In what way or sense false? If you're defending Anselm, then defend. If you find error in what I write, then make clear what the error is. Omnipotence means in this context God's being able to do anything. Surely if there is anything he cannot do, then he is not omnipotent. Surely a perfect God, or at least one "than which &etc, would not have unnecessary or superfluous powers, so omnipotence directly implies something to be omnipotent about - something, a task, that needs doing for something to be perfected. And only God can do it, and thus thereby Himself obliged.I think the error is, "He is omnipotent, which means he can do anything, which means there are things to be done, which means that he is obliged to do them." Those last two (bolded) inferences both look to be false, and particularly the last one. — Leontiskos
Surely a perfect God, or at least one "than which &etc, would not have unnecessary or superfluous powers, so omnipotence directly implies something to be omnipotent about - something, a task, that needs doing for something to be perfected. And only God can do it, and thus thereby Himself obliged. — tim wood
Sure! Above Janus said and you endorsed that God, as that than which & etc, must be omnipotent, omnipotence being the greater. I simply observe that while perhaps one can be that than which & etc., or be omnipotent, that to be both becomes contradictory. @kazan gets it, why don't you? Or are you being disingenuous?I don't follow this reasoning at all. Is there an argument behind it? — Leontiskos
At this point, however, we have to notice that precisely the theory of reference outlined earlier as being implicit in Anselm’s argument offers the atheist a way out of his predicament. According to this theory, we should recall, what determines reference is primarily the intention of the speaker, whence it may be called the intentional theory of reference. — Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof: A Problem of Reference, Intentional Identity and Mutual Understanding - Section 4
But then, the same thought object may be intended also by another mind, which may not endow the same thought object with the same properties, i.e. it may conceive of the same thought object, but not as having the same properties.
…
The atheist, however, can then think of the same thought object, but not think that the description applies to it, whence he is not forced to conclude to whatever valid implications the description may have concerning that thought object. — Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof - Section 4
Anselm claims that when the Fool said in his heart: “There is no God”, he could do so only because he did not know correctly what he was speaking about […], as he simply did not understand the word “God” properly. — Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof - Section 3
It's simple. You appear to think that omnipotence is the greater. That in order to be the than which & etc., the than which & etc must be omnipotent. But I conceive of a being that has no need of omnipotence, and that being the greater.(I think this gets at tim wood's point as well.) — Leontiskos
It's simple. You appear to think that omnipotence is the greater. That in order to be the than which & etc., the than which & etc must be omnipotent. But I conceive of a being that has no need of omnipotence, and that being the greater. — tim wood
(This subject is interesting because a lot of new forms of theism reject omnipotence. But does that mean they would find Anselm's first premise incompatible with their God?) — Leontiskos
As to the good or morality, your being must be absolutely good and moral, yes? — tim wood
Pay attention! Above I specified my response was to a remark by Janus that you endorsed!I addressed this in my ↪post to Kazan. — Leontiskos
Kripke showed that speaker's reference may differ from semantic reference. However, he also showed that a name may refer to it's referent regardless of any description, and indeed in the absence of any description.For Saul Kripke this indicates that speaker’s reference may diverge from semantic reference. 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.
1. Is parasitic reference coherent? — Leontiskos
Do we think that a being which is omnipotent is greater than a being that is not? Because maybe someone would say, "If it is an evil being then the omnipotence would make it lesser, not greater." — Leontiskos
Roark has his own critique. I would have to look at it more, but on first glance his main counter seems too strong. He argues that the atheist should be happy to allow that they are only engaged in parasitic reference because the theist's definition requires a framing that at least allows for the possibility of liar's type paradoxes. However, showing the mere possibility of paradox is far weaker than demonstrating a paradox. — Count Timothy von Icarus
And so we are now situated to appreciate the dialectical weight of the proper conclusion of Klima’s argument, as it was specified in Section 3. The consistent atheist should be quite comfortable admitting that one cannot think of God as a mere thought object (i.e. as existing only in the intellect) when one conceives of God under Anselm’s description. In fact, we ought to regard Klima’s argument (properly understood) as a way of making this point explicit insofar as it derives in a formal way from the Anselmian concept of God the impossibility of thinking that He does not exist in reality. So when the atheist denies that God exists, he is not saying of the thing than which nothing can be thought greater, that it (conceived as such) does not exist; rather, he is saying of the thing that the theist (mistakenly, by his lights) thinks of as that than which nothing greater can be thought, that it does not exist. He does not himself think of God as the thing than which nothing greater can be thought. After all, he is an atheist, and to think of anything as that than which nothing greater can be thought requires thinking of it as an existing thing. — Tony Roark, Conceptual Closure in Anselm's Proof, 9
I should like to see the demonstration of this. That or at least a somewhat rigorous definition of what it means to exist. Above @Leontiskos offered that the ordinary understanding would suffice. But it has been pointed out that anything that exists has fixed qualities and quantities, and it is easy enough to imagine beings with greater quantities and qualities.and to think of anything as that than which nothing greater can be thought requires thinking of it as an existing thing. — Tony Roark, Conceptual Closure in Anselm's Proof, 9
I should like to see the demonstration of this. That or at least a somewhat rigorous definition of what it means to exist
The speaker's reference, given by pointing to Kaplan, is Kaplan. The intended reference, given by the name "Kripke", is Kripke. Hence it is not always the case that the speaker's reference is the one that satisfies the speaker's intent. Which is to make the obvious point that what someone is talking about does not always align with what they think they are talking about.
This is a generic problem with accounts of reference in terms of speaker's intent. Reference is a communal activity, and so not reliant simply on the intent of the speaker.
In fact the question I posed to you about how one is to untangle God's existence from an acknowledgment of God's existence gets straight into the follow-up exchange between Klima and Roark, which makes sense since it was Roark who gave you the idea to phrase it that way.
And this is the problem. Roark takes it, Anselm takes it, Klimas takes it. So-and-so takes it. And it's the taking that's in question. Look, I can prove the moon is made of green cheese, thus:Roark takes it.... — Count Timothy von Icarus
The existence between a real thing and a mere object of thought can be had by thinking of having an ice cream sundae, or a sail boat, or a Porsche, or anything else you might consider pretty great, and contrasting its mere mental existence with what it would mean to really have it. — Count Timothy von Icarus
In some cases, someone uses the wrong name and their intended reference is still communicated clear as day. That's how these examples usually work, by setting up scenarios where both the intended reference and what is referenced according to convention (and the difference between the two) are readily apparent to any competent speaker of the language. In which case, if both intentions and conventional meaning are clearly communicated, why try to claim only one is signified? Why not both? Language is redundant and people do things like point because its a clear sign of intentions that will overcome errors in convention. It's a false dichotomy to suppose that words either signify a speaker's intent or they signify according to convention, but never both, so "simply" is the key word in your last sentence. But no one outside of a joke character in a children's book has ever proposed that words "simply" mean what is intended by them. — Count Timothy von Icarus
To the quote from Roark, I do wonder if "parasitic reference" is the right solution here. It seems possible to also frame it as a sort of mental bracketing. So, one can consider the idea of God and affirm that it implies its own affirmation, but then, outside the bracketing, deny that any concept should be able to imply its own affirmation. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Parasitic reference to each other’s thought objects between people not sharing each other’s beliefs seems to be a ubiquitous phenomenon. The most sensitive cases are, of course, those that involve people’s most basic beliefs, such as religious belief. Accordingly, parasitic reference is a phenomenon to be seriously reckoned with not only in dialogues between theists and atheists, but also between people of different religious faith. — Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof: A Problem of Reference, Intentional Identity and Mutual Understanding - Section 5
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