Showing posts with label ontological argument. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ontological argument. Show all posts
Saturday, October 17, 2009
A Stanford Encyclopedia Entry on Descartes' Ontological Argument
The author argues that Descartes can rebut all the easy refutations, but doesn't necessarily endorse the argument.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Puddleglum's Argument
Many of us are familiar with the argument Puddleglum gives back to the Green Witch in Narnia.
"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things--trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."*
Reading Adam Barkman's very thorough C. S. Lewis and Philosophy as a Way of Life (Zossima Press, 2009), I found the following gloss on it from a letter Lewis wrote a month before he died:
I suppose your philosopher son--what a family you have been privileged to bring into the world!--means the chapter in which Puddleglum puts out the fire with his foot. He must thank Anselm and Descartes for it, not me. I have simply put the 'Ontological Proof' in a form suitable for children. (Barkman, p. 91).
Those interested in a philosophical discussion of Puddleglum's argument should read Steve Lovell's "Breaking the Spell of Skepticism: Puddleglum vs. the Green Witch" in The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy (Open Court, 2005), pp. 41-52.
"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things--trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."*
Reading Adam Barkman's very thorough C. S. Lewis and Philosophy as a Way of Life (Zossima Press, 2009), I found the following gloss on it from a letter Lewis wrote a month before he died:
I suppose your philosopher son--what a family you have been privileged to bring into the world!--means the chapter in which Puddleglum puts out the fire with his foot. He must thank Anselm and Descartes for it, not me. I have simply put the 'Ontological Proof' in a form suitable for children. (Barkman, p. 91).
Those interested in a philosophical discussion of Puddleglum's argument should read Steve Lovell's "Breaking the Spell of Skepticism: Puddleglum vs. the Green Witch" in The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy (Open Court, 2005), pp. 41-52.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
The Anselmian argument for God
This is the wikipedia page on the OA.
Anselm's second argument
Anselm in his Proslogion 3 made another a priori argument for God, this time based on the idea of necessary existence. He claimed that, if God is that than which no greater can be conceived, it is better to be necessary than contingent; therefore, God must be necessary. To sum up:
1. God is the entity than which nothing greater can be thought.
2. It is greater to be necessary than not.
3. God must therefore be necessary.
4. Hence, God exists necessarily.
In Chapter 2 of “The Existence of Nature and God” Anslem′s Argument for the Existence of God is as follows:
1. God is something than which nothing greater can be thought.
2. It is greater to exist in reality and in the understanding than just in understanding.
3. Therefore, God exists in reality
Anselm's second argument
Anselm in his Proslogion 3 made another a priori argument for God, this time based on the idea of necessary existence. He claimed that, if God is that than which no greater can be conceived, it is better to be necessary than contingent; therefore, God must be necessary. To sum up:
1. God is the entity than which nothing greater can be thought.
2. It is greater to be necessary than not.
3. God must therefore be necessary.
4. Hence, God exists necessarily.
In Chapter 2 of “The Existence of Nature and God” Anslem′s Argument for the Existence of God is as follows:
1. God is something than which nothing greater can be thought.
2. It is greater to exist in reality and in the understanding than just in understanding.
3. Therefore, God exists in reality
Why I've always hated the Ontological Argument
Consider this dialogue about the modal ontological argument.
T: Surely, you think it's possible that there is a God, surely. I mean, maybe he exists, doncha think. I mean, you aren't one of those dogmatic atheists, are you.
A: Yes, of course, I admit that it's possible that God exists.
T: Gotcha! Gotcha! Gotcha! Since the existence of God is either necessarily true or necessarily false, the S5 axiom says that if a necessary truth claim is possibly true, it must be necessarily true. Since you have admitted that God possibly exists, you must therefore conclude that God necessarily exists!!!
A: Uh, could we maybe restrict the accessibility relation or something?
Bill Vallicella is dealing with an atheist argument on his site with much the same problems.
T: Surely, you think it's possible that there is a God, surely. I mean, maybe he exists, doncha think. I mean, you aren't one of those dogmatic atheists, are you.
A: Yes, of course, I admit that it's possible that God exists.
T: Gotcha! Gotcha! Gotcha! Since the existence of God is either necessarily true or necessarily false, the S5 axiom says that if a necessary truth claim is possibly true, it must be necessarily true. Since you have admitted that God possibly exists, you must therefore conclude that God necessarily exists!!!
A: Uh, could we maybe restrict the accessibility relation or something?
Bill Vallicella is dealing with an atheist argument on his site with much the same problems.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Kant on the cosmological argument
What sense does anyone make of Kant's claim that the cosmological argument rests on the ontological argument. The OA attempts to prove the existence of a necessarily existing God by definition, the CA by causal inference. The only thing I can think of is that the CA doesn't get you a perfect being necessarily, just a necessarily existing first cause, and you need another argument to establish God's perfection after that. Only, Aquinas' fourth way is a different way to establish God's perfection, which is different from the ontological argument. So I'm still confused.
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