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The Ontological Argument - Coggle Diagram
The Ontological Argument
Anselm's Ontological Argument
Points
God is the greatest conceivable being
It is greater to exist in the mind and reality than in the mine alone
God exists in the mind
C1. God exists in reality
Malcolm interprets the idea of the greatest being as God being unlimited, not dependent on anything else for existence. God has no limitation which could possibly cause God's non-existence. So, God contains the impossibility of non-existence
Counter
Gaunilo attempts to shown Anselm's logic is absurd by applying it to another case which yields an absurd result
Imagine the greatest possible island. If it's greater to exist then this island must exist
This would work for the greatest possible version of anything
Anselm's argument suggests reality would be overloaded with greatest possible things, which seems absurd
Gaunilo is attempting to deny that the ontological argument's conclusion follows from the premises. So he is denying that it really is a valid deductive argument
However, Gaunilo's critique is not particularly strong
There is no self-contradiction arising from Anselm's logic also proving the existence of a perfect island. At most this seems counter-intuitive, but Gaunilo has not demonstrated actual absurdity, i.e., inconsistency
Evaluation
However, there is a difference between God and an island (and anything else) which explains why the logic works for God but not anything else
An island is contingent by definition. It is land enclosed by water, so it depends on a sea/sun/planet for its existence. Everything else in the world is also contingent
You cannot use a priori reasoning to prove the existence of a contingent thing, because the existence of a contingent thing is not a matter of definition. Its existence is a matter of whether what it depends on happens to exist
e.g. whether the island exists is a matter of whether the sea/planet/sun it depends on exists. That cannot be determined merely by thinking about the definition of the greatest island
So, the greatest island would still be the greatest island even if it didn't exist
There is nothing in the definition of the greatest being which implies dependence, however, making it necessary
Nothing prevents determining the existence of a necessary being be a priori reasoning, unlike contingent beings
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Gaunilo's critique that God is beyond our understanding
Gaunilo objects to P3, the claim that God is in our mind/understanding
He makes the traditional point that God is meant to be beyond our understanding
In that case, Anslem can't go on to conclude that God being the greatest being requires that he is not just in our understanding, but also in reality
So, the ontological argument fails
Response
Anselm deals with this kind of criticism, however
He points out that we don't need to have a full understanding of God in our mind for the argument to work
We need only know/understand that God - whatever God is - is the greatest imaginable being
We don't have to actually know what God is
, or what is involved in being the greatest being - we simply have to understand that God is the greatest being
When we combine that with the premises that it is greater to exist, we can understand that God must exist
Evaluation
Anselm's argument is successful because we can understand the concept of a being greater than any other possible being
Anselm's analogy proves this further - we cannot look directly at the sun, but we can still see sunlight
Similarly, we cannot know God's actual nature, but we can know that whatever God is, God is the greatest possible being
Gaunilo is committing a straw man fallacy, he's attacking a claim Anselm didn't make. Anselm didn't mean God is in the min in the sense of us having full knowledge of God's nature - he just means we understand that God is greater than any other conceivable beings
Kant's critique that existence is not a predicate
When Anselm says that if God didn't exist, God wouldn't be the greatest being (God), he's saying that existence is part of what defines God
Anselm goes on to conclude that God must exist
However, this treats the concept of 'existence' like a predicate, like a description of what a thing is, which defines a thing
Kant objects that existence is not a predicate
Imagine I was to say 'the cat exists'. In that sentence, the term 'exists' doesn't seem to actually describe the cat itself. It doesn't describe a quality that the cat possesses. It simply describes that the cat exists - not the cat itself
So, existence is not a predicate. When Anselm says God would not be God if God didn't exist, Anselm is wrong. God would be just as great/perfect even if non-existent. Anselm can't go on to conclude that God must exist, therefore
Kant's criticism is stronger than Gaunilo's because he actually points out the assumption the ontological argument makes rather than pointing to a supposed absurdity
Response
However, Kant's criticism fails for two reasons
Firstly, Kant's criticism fails to attack Descartes' ontological argument, which therefore seems to be in a stronger position than Anselm's
Descartes bases his argument on his rationalist epistemology. He claims that God's existence can be known through rational intuition
It is not possible to rationally conceive of the most supremely perfect being without existence
Descartes' rejected the Aristotelian logic of subject-predicate analysis. So, his argument does not infer God's existence by assuming that existence is a predicate of God
He illustrates with a triangle. You intuitively know that a triangle cannot be without three sides. Similarly, we can intuitively know that God cannot be without existence
Secondly, Malcolm defends Anselm and the subject-predicate form of the argument
Kant is correct, but only about contingent existence
A contingent thing depends on something else for its existence
However a necessary being contains the reason for its existence within itself
So, necessary existence is a defining quality of a thing, in a way contingent existence is not
So necessary existance is a predicate
Evaluation
So, both Anselm and Descartes' versions of the ontological argument succeed against Kant's criticism
Against Anselm, Kant makes the same mistake Gaunilo did - comparing God to contingent beings and thinking the ontological argument fails because it doesn't work in the case of contingent beings (like cats and dogs)
Kant's critique that existence being a predicate doesn't establish actual existence
Kant's 1st critique is stronger because it doesn't make the mistake of his other objection of denying that necessary existence is a predicate
Here, Kant argues that even if necessary existence were a predicate of God, that doesn't establish God's existence in reality
Kant improves on the style of argument Gaunilo was making with his lost island critique
Kant is again going to give us a much clearer reason than Gaunilo did for doubting the deductive validity of the ontological argument
Gaunilo was trying to argue that we may judge something necessary in our mind, but this doesn't make it necessary in reality
Kant develops this using Descartes' illustration of a triangle
It it necessary that a triangle has three sides
This shows that
if
a triangle exists,
then
it is necessary has three sides
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Response
Malcolm responds to Kant - he says it makes no sense to say that a necessary being could possibly not exist. Necessary seems to mean 'must exist'
If God is a necessary being then God must exist - it makes no sense to say
it
a necessary being existed - since a necessary being must exist
So, Kant fails according to Malcolm
Evaluation
The issue is, Malcolm has only shown that God is a non-dependent being
In his ontological argument, Malcolm argued that if God exists, God exists necessarily because nothing could cause God to cease existing, as God is unlimited and non-dependent
This is what Malcolm established as God's necessity. But this only establishes that God is necessary in the sense of being non-dependent, not in the sense of must exist
A being could be non-dependent and yet not exist.
If
it existed, then it would be necessary
So, the necessity of God's existence by the ontological argument only relates to the manner of God's existence
if
God exists
Ontological arguments cannot shown that God actually exists, then