• Leontiskos
    3.7k
    Banno has shown with each of his posts that he simply lacks any real skills of reading comprehension. All of his posts are full of weird shit that does not come from Klima or the paper, and when it is pointed out to him over and over, he just buries his head in the sand and moves on as if nothing has occurred.Leontiskos

    To give another example, namely the long tangent regarding Kripke:

    You are hung up on that word "description," and you want to say that Kripke differs from Russell on descriptions. Sure, but Klima already noted that. "Description" is a common word. Klima is quite reasonably reading "designator" as a description, given the belief about the semantic referent condition.

    So using Kripke's own example that Klima picks up, consider the referent, "Her husband," in the sentence, "Her husband is kind to her." For Kripke the speaker must believe that the man fulfills the conditions for being the semantic referent of the designator, "Her husband." For Kripke, even though he is mistaken, his reference succeeds in virtue of his belief. Klima riffs on that very same example and shows how one can use parasitic reference even without the belief that Kripke requires. If Klima can say, "'Her husband' happens to be her kind boss," (or Roark can say, "The most significant British composer in history is a hack"), without involving the belief that Kripke claims is required, then obviously the theory of reference is different from Kripke's. And that's the point here: the intentional theory of reference differs from Kripke's theory of reference.
    Leontiskos

    1. Banno claims that Kripke is being misrepresented
    2. Banno is proven wrong, at length over a number of posts by two different users
    3. Banno buries his head in the sand

    Banno has enough time on his hands to repeat this sort of nonsense ad nauseum. I don't.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    Well I can quote myself, too.

    Here's the footnote quoting Kripke:

    “So, we may tentatively define the speaker’s referent of a designator to be that object which the speaker wishes to talk about, on a given occasion, and believes fulfils the conditions for being the semantic referent of the designator.”
    This is in defence of:
    In the Kripkean framework, however, it is also assumed that the speaker’s reference is to that which the speaker at least believes satisfies his description.

    Notice that the quote does not mention descriptions at all. And notice also the use of the word "tentatively".

    Speaker’s meaning depends on context and intent. But Kripke showed that proper names are rigid designators—they refer to the same entity in all possible worlds. Speaker’s meaning is intensional, or if you prefer, subjective. It varies between individuals, and so cannot account for multiple folk talking about the same thing, nor provide modal rigidity.

    You and Klima both appear to have read "the conditions for being the semantic referent of the designator" as implying the presence of a description. But the phrase is chosen so as to be neutral. The "conditions" can of course as well be those causal conditions that are the basis of Kripke's theory of reference.
    Banno

    Ok, I'll keep playing. Yes, the intentional theorist and the causal theorist may well agree that folk can talk about something despite not having a description that fixes the topic.

    So what.

    What is mistaken is the view that in the "Kripkean framework" the speaker’s reference is to that which the speaker at least believes satisfies his description.

    For anyone who wishes to check, here is a better link to Kripke's article: https://www.uvm.edu/~lderosse/courses/lang/Kripke%281977%29.pdf

    (added: The crux is that Kripke argues that the semantic meaning of an act of reference can be maintained over the speaker's meaning. He uses this to defend Russell against Donnellen's view. Kripke's argument is that semantic reference is independent of speaker intent.)
    Banno
  • Leontiskos
    3.7k
    You are falling into yet another ignoratio elenchus, for Klima tells us explicitly that the intentional theory and the causal or historical* theory agree on this:Leontiskos

    This theory agrees with the recent “historical explanation”[19]—as opposed to the Russellian—theory of reference on the fundamental insight that speakers may successfully refer to objects by descriptions that do not apply to these objects.Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof - Section 4

    (So Banno didn't read the paper. A lesson we have learned too many times by now. What drives him is his fanatical anti-religious creed.)

    Again:

    Those who have read the paper carefully already recognize Banno’s absurd misrepresentations. I invite them to engage with the paper thoughtfully and to avoid falling into the sort of trolling that Banno's whole persona has been reduced to. Engaging those who are not serious and do not have the capacity to authentically interact with the paper is a waste of time. There is no need to waste our time with such people. Tony Roark is a great example of someone who engaged the paper thoughtfully and with intellectual honesty. He is the sort of person we should imitate.Leontiskos
  • Banno
    26.1k
    To the new paper, then, which I gave a quick read.

    Yet, this last remark should already highlight why, despite the soundness of Anselm’s proof, one may rationally reject its conclusion. For although it is true that whoever forms in their mind the concept of that than which nothing greater can be thought is thereby committed to thinking that it exists, there is nothing in Anselm’s argument that would force anyone to think of anything as that than which nothing greater can be thought in the first place.p.10

    Now here he is agreeing with . One is not rationally obligated by the argument to the conclusion.

    For any relation transitive relation, we can form a sequence, ...a<b<c... And there will be two possibilities; either the sequence has an end, or the sequence continues indeterminately. So for the alphabet, every letter occurs either before or after any other letter, and there is a last letter - z. But for integers, every integer stands as greater or less then every other integer, and yet there is no greatest integer.

    The quote above agrees with this.

    And the conclusion? "...the need to have God “seriously” in one’s mind".

    So
    Here again we hit on the problem of intensional opacity. And here again is the closing off of the argument to critique by those who disagree.Banno

    This by way of my not addressing the arguments here "with any sort of seriousness", and my simple "lack of any real skills of reading comprehension".

    Happy to be shown were this goes wrong. It would mark a pleasant change. ]

    Edit: bolding added. Learnt that from Leon.
  • Leontiskos
    3.7k
    And here again is the closing off of the argument to critique by those who disagree.Banno

    A great deal of provision is made for disagreements. One disagrees with a proof by showing a premise false or an inference invalid. When one has neither shown a premise false nor an inference invalid, they haven't disagreed except in the manner of begging the question.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    Yawn.
  • Leontiskos
    3.7k
    Yawn.Banno

    Yes, you're lazy. We know. It's written all over.
  • tim wood
    9.4k
    Yes, you're lazy. We know. It's written all over.Leontiskos
    It is time for you to make explicitly clear what exactly you think Anselm's proof proves and briefly how/why. Just Anselm and you, no one else. Can you do that?

    I do not think it proves anything, excepting that if some certain claims are granted some certain conclusions can be drawn from them. But that is merely an exercise in argumentation and not a proof. That is, if you think Anselm's proof is based on some certain claims, then show how he proves them - or prove them yourself.
  • Leontiskos
    3.7k
    - I spoke to the question at some length , namely to the dispute between Roark and Klima on the proper conclusion of the proof.

    Beyond that, what I said to you stands.

    We could go back to Banno's claim:

    This is also very similar to the question-begging atheist:

    1. All valid ontological arguments beg the question
    2. This is a valid ontological argument
    3. Therefore, this begs the question

    But how does the inductive (1) get to be so strong? And even beyond that, what is "an ontological argument"? As the very first sentence of Klima's introduction implies, that whole label is anachronistic. Certainly Anselm would wonder how one can know that a whole bundle of loosely-affiliated arguments are known to be faulty a priori.
    Leontiskos

    Then contrasting Aquinas:

    Aquinas’ response to Anselm in the Summa Contra Gentiles is quite interesting. On the one hand, it is of the weaker “question-begging” form that we spoke about earlier, given that it does not directly address Anselm’s proof. On the other hand, it is quite different from the other similarly weaker replies that we have seen. In particular, Aquinas’ approach takes the dialogical nature of the exchange as being fundamental, as opposed to the idea that Anselm has simply transgressed an inferential law (e.g. “no-existence-from-words,” which is reminiscent of “no-ought-from-is”).Leontiskos

    Now one can take Banno's question-begging approach. There's not a great deal of shame in that. But I don't want to do that. The only objection that I might offer is that constitutive reference to God is not possible, at least in the strict sense required for Anselm's definition (and Klima or Aquinas might object in a similar way). But I don't really know that such an objection succeeds. In a more general way the island objection seems like the best readily-available objection.

    So given that I don't have any close objections, I am forced to admit that it is sound. But I think Klima's analysis is apt, which is to say that the argument will not be persuasive without the requisite kinds of concept-acquisition. Gaunilo's own retort in section 5 is also quite good (having to do with the way that concepts and assent interrelate).

    In one sense this is odd, ergo:

    3. Does this mean that Anselm’s proof can be sound for the theist while being unsound for the atheist?Leontiskos

    But on the other hand it is not odd that an argument could be sound in itself but yet inaccessible and therefore unpersuasive to some. The odd thing about this argument is that the further work lies in concept-acquisition rather than the further defense of some premise.

    And what about the atheist who agrees with Klima, if that is possible? They would say that the opposite of concept-acquisition is required, namely shearing away the relevant thought object from Anselm's universe of thought objects, which would entail establishing criteria for what counts as an incoherent thought in a way that falls short of contradiction.

    What's interesting in any case is how Klima has created commensurability over what is usually seen to be an incommensurable gulf.

    ---

    Edit: It should go without saying that Klima does not see the atheist as irrational, and I agree. But I think we want to ask whether it is unfair that the atheist cannot adequately respond to the proof in the way of a close objection. In the first place, not necessarily, unless we are to say that all sound proofs are unfair to those who dislike their conclusions. In the second place, perhaps, in a way that Gaunilo's point about words could shed light on. If there is a place where John Henry Newman addresses this proof he might have a very worthy objection that develops Gaunilo's thought in section 5.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    :yawn:
  • Leontiskos
    3.7k
    How does one know someone has "the concepts of another person and the thought objects constituted by them"? Apparently by agreeing with them. It is open for the theist to say, of anyone who disagrees with their argument, that they have not spent sufficient time "to go through the same long meditative process that the theist did in building up his own concept of God".

    All rather sequestered and distasteful, really. "Mutual understanding" here means "agreeing with me".
    Banno

    This is precisely the sort of cynicism that is problematic, and which leads to you being written off as an unserious poster. You take this passage from Klima:

    So what seems to be required from the theist to understand the atheist in the first place is to realize how the atheist can look at the world without a God and still be able to conceive of God in a non-committed, parasitic manner, as being an object of the theist’s beliefs, but bearing no relevance to his own beliefs. On the other hand, to understand perfectly the theist, the atheist has to be able to think of God as the theist does, as bearing utmost relevance to everything thinkable. But for this, he would have to go through the same long meditative process that the theist did in building up his own concept of God.Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof - Section 5

    ...and you reduce it to, "Anyone who disagrees with the argument has not spent sufficient time." :roll: Klima doesn't say that at all. You are projecting your own eristics into the paper and diminishing the thread with these petty imputations of bad motives.

    I can understand why you would be frustrated with a stubborn argument like Anselm's, but ad hominem misrepresentation is not a great way to deal with that frustration.

    Note how Roark critiques the argument instead of resorting to ad hominem or reading things into the paper that simply are not there.

    Klima anticipates your sophistry:

    [we] should not seek sheer “winning” in a debate (for that is the concern of sophists)Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof - Section 5

    Someone like yourself who is motivated primarily by the fear that Klima might "win" a "debate," and who reads everything he writes through that petty, childish lens, simply does not understand philosophy. And I should think you also do a disservice to atheists, who are not all so petty, fearful, and closed-minded.
  • tim wood
    9.4k
    Thank you for a lengthy non-answer to a simple question. The question was,
    It is time for you to make explicitly clear what exactly you think Anselm's proof proves and briefly how/why. Just Anselm and you, no one else. Can you do that?tim wood

    I'll even help. Whatever is crude here you're welcome to refine or discard:
    1) Issue. Whether God exists in reality.
    2) Rule. Whatever can be conceived is exceeded in greatness by its existence in reality.
    3) Argument. God, conceived as that than which & etc. - as the limit of greatness - and by application of the rule that the greater greatness exists in reality, must therefore exist in reality.
    4) Conclusion. God exists in reality.

    So. Do you hold that Anselm does, or does not, prove that God exists in reality?
  • Banno
    26.1k
    For my own purposes, I'll summarise my response to the article.

    The first section advocates an account of meaning in terms of the intent of the speaker or user of the language, so that a reference refers to what the speaker intends it to refer to. Relying on intent fails to account for many aspects of language use. Relying on intent also renders the context opaque, since someone's intent can only be inferred from what they say and do. This is particularly clear in the mooted "object of thought", which seems to be very much the sort of thing rejected by the Private Language argument.

    This opacity carries in to the argument proper in section two, were god is defied as a thought-object. This is perhaps most apparent at line five, were the thought-object is substituted into a thought in order to construct a contradiction, despite it not being obvious that this substitution can be done salva veritate. The argument also defines god as the maximum element in a sequence that may have no limits. There is a move from ens rationis to ens reale, that can be brought out by using Free Logic. Finally, that the first assumption, "God is only in the intellect", is the one that must be rejected is not satisfactorily argued.

    Section three addresses Anselm's second ontological argument, and has similar problems to the first argument. But in addition there is the problem of how to deal with a necessary being without the consequence of modal collapse. Here are also offered three defences of the argument, which seem inadequate.

    And here we begin to see the thesis of the article: that those who disagree with the argument have not understood the idea of god.

    Section four returns to the theory of reference, The problem with the article's argument here is clear enough: how could we know that "the questioner thinks of the same thought object as the answerer"? And further, how can the "thought-object" in the mind of the saint be said to be the same as the "thought-object" in the head of the fool - and indeed, how could they be said to be different?

    The final section sets out an account of Aquinas' rejection of Anselm's argument, on the grounds that the non-believer may well not accept that the sequence of greatness has a limit. Klima's thesis is here explicated somewhat. Those who have not agreed with the argument do so becasue they do not have an adequate understanding of god; and that their understanding is inadequate is shown by their not accepting that the sequence of greatness has a limit. The circularity of this approach is obvious.

    The ontological argument may well be a way for the theist to grasp what it is they believe. But there are sufficient problems with the argument for it to be discounted as a demonstration of theism. Of course it does not follow that there is no god. Similarly the thesis of this article, that those who disagree with the argument have not understood the idea of god, may give solace to believers but is dependent on an approach to reference that ignores the communal dynamics of language.

    I've enjoyed reading this article in detail, so thanks for this thread. In the end I doubt that anything is changed by such rumination, but they can be entertaining. Ontological shock, the surprise we feel at there being something rather than nothing, is not answered by such discussions. To my eye it is more honest to simply admit that there are things we do not, and perhaps cannot, understand.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    As for Leon's insults - that I troll, I lack any real skills of reading comprehension, my posts are full of weird shit; oddly, I "bury (my) head in the sand and moves on as if nothing has occurred" - not sure how one can move on with one's head in the sand - my posts are driven by emotion, I haven't read the paper, I've hijacked the thread, I shit on everything, I do not engage in authentic dialogue, But most confusingly, I'm both a logical positivist and yet a solipsist.

    I'm not sure it's me who is having an emotional response here.

    Klima is supposedly "trying to build a bridge to mutual understanding" based on the claim that those who do not agree with his argument have not understood the nature of god; yet the basis for the claim that they have not understood the nature of god is that they do not agree with the argument. Hmm.

    Now I think I have provided a reasonable response to the very few actual replies to what I have said. Kripke does emphasis descriptions, in order to reject the descriptivist theory of reference. Both Klima and Aquinas accept the criticism I offered, after Gaunilo, on the definition of "greatest". If there is something that you, gentle reader, think needs addressing, let me know, I'm still here.

    I'm not happy that Leon is so upset. It's a topic that is for some very close to their identity. Putting up a thread is putting one's balls on the anvil, so to speak, and occasionally things do not go as expected. Being gainsaid is part of being on these forums. Thanks again, Leon, for starting this thread. But I am not responsible for your reaction to my posts.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    3.2k


    You apparently do not understand your own terms. Or maybe you do. I should like to see you make the sandwich of which you have an idea. Of course you won't need anything at all from the grocery store, yes? Or for that matter anything at all that can be called real, or that exists, right? It's ideas all the way down that you're somehow going to make real.

    Now I agree you can think about a corned beef on rye, and you can make or buy a real corned beef on rye sandwich. And I will wager that you can tell the difference between the idea of a sandwich and a real sandwich. You can, can't you?

    The two terms distinguish what can be real, and what, as idea, cannot be. That's what it says. Maybe read it again?

    I see what you're saying now. The idea is that something with independent existence, like a fox or a sandwich, can be an intentional object of thought. So, St. Anselm's question is whether or not God exists only as an intentional object of human thought, an entity with dependent existence, or is an entity with independent existence. That something is an intentional object of thought does not preclude it being an independent entity. If it did, all the concepts we use to think could never be related to anything that exists outside our mind.

    At least in the framework Anselm is assuming, that something is an object of thought doesn't preclude it from being ens reale (this would be a "first intention"). You bring up an interesting point though, because in modern representationalism we might make a stronger distinction here. Still, most representationalists will allow that the objects of thought can have existence independent of the mind, elsewise it seems that the world would be epistemically inaccessible. This actually seems particularly problematic for those who would claim that we only ever experience mental representations.



    Yes, if A is possibly necessary than it is necessary. Plantinga has an intuitive explanation of this. If something is possibly necessary then it is necessary in at least one possible world. But to be necessary is to be necessary in all possible worlds.

    That seems unobjectionable. However, "if any thing is necessary, then everything is necessary" or essentially "either everything is contingent or nothing is," seems to be problematic for a system that's supposed to let us discuss modality. I can't find any source that discusses this consequence though.

    Plantinga argues that God's creative acts are contingent and that if God is possible then God is necessary.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    It's a subtle point, I supose.

    Consider "It is raining". It is possible that it is raining, but it is not necessary that it is raining - there are possible worlds in which it is not raining. So we don't move from it being possible that it is raining to it being necessary that it is raining.

    But then consider "god exists". If we start by considering that it is possible that god exists, as is done in the second of Anselm's arguments, and move to the conclusion that it is necessary that god exists, we have a formulation that goes from ◇P to ◇☐P. That is what brings about modal collapse - we can apply the axiom ◊□P→□P to get from ◇P to ☐P.

    So if we say that it is possible and that god is a necessary being, modal logic collapses.

    In effect, in saying that it is possible for god to be necessary, one is saying it is both possible and necessary that god exists. A contradiction. So anything follows, including that everything is necessary.

    Plantiga's proof smuggles in necessity by saying god is possibly necessary.

    So we can say that god is possible, or that god is necessary, but not both. That is, the move in the ontological argument from god being possible to his being necessary is void.

    Added:
    ...one is saying it is both possible and necessary that god exists...Banno
    But if god is necessary, then it must be possible for god to exist? Sure, ☐p→◇p in S5. But not ◇p ^ ☐p.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    While I'm here, the equation of independent existence and necessity is also fraught. These are two quite independent ideas, conflated.

    That something exists independently does not imply that it exists in every possible world. And that something is found in every possible world does not imply that it's existence is not dependent.

    Again, possible world semantics shows us were we have been led astray.

    (added: @tim wood, was that your point?)
  • tim wood
    9.4k
    So, St. Anselm's question is (1) whether or not God exists only as an intentional object of human thought, an entity with dependent existence, or (2) is an entity with independent existence.Count Timothy von Icarus

    It collapses, I think, into the question of the real existence of God - and the only definition of the term "God" so far is the that than which & etc. The qualification of "independent existence" also seems useful. I take that to mean it is something that an idea, being something that "exists dependently," is not. And that distinction being exactly that between ens rationis and ens reale.

    In order for Anselm to answer the question you attribute to him, he would first have to ask it. I do not believe he ever did. I choose this as a sample sentence of Anselm's:

    "Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the
    understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one,
    than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is
    no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it
    exists both in the understanding and in reality."

    So much is wrong with this it's tiring even to think about breaking it down. But if you think it stands as a proof, then that effort becomes necessary. Do you think it proves anything? If yes, what?

    If not a proof, then, what is it? I doubt Anselm thought it proved anything. The clues lie in his preliminary remarks. It is a meditation on his beliefs.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    It is a meditation on his beliefs.tim wood
    This may be the only way to make sense of it.

    There's more on modal collapse, with comments on Plantinga, in the SEP article on divine simplicity. A slightly different, but related, use to the one I made of the modal collapse argument here. "The MCA’s main value is as a concrete point of entry into this constellation of difficult questions."
  • NotAristotle
    396
    Here is my first impression of the paper:

    The proof relies on "thought objects" and an intentional theory of reference. Wherein the thought object referred to by the saint, in a locution of constitution reference, is God, the saint attributes to this "object" "that than which nothing greater can be thought." It is precisely that the thought object God, referred to constitutively by the saint, that is not referred to constitutively by the atheist. Rather, the atheist wants to deny that the thought object picked out by the intention towards God has the description "that than which nothing greater can be thought," and thereby refers to God only by parasitic reference to what the saint is proposing after reflection.
  • Leontiskos
    3.7k
    - Yes, that seems fairly accurate to me. :up:

    The takeaway is that parasitic reference is possible, that it is different from modern conceptions such as Kripke's, that it helps resolve some of the disputes about possibilism, etc.
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