Questions tagged [ontological-argument]

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Does Descartes conclude that imperfection implies perfection?

In the third meditation, does Descartes' knowledge of his limitations, or his imperfections, lead to his conclusion that there must be something limitless, something perfect? In his third meditation, ...
SwabianOrtolan's user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
163 views

What's to stop you from plugging in something else like a necessary being in the Modal Ontological argument?

I was looking at the Modal Ontological argument and I was wondering what stops the argument from not working when we plug in another necessary being. Such as a necessary unicorn. So the argument looks ...
Firebirdofnercy's user avatar
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Do the derivation of the liar paradox, and the ontological argument, involve the same mistake?

Suppose you introduced the sentence, "This sentence implies a contradiction." Now, on its face, that sentence doesn't seem to imply anything (maybe not even itself) as such. Reworked: "...
Kristian Berry's user avatar
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Critique of Pure Reason, Dialectical Illusion in Transcendental Proofs

Kant states that ancient philosophers considered matter, substance, as original and necessary and in relation to appearance. He also stated that had they considered substance in relation to noumena, ...
Gerry's user avatar
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Can someone formulate John Pollack's argument in understandable terms for laymen?

http://www.strongatheism.net/library/atheology/ontological_argument_for_nonexistence/ By the way, I am not asking whether this argument is sound or not. I just want to have it formulated in ...
Bernard Eakins's user avatar
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3 answers
207 views

Is there any ackonowledgement and solution for the objection raised on ontological argument using problem of evil?

Ontological Argument, in its initial verison as presented by Anselm of Canterbury is as follows, The first ontological argument in Western Christian tradition[i] was proposed by Saint Anselm of ...
Wtjtykajwy's user avatar
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1 answer
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The resemblance of 'being that exists' with the 'element' in the definition of a set

What exactly is the meaning of the term 'being that exists' which is associated with the argument from contingency. Can I equate this term with an abstract object (SEP) such as 'element' in the ...
RIYASUDHEEN T. K's user avatar
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2 answers
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Existence being analytic of God vs. God being analytic of existence

Elsewhere, in light of the idea that understanding is not a species of knowledge but an epistemic genus parallel to knowledge, and then in terms of an understanding logic, I asked whether knowledge of ...
Kristian Berry's user avatar
-1 votes
1 answer
101 views

Is the description "the nonexistence of which implies a contradiction" itself contradictory?

Part of the essence of the Hume-Kant counterargument against the ontological argument is that, as Hume put it, there is no being the nonexistence of which implies a contradiction. (Kant talks about ...
Kristian Berry's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
145 views

What is the response to this objection to the ontological argument?

I'm trying to make sense of the ontological argument for god's existence. So how I understand it... we define god as a "maximally great being". And the argument implies that "maximally ...
Ameet Sharma's user avatar
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Possibly necessarily P → Necessarily P?

So I saw this proof for ◊□p → □p but I don't know if it's true. ◊~p → □◊~p (5 axiom) ◊~p → ~◊~◊~p (Definition of □) ~~◊~◊~p → ~◊~p (Contraposition) ◊~◊~p → ~◊~p (Double negation) ◊□p → □p (Definition ...
Jgon's user avatar
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In the ontological argument, can the existence of an MGB be rejected as provably false?

There are a lot of slightly different formulations of the ontological argument for God, but I'm going to use William Lane Craig's phrasing of Plantinga's, because that's the version I first heard. His ...
redroid's user avatar
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Weakness of Spinoza's ontological argument

The ontological arguments of God are many, the weaknesses they suffer can be found in this reference. My goal here is to focus on Spinoza’s ontological argument. Spinoza's argument is different from ...
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Do inconsistent premises in an argument hurt a person's case while they try to defend something they believe in?

Do inconsistent premises in an argument hurt a person's case while they try to defend something they believe in because their statements contradict each other?
Jesse Kapahua's user avatar
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Is God's existence either impossible or necessary?

This is meant as a supplement to a modal ontological argument to show that God's existence is either logically impossible or necessary. Am I committing a fallacy or a logical error of some kind or ...
brightlySalty's user avatar
-1 votes
2 answers
200 views

Does life have a natural or supernatural origin? [closed]

Let us define natural as "can be observed in nature", supernatural as "cannot be observed in nature". Virtually everyone today believes that all life had to have arisen from nonliving matter. A point ...
Craig Feinstein's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
190 views

Variation of Ontological argument

what do you think of this variation of the ontological argument(is it an absolute proof?) 1)God is the greatest being conceivable. A key part of this is being all powerful(omnipotent) 2)God can be ...
user35891's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
1k views

Which of Descartes’ arguments for the existence of God is the most successful and why?

With regards to his 3rd Meditation and 5th Meditation proofs of God, I can't seem to find any reason to see one as being more successful than the other. Mainly because while his ontological proof ...
carlssmiles97's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
225 views

How many equivalence classes does the accessiblity relation have in S5?

I'm a math student taking philosophy classes. So I have some math background but am absolutely unfamiliar with metaphysics&c. Recently I've come around the "Nothing Is Impossible" paper as a part ...
Serge Kozlukov's user avatar
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3 answers
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Debunking Anselm's Ontological Argument

In a nutshell, Anselm's Ontological Argument states that given a God defined as "a being than which none greater can be imagined" it follows that this God must exist. It seems to me that this ...
Rexcirus's user avatar
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Why do scholars not consider Avicenna's "proof of the truthful" to be the first ontological argument?

Scholars seem to believe that Anselm's Proslogion lays down the first ontological argument, at least in the West. I also understand that there is a debate whether Avicenna's "proof of the truthful" ...
user4281's user avatar
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2 answers
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What is the explanation for inferring existence in every possible world from existence in some in Plantinga's Ontological Argument?

I found the following version of the Ontological Argument online (I'm pretty certain its Plantinga's but I couldn't find an exact source). Here is how it goes: It is possible that a maximally great ...
Jordan Goulet's user avatar
1 vote
3 answers
609 views

Anselm's Ontological argument for the existence of God. Am I getting it right?

Is Anselm's decisive point for the existence of God the fact that in order for a thing (idea , etc) which exists in the 'realm of understanding' to be paramount (supreme) it has to exist in reality as ...
Joel Zachariah's user avatar
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3 answers
1k views

What arguments are there for the existence of a personal God?

Classical arguments for God's existence, like ontological, cosmological, teleological, etc., only derive the existence of something very abstract, greatest entity, first cause, etc., which is then "...
anon's user avatar
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9 answers
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Does this modal ontological argument prove the existence of God?

What are some objections to this form of the argument? It seems like the only premise that can be disputed is premise 1, but nobody has successfully disproven the possibility of a maximally great ...
ILoveJesus's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
606 views

Existence as a predicate and Godel's ontological argument

I am referring to this paper https://github.com/FormalTheology/GoedelGod/blob/master/GodProof-ND.pdf which has formalized the ontological argument. If I am not mistaken, watered down, the argument ...
Ebin's user avatar
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Does Gaunilo's objection to the ontological argument itself presuppose God's existence?

The classical ontological argument for gods existence proposed by Anselm of Canterbury can be summed up as God is the greatest possible being that can be imagined If that being existed in reality it ...
john smith's user avatar
1 vote
3 answers
419 views

What are some examples of the implications of changing epistemological and ontological grounds of the research?

What are some examples of the variation in the answers of the same question among different researchers, that can be explained by the variation of epistemological and ontological grounds of their ...
Amr Farouk's user avatar
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2 answers
375 views

Would the ontological argument disprove the Christian god?

The ontological argument of Descartes tries to show that a supremely perfect being (=god) must logically exist. Let's assume that this logic were valid. We would have proven that a "perfect" god ...
elias_d's user avatar
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Possible ambiguity in Anselm's argument, and Kant's criticism

This is a follow-up to Could Anselm's argument also "prove" that a perfectly evil god must exist?, and also to Why is existence not a true predicate with respect to Anselm's ...
elias_d's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
460 views

What makes Leibniz's definition of perfection unintelligible?

Leibniz defined a perfection as a simple, positive quality in the highest degree. Norman Malcolm says I do not find his definition of a perfection intelligible. For one thing, it assumes that ...
MCL's user avatar
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2 answers
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"Does god exist?" Is this question correct? [duplicate]

Before going into the topic first let me clarify what I will refer to as "god" in this passage. God, I think should be referred to as something that is analogous to the axioms of a formal system. ...
user356313's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
174 views

Should the Ontological Argument be called something else than 'Ontological'?

Source: p 120 Middle, Introducing Philosophy for Canadians: A Text with Integrated Readings (2011 1 ed).   Here, we will begin by discussing the Ontological Argument. This is the most difficult of ...
user avatar
10 votes
6 answers
28k views

What does Kant mean by "Existence is not a predicate"?

What does Kant mean by "Existence is not a predicate"? How does that invalidate the ontological arguments? and how can he show that it's not a predicate? By predicate, I think he means a "property"...
Fawzy Hegab's user avatar
1 vote
3 answers
530 views

A Critcism of the Ontological Argument for God

Allow me to present the argument: (1) By definition God is that being which possesses every perfection. (2) Existence is a perfection. (3) Therefore, God exists. Whether you agree is not important,...
London Jennings's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
625 views

'If we can conceive God existing but he doesn't exist, then we can conceive a thing greater than him.'

Source: 6 minutes 50 seconds juncture; Lecture 2, Video 5 (transcription); MITx: 24.00x Introduction to Philosophy; by MIT Associate Prof Caspar Hare PhD (in Philosophy; Princeton) There are some ...
user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
564 views

Is there a suppressed premise in Anselm's Ontological Argument?

Source: 5 minutes 20 seconds juncture; Lecture 1, Video 4 (transcription); MITx: 24.00x Introduction to Philosophy; by MIT Associate Prof Caspar Hare PhD (Princeton) [...] Suppose God existed in ...
user avatar
0 votes
7 answers
572 views

Why is the 'problem of evil' considered so difficult?

If one believes in the 'supernatural' and some Supreme Being affecting our lives in various ways; if you believe we have free will and free choice and this Being allows us to have and use this 'free ...
201044's user avatar
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2 votes
4 answers
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An Argument for the Unity of Truth?

I was thinking about truth, and came up with an outline for an argument that there is only one truth. However, this is just an outline and it is flawed, so I'm hoping you can help me critique and fix ...
Alexandre Babeanu's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
218 views

About Godel and Anselm

Was Godel's work on trying to make Anselm's Ontological Argument more 'feasible' with modal logic successful or has this work just been lost in the many abstract debates that confuse the issues?
user128932's user avatar
2 votes
3 answers
294 views

Can definition be existence (in mathematics)?

The set omega, as the comment in this question points out, can be defined as the smallest set that is closed under succession and includes the empty set. This is enough to define it uniquely, but to ...
Mozibur Ullah's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
884 views

Is the proof for the God's existence of Harvey Friedman correct?

Recently, the Prof. Harvey Friedman published a paper in which he proves the existence of God starting from the consistency of the mathematics. Does someone know if this proof has been refuted or it ...
Riccardo.Alestra's user avatar
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4 answers
3k views

What is the argument in this Paragraph

What is the argument in this Paragraph (Aquinas's Five Ways): The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an ...
Junior's user avatar
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14 votes
3 answers
1k views

How do I go from ◊∃x□[∃y(y=x) ∧ Mx] to ∃x□[∃y(y=x) ∧ Mx]?

I've been thinking about the ontological argument recently. I'm trying to go from ◊∃x□[∃y(y=x) ∧ Mx] to ∃x□[∃y(y=x) ∧ Mx] I choose that formulation because that seems to express x having the ...
Dante Alighieri's user avatar
10 votes
4 answers
1k views

How can being able to conceive of something "perfect" imply its existence?

In this question and reading about the ontological argument elsewhere I have discovered that there is (and has been) a lot of discussion about it, and that it was taken very seriously. Can someone ...
Vinko Vrsalovic's user avatar
28 votes
4 answers
4k views

Where is the weakness in the ontological proof for God's existence?

I read the ontological proof for God's existence. As much as I understood, it says that if you consider that existence is part of essence, then the most complete essence should also exist. Now, I see ...
Saeed Neamati's user avatar
7 votes
3 answers
310 views

Are there any ontological arguments outside the canon of Western philosophy/scholastic theology?

The question pretty much explains itself. I'm interested in instances of ontological arguments (arguments purporting to prove the existence of God/Gods/a God) outside the Western tradition and/or ...
Chuck's user avatar
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