I heard a whopper today.

[Lord Kenneth]

All right, seriously then. Kenneth, I'm interested in how (or whether) you rebutted this person's argument. It's long been my opinion that, whether you're right or not, laughing and walking away is the lamest argument anybody can muster.

Of course I laughed at him. This wasn't the first time I spoke with him. I did argue with him, of course.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Logic is derived from reality, not the other way round.

Don't be silly

The Ontological argument thinks it can will into being an object simply by logically proving that object must exist. This is metaphysical absurdity.

Agreed.

Of course, our idealist monists will find the argument compelling, but no one else will.

Not at all. Not sure if I can put my finger on the problem with the argument though. I think that one would have to say that existence is not an attribute of things.

 

[Yahzi]

Logic can be used for ANYTHING, real or otherwise

Yes, that's true.

I think I meant what Kullvero said.

 

[Lord Kenneth]

First of all, "greatness" is a purely subjective term. It's meaningless to try to apply it to objective things without it being a measured quality of something.

"Then something greater than he can exist because one of the properties of greatness includes existence."

A problem with this is not only that greatness is an odd subjective term, but also that it is plain bizarre in the way it states "something is greater because it exists".

No, that something effects the world because it exists. It effects the world more than the CONCEPT of the "greatest god", obviously, as it does exist, but it doesn't matter how many qualities to wish to attribute to a being, it exists or not in its form no matter how we view or conceive it.

The argument seems to do little more than say whatever the most "greatest" being is, it is God. Of course that falls apart if you wish to say God must be omnipotent or the like.

 

[slimshady2357]

Yes, that's true.

I think I meant what Kullvero said.

That's a good road to take, because what he said was pretty sweet.

We must have taken the same classes way back when Kullvero, because I often find you typing my thoughts. That whitefork guy was like that too

There is no doubt that argument in no way proves the existence of any god. It fails on many fronts.

But it's one of many such arguments (Teleogical, from Causation, etc...) that claim to logically prove the existence of God. They're worth investigating, worth studying so that you can easily dismantle them. Plus, it's fun! Logic, proofs, philosophy all wrapped into one!

Adam

 

[Tricky]

Yes, that's true.

I think I meant what Kullvero said.

s'Okay. I actually figured that you meant that, but we have to tread carefully here. There are too many people here that insist that because something is "logical", that it is true, even though their logic includes bizarre assumptions.

Of course, the fact that Interesting Ian agrees with me might cause me to rethink my position.

 

[Checkmite]

Of course I laughed at him. This wasn't the first time I spoke with him. I did argue with him, of course.

...well? I'm waiting...

 

[aerosolben]

Anyhow, the ontological proof is intuitively unconvincing and I would be surprised if it had ever persuaded anyone to believe in God. On the other hand, it is extremely difficult to pinpoint precisely what is wrong with it, which is why even contemporary philosophers still devote ink to discussing it (mostly in efforts to disprove it). But there is disagreement among them as to where the fault lies.

Indeed.

My opinion was always that the application of existence to a concept as a property is impossible. A concept is a mental representation of a thing which may or may not exist, and the conjecturing of necessary properties in the context of the world in your head will not carry over into the real world. Therefore, in the context of the theoretical world in your head, God 'does' exist, but this has no bearing on an actual God, just your conception of it.

It is a tricky argument.

 

[ceo_esq]

Not exactly....

Because Anselm's defining God that way does not necessarily make it so.

Even if you take the word God out of the proof entirely the argument still boils down to this...

"If you believe in a being than which nothing greater can exist, you must also believe in its existence."

Which boils down even further to...

"If you believe in a being that exists, you must believe in a being that exists."

It's the self reflexive property of identity.

But you still haven't proven that there is anything with all those properties...

I'm not sure I agree. What Anselm seems to say is this: let X = a being greater than which nothing can be conceived; if X exists in the understanding (i.e. as a mental concept), then X must also exist in reality. X obviously exists in the understanding, or we wouldn't be talking about it. I think the problems with the ontological argument are located in the proof itself, not in the definition of X.

 

[whitefork]

We must have taken the same classes way back when Kullvero, because I often find you typing my thoughts. That whitefork guy was like that too

That should be a warning to all three of us.

To Kenneth's original point - I don't think the ontological argument is stupid or obviously flawed. If it was, then there would be one clear and universally accepted refutation. It brings into question the concepts of existence and necessity, neither of which has a clear definition.

As an example, take the logical operation called "material implication" or IF-THEN. One might think that this is a logical representation of physical causation ("material", get it?) but don't go down that road. After all, the implication is true when the antecedant is false, meaning that a contradiction implies anything at all - IF (p AND NOT-p) then Q. I've heard people argue that the existence of the universe is the result of a contradiction in the divine mind.

Now everybody go read something by G. E. Moore. http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/moor.htm

 

[ceo_esq]

A popular but not universally accepted refutation is given by Kant and others, baldly stated "existence is not a predicate". That is, saying "X exists" adds nothing to the concept of X.

From Kant onwards, most of the attempted refutations of Anselm's ontological argument have focused on the notion of existence as (non-)predicate. Alvin Plantinga has argued influentially in response that "No one has produced ... a sense for the term 'predicate' such that in that sense it is clear both that existence is not a predicate and that Anselm's argument requires it to be one." (Although Plantinga believes that the usual formulations of the ontological argument fail nonetheless.) For what it's worth, here's the abridged version of Plantinga's take on Kant's objection (from God and Other Minds (Cornell University Press)):

"By whatever and by however many predicates we may think a thing - even if we completely determine it - we do not make the least addition to the thing when we further declare that this thing is." [Kant, from Critique of Pure Reason.] This sentence provides a clue. We might note that to every existing object there corresponds its whole concept: the concept whose content includes all (and only) the properties the object in question has. ... Suppose ... that the Taj Majal is pink and let C1 and C2 be, respectively, the whole concept of the Taj Mahal and the whole concept of the Taj Mahal diminished with respect to pinkness [i.e., roughly speaking, C2 is what remains of C1 when pinkness is deleted from its content]. Evidently there are possible circumstances in which C2 but not C1 would be exemplified by some actually existing object: perhaps these circumstances would obtain if the Taj Mahal were green, for example. ... Now perhaps Kant means to point out that existence differs from pinkness in the following respect. If C3 is the whole concept of the Taj Mahal diminished with respect to existence, there are no possible circumstances in which C3 but not C1 has application; it is a necessary truth that if C3 is exemplified, so is C1. Since the converse is also true, C1 and C3 are, we might say, equivalent concepts; in annexing existence to C3, we don’t really get a different concept. And if we add that a predicate (or property) P is a real predicate (or property) only if it is not the case that any whole concept diminished with respect to P is equivalent to the corresponding whole concept, we may conclude that existence, unlike pinkness, is not a real predicate; it "is not a concept of something which could be added to the concept of a thing."

Giving a clear explanation of the claim that existence is not a real predicate, this interpretation also shows an interesting respect in which existence differs from other predicates or properties. Unfortunately, it seems to have no particular bearing on Anselm's argument. For Anselm can certainly agree, so far as his argument is concerned, that existence is not a real predicate in the explained sense. Anselm maintains that the concept the being than which none greater can be conceived is necessarily exemplified; that this is so is in no way inconsistent with the suggestion that the whole concept of a thing diminished with respect to existence is equivalent to the undiminished whole concept of that thing. Anselm argues that the proposition God exists is necessarily true; but neither this claim nor his argument for it entails or presupposes that existence is a predicate in the sense just explained.

What does Kant's argument show then? How could anyone be led to suppose that Kant's claim did dispose of the ontological argument? This last question is not altogether easy to answer. What Kant’s argument does show, however, is that one cannot "define things into existence"; it shows that one cannot, by adding existence to a concept that has application contingently if at all, get a concept that is necessarily exemplified. For let C' be any whole concept and C be that concept diminished with respect to existence. ... Kant's argument shows that the proposition There is an object to which C applies is logically equivalent to There is an object to which C’ applies. ... From a concept which has application contingently - for example, crow, we cannot, by annexing existence to it, get a concept that necessarily applies; for if it is a contingent truth that there are crows, it is also a contingent truth that there are existent crows.

But of course Anselm need not have thought otherwise. Schopenhauer describes the ontological argument as follows: "On some occasion or other someone excogitates a conception, composed out of all sorts of predicates, among which, however, he takes care to include the predicate actuality or existence, either openly or wrapped up for decency's sake in some other predicate, such as perfection, immensity or something of the kind." If this were Anselm's procedure - if he started with some concept that has instances contingently if at all and then annexed existence to it - then indeed his argument would be subject to Kant's criticism. But he didn't, and it isn't. And Kant's objection shows neither that there are no necessary existential propositions nor that the proposition God exists is not necessary - any more than it shows that There is a prime [number] between fifty and fifty-five is a contingent proposition.

 

[whitefork]

I should have recommended Plantinga's The Ontological Argument. It has excerpts from most of the major players and is a classic.

As to existence - who knows exactly what Anselm intended to convey in using that word? Did he mean that god necessarily has physical existence? Or is he the ghost in the machine of the universe?