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In A History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell says (p. 568)

Kant countered this argument by maintaining that “existence” is not a predicate. Another kind of refutation results from my theory of descriptions. The argument does not, to a modern mind, seem very convincing, but it is easier to feel convinced that it must be fallacious than it is to find out precisely where the fallacy lies.

There are a good deal of objections to the ontological argument. My preferred being Kant's 'existence is not a predicate', rather it is only a word detailing a concept's occurrence in reality. Also his further formulation that a predicate is only really valid(?), when the concept it is applied to actually exists.

So firstly, is there a response/development of the ontological argument which evades this and if not, surely this is the best objection? If it isn't, what makes a different objection better? Finally, if Kant's objection is as strong as I believe, why did Russell (someone who had spent a good deal of time arguing against the existence of God in numerous books) say this, instead of agreeing with Kant? (Feel free just to link the SEP page/post/wikipedia article if you can't be bothered fully outlining it)

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    Which particular ontological argument? Maybe state it.
    – Boba Fit
    Commented May 24, 2023 at 17:20
  • There are multiple ontological arguments with different premises and logic, and, accordingly, different objections to them. Which is "most convincing" (both of arguments or of objections to them) is in the eye of the beholder. Russell in On Denoting calls one version valid but question-begging, and another one invalid in History of Western Philosophy (per Kant's observation, which is embodied in Russell's theory of definite descriptions), see Landini.
    – Conifold
    Commented May 24, 2023 at 17:37
  • Judging from your quote Russell does not disagree with Kant, but merely says he had another counter argument. He also point that most people in the modern era can feel this kind of argument purely based on word play is fishy, but rarely can explain why.
    – armand
    Commented May 24, 2023 at 22:28
  • That's why Muhammad Ali exists.
    – Scott Rowe
    Commented May 24, 2023 at 22:32
  • i guess Kant told not about existence, but about "esti". For example Sun is esti, if Sun is not esti then there is Night. Commented May 24, 2023 at 22:41

2 Answers 2

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So, the argument you're referring to, paraphrasing the sep article, is:

  1. Consider a being than which no greater can be conceived.
  2. If such a being fails to exist in reality, then a greater being - namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, and which exists in reality - can be conceived.
  3. But the being of step 2 is a contradiction, because nothing can be greater than the being of step 1.
  4. Therefore, the being of step 1 must exist in reality.

We are implicitly speaking here of a set of beings-that-can-be-conceived, which we can call S. The fallacy here is an equivocation between two different conditions of a being.

Condition A. We can conceive that the being exists-in-reality

Condition B. The being actually exists-in-reality

Members of S might have any combination of Condition A and Condition B. They might actually exist in reality, and we can conceive of them existing in reality (such as the moon). They might actually exist in reality, but we can't conceive of them existing (who says the human mind is capable of grasping everything in the universe?). They might not exist in reality, but we can conceive of them doing so (such as leprechauns). They might not exist in reality, and we can't conceive of them doing so.

The equivocation is over whether the being in step 2 of the argument has Condition B (exists in reality) or Condition A (we can merely conceive of it existing in reality). Let's restate the argument in clearer terms, without equivocating:

  1. Consider a being than which no greater can be conceived.
  2. If such a being lacks Condition B, then a greater being - namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, and which has condition A - is in S.
  3. But the being of step 2 is a contradiction, because nothing can be greater than the being of step 1.
  4. Therefore, the being of step 1 must have Condition B.

The clarified argument falls flat, because the being of step 2 is not necessarily greater than the being of step 1. Even assuming the being of step 1 lacks Condition B, it may still have Condition A, just like the being of step 2.

Now, we might try to fix the argument by resolving the equivocation in a different way, so that the being of step 2 has Condition B instead of condition A:

  1. Consider a being than which no greater can be conceived.
  2. If such a being lacks Condition B, then a greater being - namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, and which has condition B - is in S.
  3. But the being of step 2 is a contradiction, because nothing can be greater than the being of step 1.
  4. Therefore, the being of step 1 must have Condition B.

But still it falls flat, because now we can't guarantee that the being of step 2 is in S at all; it would have to actually exist-in-reality, and we have no way to establish that.

So either way we resolve the equivocation, the argument doesn't work.

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Kant's argument is probably the best, except not in the way he directly stated it. He did state the following via a set of statements throughout his discourse on the topic (in the first Critique), however:

To define something as necessarily existing means defining it as given in all possible intuition. But one cannot define an object into intuition. I can say the phrase "a visible five-headed unicorn" such that, "A visible five-headed unicorn is invisible," is self-contradictory. This does not mean that there are any five-headed unicorns. Vision is a class of intuition, so the point generalizes: unless we actually have an intuition of a divine nature, saying, "The always-intuited divine nature is not intuited," does not go through. We do not and cannot see or indeed have any spatiotemporally limited intuition that is adequate to the concept of the divine nature. There is no burning bush or heavenly trumpet or whatever else along those lines, that sufficiently resembles what the divine nature is supposed to be so as to certify that our intuition of such things is an intuition of God. So not even God can cause us to have an intuition of God (It might instill an incorrigible belief in Its existence, in us, but that is another matter).

Clarification: since Kant is not a pure rationalist, he does not think that substantial existence claims can be proven without intuition. Note that what he means by intuition is particular representation: our minds lead us inescapably towards a general maximum which is our concept of God, but as a generalization this is not an intuition. The point might seem obvious, then: unless we have a direct perception of God, nothing in Heaven or on Earth can show to us that God as a particular being exists.

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  • i don't understand nothing, but i feel by intuition that i love this citation. i ll understand it later someday Commented May 24, 2023 at 23:44
  • @άνθρωπος imagine saying, "I have defined that someone is seeing a blue whale at this very instant." That doesn't really make sense, does it? One can't define something as perceived; one has to perceive it. But God can't be perceived by us, so we have no way of knowing whether there is a particular God (we just have a general definition in mind). Commented May 25, 2023 at 0:02
  • I'm not sure if I worded things right. Although Kant says that even the mere possibility of God is unknowable for us, I am not sure about, "It is possible that it is possible that there is a God," here. The non-intuitable God is not impossible in itself, but the way I've phrased the matter makes it sound like God is impossible ("if God necessarily exists, God would be always intuited, but since God is never intuited..."). Also, if there is a zone of concepts where the existence/nonexistence distinction breaks down, perhaps God is "in" this zone. Commented May 25, 2023 at 11:58
  • This argument doesn't work for me because it seems to say that in order to know there is a God, we need to know everything about God. But the same does not apply to every other person. I don't need to know more than the "shadow" or "facade" or "burning bush" that I see of another person (or even of oneself) to know they exist. For me, this argument seems to only work to say "we cannot fully know God", or "we cannot rely on intuition to define what/how God is, we must rely on the burning bush that is what little revelation we get".
    – kutschkem
    Commented May 25, 2023 at 13:57
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    Kant has two different arguments in his work, existence not being a predicate being in the context of the latter: Firstly, real objects are only real if they can be intuited or as a necessary condition for intuited reality to be experienced as we do. Since the ontological arguments argue within the former but God cannot be intuited, they fail. Secondly, "to be" is a logical operator (copula) in Kant (X is Y) and saying something about existence is nothing but saying "X is being", ie. "X is is". He basically says "There exists an X" is a predicateless sentence since "that is Y" is missing.
    – Philip Klöcking
    Commented May 25, 2023 at 16:43

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