Ontological

• What are ontological arguments?

  • ontology concerns being or existence
  • A priori arguments regarding the concept of god
  • Most ontological arguments begin with the premise that ‘god is the greatest of all beings’
• St Anselms ontological argument

  1. God is the greatest possible being
  2. It is greater to exist in understanding and reality
  3. Therefore because of 1. God exists in reality and understanding
• Response to Anselms ontological argument

  1. the perfect island is, by definition, an island greater than which cannot be conceived
  2. we can coherently conceive of such a perfect island
  3. It is more perfect to exist in both reality and understanding
  4. therefore the most perfect island must exist in both understanding and reality

  Can define anything into existence this way

  Conclusion to argument is obviously false
• Anselm possible response to gaunillo

  • anselm could argue that a ‘perfect’ island is not automatically perfect in the same way god is and can always be improved upon
  • An island is not analogous to God, contingent vs necessary immaterial being
• Descartes ontological argument

  1. I have an idea of god, that is to say an idea of a perfect being
  2. A perfect being must contain all perfections
  3. Existence is perfection
  4. Therefore god must exist

  Descartes definition of God is a being which possesses all perfections, including existence.

  God must exist as it is more perfect to exist than to not exist.

  God is a necessary being and impossible to not exist
• Humes Fork: objection to Descartes

  • relation of ideas = tautologies
  • will always give you the truth and no new information
  • Hume doesn’t think Descartes is justified in implying new information from something purely a priori (God)
  • Hume is a empiricist, need evidence for things
• Humes Contradiction test

  • Denying the truth of a proposition to see if it is a relation of ideas
  • If you cannot deny it without a contradiction it is a relation of ideas ie 5+5=10
  • ‘god exists’ can be denied without a contradiction
• Empiricist objections to ontological arguments for Gods existence

  • A priori arguments dont give any new information about the world
  • Only tells us about the definition and relation of ideas entailed within the premises
  • In this case the ontological argument can’t prove god exists
  • Humes fork
• Kants criticism on the ontological argument

  • It is possible to accept a proposition and yet deny that it exists in the real world
  • Ie ‘unicorns have one horn‘ is true by definition but doesn’t mean that they exist in reality
• Subject: thing the statement is about ie ‘God’

  Predicate: properties that the subject has ie ‘red’ ‘cold’
• 100 Thaler coins

  • Imagine old Thaler coins
  • adding ‘existence’ to the concept of the coins doesn’t change anything about them at all
  • In the same way adding ’existence’ to the concept of god doesn’t make him exist
• Kants existence is not a predicate - criticism of ontological arguments

  • A predicate is a descriptive property added to a concept
  • Existence isn’t descriptive
  • Idea of something is not the same as whether it exists or not
  • Ontological arguments fail because it is essential to Descartes and Anselm that ‘existence’ is a part of the concept of God
• Normal Malcolms ontological argument (SIMPLIFIED)

  1. Gods existence is either necessary or impossible
  2. Gods existence is not impossible
  3. Therefore gods existence is necessary
• Normal Malcom’s ontological argument

  • MODAL ARGUMENT: involves probability
  • Draws his argument from anselm who shows that we can’t conceive of god not existing
  • Malcolm argues that it is not existence that is perfection but the logical impossibility of non-existence
  • Gods existence is necessary
• Malcom’s ontological argument syllogism

  1. Either god exists or he doesnt
  2. God cannot come into or go out of existence
  3. If god exists he cannot cease to exist
  4. Therefore if god exists his existence is necessary
  5. And if he does not exist his existence is impossible
  6. Gods existence is either necessary or impossible
  7. Gods existence is only impossible if the concept of god is self contradictory
  8. The concept of god isn’t self contradictory
  9. Therefore gods existence is not impossible
  10. Therefore gods existence is necessary
• Malcolm continued

  A being greater than which cannot be conceived

  1. Doesn’t exist - impossible to ever exist, could conceive of a greater being (ie one that has always existed)
  2. Does exist - if it didn’t exist, could conceive of a greater being (one that not only exists but exists necessarily)
• Objections to Malcolm’s argument

  1. God is an impossible being (incoherent)- concept of god is flawed , paradox of the stone
  2. God is ontologically necessary -
  3. logical necessity and ontological necessity are not the same (Hick)
  4. Logical necessity - tautologies, cannot be denied without contradiction
  5. Ontological necessity - non-contingent, exists independently and eternally
  6. (fallacy of equivocation) If god existed he would be a necessary being but he wouldn’t exist necessarily