The Ontological Argument?
The ontological argument is viewed by some as a logically sound proof for god’s existence– simply using rationality to confirm the existence of god. The first great thinker to popularize this argument was Anselm, in 1078, who used a simple thought experiment to ‘confirm’ God’s existence. This is a type of argument in which it is much easier to assume or ‘know’ that it’s logically inconsistent than to actually point out the logical inconsistency– the main debate lies within whether or not existence is an inherent value.
Anselm’s Argument.
1. I conceive of a being than which no greater can be conceived. (Premise)2. If a being than which no greater can be conceived does not exist, then I can conceive of a being greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived—namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived that exists. (Premise)3. I cannot conceive of a being greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived. (Premise)4. Hence, a being than which no greater can be conceived exists. (From i, ii, and iii)The main objection to this argument, brought up by Kant, asserts that– existence is not a predicate, or an inherent value, that something can have. Therefore when we say that the greatest conceivable being has to have the greatest possible values, existence isn’t included in that list of values, meaning Anselm’s ontology is inadequate for proving the existence of the ‘greatest conceivable being’ or god. However I’d argue that existence is indeed an inherent value of an object, not something that is simply true or false. The problem with Anselm’s statement lies within a key contradiction– the argument relies on the premise that existence is a predicate, yet it also treats existence as something which has an absolute value, making it not a predicate. Having two different conceptions of existence and relying on both of them makes this argument a fallacy of inconsistency.
Let’s define a few key terms:
Proposition– Any statement that possess a value of true or false
Predicate– Any quality able to be put in the form of a relative proposition that can be proved true or false on a basis of perspective
There are two primary types of propositions– relative ones and absolute ones, the latter of which has to be derived from the former. A relative proposition would be something like “Bob is tall”, from which we can derive the absolute propositions “Bob is taller than Bobby” and “Bob is shorter than the lawnmower”. Absolute propositions have to have a definitive, or absolute value that is either true or false, while relative propositions have no definitive value and are true and false relative to perspective. Furthermore, for a value to be a predicate, it has to make sense in the form of a relative proposition and should have the potential to create numerous absolute propositions.
If I said that 104 was a large number, there is no true/false answer, but it’s still a valid statement. I could say, however, that 104 is larger than 9,999, which is simply true– there is no world in which the first concept is not larger than the second. We just proved that size, represented by ‘largeness’, is a predicate. We can apply the same rules for existence to prove it’s a predicate.
In my previous article, I defined 3 levels of existence: physical, conceptual, and abstract, which go as follows. The lowest level lies within being physically tangible and intractable– something like a cloud is tangible, and you could directly interact with something like a deep dish pizza. The second level is being mentally conceivable– you may not be able to interact or perceive Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles physically, but you can mentally. You can imagine them, understand what/who they are, even how they look like and act like. The third, and last level, is pure existence: whatever concept or thing it is can be in a state of being. This just means that it most definitely exists, usually any idea/maybe object on this level is in our scope of consciousness, but we can’t even fully mentally grasp it. Something like the concept of ‘nothing’ fits within that third level of pure existence.
With these examples obviously being true, we can prove existence is a predicate: You could say something simply exists, but based on the hierarchy of existence certain things exist more or exist less than others. In fact, existence shows no divergence from the characteristics of other predicates. We’re simply not used to using existence as an inherent value that varies from concept to concept. When I say that something is tiny, with the intention of using the predicate of size, it’s logical to question that ‘thing’ and ask for a comparison, putting it into relative perspective to make it absolute. (eg. “that mouse is tiny compared to that elephant”)
It also can be said for the predicate of existence: something exists, yes, but compared to what? A white powder that you can consume physically is more existent compared to a dyson sphere, which exists only within your head, in an abstract(er) way. For both things, you can say that something simply has a certain relative value, as from the limited amount of perspectives on Earth we are able to conclude the Empire State Building is tall (all humans and living things are much shorter than it), and to conclude that deep dish pizzas exist. (they exist in the same way we do) It’s not specified to the point where we make it an absolute proposition, but it works as there’s a range in which all of our height perspectives and existence perspectives lie in, therefore we can generalize by doing that. We do, however, interact with a much shorter range of perspectives/levels of existence than with something like height– hence we aren’t used to treating existence as a predicate as we do for other values.
If existence was a predicate, Anselm would’ve just proved the existence of god. But unfortunately, he doesn’t prove anything– based on his proof existing is a true/false statement, something which a predicate cannot simply be. We already know god exists in that sense– he definitely exists as an idea, a concept, a hypothetical being in this case, but Anselm’s argument relies on existence being a predicate but also being an absolute value, contradicting the premises that support his conclusion.
Yes.
It can’t make sense in this case, Anselm doesn’t prove god’s physical existence any more than he proves his theoretical existence, you can’t treat existence as a predicate but then try to shift it to an absolute value the moment it becomes convenient for the sake of your argument. Anselm says,
“If a being than which no greater can be conceived does not exist, then I can conceive of a being greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived—namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived that exists.”This means that existence is a true/false value: Exist = true; better than Exist = false!
But then if god existed solely as a concept which people give value to then it would still exist, so the actual proof goes almost nowhere. Existence would have to be both a true/false statement AND have to be a statement that can be subjective, and both of these things can only be true one at a time.
You could argue that existence itself can’t be treated as a predicate, you could argue that the concept of god isn’t coherent and his reasoning is circular, you could argue still that by this definition, any greatest conceivable x that I can imagine has to be real, which is obviously not the case when you look to reality– but even if you accept and follow all his reasoning, his proof still contradicts itself. Kant says that existence isn’t an inherent value or perfection, thereby disproving the ontological argument, but then Anselm has to agree with Kant and object to Kant in order for his argument to be true. Whether or not you believe existence is a predicate, Anselm’s argument needs you to accept two things that can’t coexist, so it’s false in both worlds.
Where's my credit uwu
You reminded me Gödel's ontological proof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_ontological_proof