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The Ontological Argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Stephen Makin
Stephen Makin
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
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Extract

I will offer a defence of Anselm's Ontological Argument, building on some suggestions made by Prior. The defence offered avoids one of the objections commonly levelled against the Ontological Argument. I will not consider whether the use of this objection (that ‘existence is not a predicate’) involves a misinterpretation of the argument as put forward by Anselm. It might, for example, be held that the argument of Proslogion 2 is programmatic, and points forward to Prosiogion 3, and arguments given by Anselm in his Reply to Gaunilo. In particular it might be denied that Anselm holds that what is greater about what exists in reality is just that it exists in reality. While what I have to say will start from points made by Prior, I do not intend to suggest that Prior holds that there is a defence possible for Anselm's argument such as I will offer. What I have to say involves emphasizing modal notions, and treating Anselm's argument as a modal argument. Thus it comes down to defending Anselm's argument in Proslogion 3 in preference to the Proslogion 2 argument.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 63 , Issue 243 , January 1988 , pp. 83 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1988

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References

1 ‘Is Necessary Existence Possible?’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 15 (1954–1955), 545–547.Google Scholar

2 See for example Kant, , Critique of Pure Reason A 598, B 626.Google Scholar

3 I have heard Elizabeth Anscombe discuss an interpretation of Anselm's argument along such lines.

4 Prior, , op. cit.Google Scholar

5 Plausibly with far greater reason against Descartes.

6 See Proslogion 2 for Anselm's use of this formula.

7 Prior, , op. cit.Google Scholar

8 For similar points made in connection with God, though for a different purpose, see Findlay, , ‘Can God's Existence be Disproved?’, Mind 57 (1948) 76–183.Google Scholar

9 See Prior, , Past Present and Future (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), 137f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 On this compare Aquinas, ST la Q2 Art 1 ad 2um, ‘Someone hearing the word ‘God’ may very well not understand it to mean ‘that than which nothing greater can be thought’, indeed, some people have believed God to be a body’.