Category: Ontological

Word of the Week: w/c 21/06/15 - Ontological

21/6/2015

An Argument for the existence of God based on the idea that the definition of God means that God must, by definition, exist.

I am cheating a little bit with my word of the week this week - I am not going to write it myself! Instead I'm going to suggest a few places where you can find out more about this unique yet ultimately flawed argument for the existence of God. I am also cheating because I blogged about this back in October when the word of the week was A Priori.

The first place is Dr Andrew Chapman’s 1000-word essay from his blog which you can find here (I featured this blog on a dig deeper post recently). Dr Chapman sets out the basic argument as proposed by Anselm in the twelfth century followed by the criticisms of his contemporary Gaunilo and the eighteenth century philosopher Immanuel Kant.

The Ontological Argument for the Existence of God

The other source I am going to suggest is Mr McMillan REvision a vlogger on YouTube who produces really excellent videos on a variety of RS topics. These two are on the Onotlogical Argument:

w/c 18.8.14 - A Priori

18/8/2014

Reasoning or knowledge which proceeds from theoretical deduction rather than from observation or experience.

This post follows on from Syllogisms two weeks ago - logical systems by which philosophers try to build coherent arguments. "A Priori" reasoning is any form thinking which relies upon the meaning/definitions of words rather than observations about the world. A Priori knowledge is independent of experience.

Galen Strawson describes A Priori reasoning as an idea “that you can see that is true just lying on your couch. You don’t have to get up off your couch and go outside and examine the way things are in the physical world. You don’t have to do any science.” (Sommers)

Examples include “all bachelors are unmarried men” and not “all bachelors are happy”. The obvious advantage of this kind of thinking is that everyone must agree with you because what you are saying is self-evident.

There is only one major example of this type of argument in relation to the existence of God and that is the Ontological argument - that we know God exists because existence is part of his being (ontos). It was first formulated by St Anselm in the 11th Century in his Proslogion. In this work he argued that, as God is the greatest being that can be conceived and existence in reality is greater than existence only in the mind alone, God must exist in reality.

The Ontological argument, although revived from time to time by various scholars (including Descartes and recent versions by Hartshorne, Plantinga and Malcolm) has never been hugely popular because it is not a very convincing way of proving God - people tend to prefer to base their reasoning on our experience of the world and this is why other arguments such as the Teleological and Cosmological have been more popular since the time of Aquinas.

w/c 4.8.14 - Syllogism

3/8/2014

A formal argument in logic that is formed by two statements and a conclusion which must be true if the two statements are true.

Last week Richard Dawkins got in trouble on twitter for trying to show how one type of syllogism works (https://richarddawkins.net/2014/07/response-to-a-bizarre-twitter-storm/). I don’t want to get into whether he was right for saying what he did - but it was interesting that a lot of people criticising him missed the whole point of his original tweet - to demonstrate the power of the syllogism! So what is this form of logical reasoning and why is it useful to philosophers?

At its most simple a syllogism is two statements that relate to one another and lead to a logical conclusion. A basic example is:

1. All humans are mortal.
2. Socrates is human.
C. Therefore Socrates is mortal.

The beauty of a good syllogism is that the conclusion must be indisputable if the statements are correct.

Most A-level students first come across syllogisms when they study the Ontological argument. Anselm, when he wrote Proslogion he lays out his argument in chapter 2 in a fairly verbose way:

Therefore, 0 Lord, You who give understanding to faith, grant me to understand— to the degree You know to be advantageous— that You exist, as we believe, and that You are what we believe [You to be]. Indeed, we believe You to be something than which nothing greater can be thought. Or is there, then, no such nature [as You], for the Fool has said in his heart that God does not exist? (Psalms 13:1 & 52:1(14:1 & 53:1)). But surely when this very same Fool hears my words “something than which nothing greater can be thought,” he understands what he hears. And what he understands is in his understanding, even if he does not understand [i.e., judge] it to exist. For that a thing is in the understanding is distinct from understanding that [this] thing exists. For example, when a painter envisions what he is about to paint: he indeed has in his understanding that which he has not yet made, but he does not yet understand that it exists. But after he has painted [it]: he has in his understanding that which he has made, and he understands that it exists. So even the Fool is convinced that something than which nothing greater can be thought is at least in his understanding; for when he hears of this [being], he understands [what he hears], and whatever is understood is in the understanding. But surely that than which a greater cannot be thought cannot be only in the understanding. For if it were only in the understanding, it could be thought to exist also in reality— something which is greater [than existing only in the understanding]. Therefore, if that than which a greater cannot be thought were only in the understanding, then that than which a greater cannot be thought would be that than which a greater can be thought! But surely this [conclusion] is impossible. Hence, without doubt, something than which a greater cannot be thought exists both in the understanding and in reality.” (https://courses.edx.org/c4x/MITx/24.00x/asset/AnselmProslogion2-5.pdf)

Quite complicated!

However, it can neatly be summed up in this syllogism:

1. God is that than which nothing greater can be thought.
2. Existence in the mind and reality is greater than existence in the mind alone
C. God therefore exists in the mind and reality.

Now, having simplified the argument into a syllogism, we can then go on to test and discuss the logic and the reasoning more easily - this is why they are so useful!

Word of the Week: w/c 21/06/15 - Ontological

An Argument for the existence of God based on the idea that the definition of God means that God must, by definition, exist.

w/c 18.8.14 - A Priori

w/c 4.8.14 - Syllogism

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