the ontological arguement
Aquinas believed god’s existence was not self evident. It is not impossible to have a mental concept of the non existence of God, as there are many atheists in the world who hold this belief. Aquinas thinks the statement ‘god exists’ is not analytic and god is not a necessary being, since you can imagine a world where he did not exist
Explain Aquinas’s second problem with the ontological arguement
God is transcendent so we can’t describeor define him using human language.
Aquinas developed the idea of via negatival when talking about his, what does this mean?
Advocated the use of analogy when speaking about God. we can only understand his by saying what he is nit
What was Aquinas’s third problem with the ontological arguement?
He believed you had to do more than just define god into existence. He believed it need firm evidence, which he looked to provide in his five ways
What is David and Marjorie haigts criticism of the ontological arguement?
-You could invert the logic to prove that the devil must exist
- Anselm countered this by saying that God has necessary existence, whereas the devil wouldn’t
What was Bertrand Russels’s issue with the teleological arguement?
Like Kant, he argued that existence could not be treated as a predicate, and that something should only be described as having existence when occurances can be found in the world. Only if there are such examples can predicated be discussed
Why does Bertrand Russel think the statement ‘Tom exists and has blonde hair’ is an excessive statement?
Because Tom’s hair colour could only be meaningfully discussed on the basis that Tom exists in the world
Why does Hume dispute the idea of necessary existence?
Because it will always be possible for us at any time to conceive the non-existence of something we formerly conceived to exist
Why does Hume consider God’s existence to be contingent rather than necessary?
Because there is no contradition in saying God does not exist
What does Hume consider strange about necessary existence?
That it is attributed only to God
