what we think does not dictate the physical universe. If anything the physical universe strongly dictates what we are capable of thinking.

And please note that I am not denying that mystical or religious experience gives knowledge in some sense of the word, but just emphasizing the need to explain, give an account of, just what what that sense is, if it is to be a philosophically supportable claim that such experiences do yield knowledge. Vague suggestions about ancient 'lost' knowledge just will not cut it.

Thanks, that is helpful.

I am trying to pinpoint exactly where Western culture lost some fundamental elements of Platonist epistemology. I think was caused by the advent of nominalism and related developments in late medieval theology. One consequence of this is the loss of the sense of there being ‘degrees of reality’, or higher and lower forms of being - the sense that the way in which the ‘ground of being’ is real is completely different to the way in which phenomena and individuals are real. What is then lost is the understanding of the distinction between ‘creator and creature’, in those terms, resulting in God being depicted as a kind of ‘super-creature’, and reality as being basically one-dimensional, in which God is said to exist or not to exist. This is why there is no provision fo the concept of ‘higher knowledge’ in modern thought - because the vertical axis has been forgotten. As we ourselves are products of that very process, then it’s hard to turn around and understand what has happened. And, I say, understanding it requires a kind of meta-cognitive shift, which is provided by meditation.

Now I’ve started posting again, I will create a separate OP on these ideas and the sources for them.

The alternative to the idea that something indefinable has been lost in the process of the evolution of Western philosophy would seem to be that there is some inadequacy inherent from the start that has yet to be identified and addressed.

The modern mind will not return to Platonism, because the most plausible explanation for such ideas would seem to be reification. As far as I am aware, in Plato's time and before and probably for considerable time after, this idea, that generalities could easily and unwittingly be reified as transcendentally real universals, seems not to have occurred to anyone. Of course, I could be wrong about that, and I would be happy to be corrected by textual evidence to the contrary. In any case it would not seem to have been a commonly accepted notion, as it has become today.

Can't you replace "God" with any x? — anonymous66

No, you cannot replace God with any finite thing. It is one mark of finitude for an object to be different than its concept - or for the thought to be different from the being. A unicorn (as a concept) can be different from a unicorn as a being. A unicorn (as a concept) exists. It doesn't follow from that that the unicorn (as a being) must also exist. The same cannot be said about God (the infinite Being).

https://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Mode/ModeDeLo.htm

Like literally every 'ontological argument for God' ever, the OP assumes its conclusion. All the argument can show - all every such ontological argument can show - is that if God existed, the argument would hold true. — StreetlightX

Notice the material conditional, 'if'. The passage should read: 'If God existed only in our imaginations, he wouldn't be the greatest thing we can think of, because, if he existed, God in reality would be greater. Therefore, if God existed, God would exist in reality".

Every 'ontological argument for God' engages in this slight of hand: beginning with a material conditional and then silently dropping it along the way. Once you know to look out for it, its kinda fun to play the 'spot the illicit shift from conditioned to unconditioned (from 'if' to 'existence') in all 'ontological arguments'. The OP's phrasing, 'God in reality would be greater', actually retains the conditional lanaguge even as it pretends not to notice it. — StreetlightX

No. There is no "if" or material conditional at all. That's just a way to rephrase the content of the argument.

Take a look at Plantinga's formulation:

(1) God exists in the understanding, but not in reality (assumption for reductio).
(2) Existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone. (premise)
(3) A Being having all of God's properties plus existence in reality can be conceived. (premise)
(4) From (1) and (2), a being having all of God's properties plus existence in reality is greater than God.
(5) From (3) and (4), a Being greater than God can be conceived.
(6) It is false that a Being greater than God can be conceived (by definition).
(7) Hence, it is false that God exists in the understanding, but not in reality. — Alvin Plantinga

(1) God exists in the understanding, but not in reality (assumption for reductio).
(2) Existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone. (premise)
(3) A Being having all of God's properties plus existence in reality can be conceived. (premise)
(4) From (1) and (2), a being having all of God's properties plus existence in reality is would be greater than God.
(5) From (3) and (4), a Being greater than God can be conceived.
(6) It is false that a Being greater than God can be conceived (by definition).
(7) Hence, it is were God to exist, it would be false that God exists in the understanding, but not in reality. — Alvin Plantinga

Fixed it.

First I fixed the illegitimate use of 'is' in (4), which sneaks existence in through the back-door, and made it what it should be: a 'would be', insofar as, at this point, were still talking about a hypothetical being. But having made obvious that we're dealing with a hypothetical being, it becomes clear that (7) also deals with a hypothetical being: the whole 'proof' is simply definitional: it works by offering two different and incompatible definitions of God ((1) and (6)), and shows that by the standards of the second definition (in which no Being greater than God can be conceived - (6)), the first definition (1) is inadequate. Which of course follows, tautologically. To be super clear, this is what's happening:

(1) God is like X. (1)
(2) But according to my definition of God, God is not like X. ((2)-(6))
(3) Therefore God is not like X. (7)

Where X is 'does not exist in reality'.

It's a clever bit of sophistry that hides it's conditional nature a bit better than the traditional form of the argument, but is equally tautologically nonsensical - as all cosmological arguments are. Shame on those who take Plantinga seriously as a philosopher. In order to fully understand the depth of the conceit involved in this 'argument', there's a bit more to be said regarding how 'existence' is used equivocally here, but this is enough for the moment. 10 points to anyone who can see the problem with the use of 'existence' in it (hint: can existence be qualified?).

Plantinga's argument is a valid argument, but it is unsound or at least disputable for a number of reasons. To the extent that Plantinga himself admitted recently that his argument doesn't really show anything.

"Alvin Plantinga’s Surprisingly Deflationary Take on his own Ontological Argument"

I hate to self-advertise (but I'll allow myself to since I don't do these things anymore), but a few years back I did a long friggin' video covering Plantinga's modal version of the OA, covering how the argument works and a number of possible (zing!) criticisms of the argument and of the typical atheist responses to the argument that I find silly:



(sorry for the occasionaly audio-video hiccup. I recall the rendering goofing up on me at that time)

The long and short of all 'ontological arguments' is that there is no possible move from concept to existence. Even when they seem to discuss 'existence', it is always a second-order 'concept of existence' at stake, and never actual existence. So the basic trick is to look for points at which actual existence is surreptitiously slipped-in and silently substituted for conceptual/hypothetical existence. It's the one of the oldest, mostly easily identifiable tricks in the book which suckers continue to fall for.

(2*) The concept of a being that necessarily exists is logically coherent. — PossibleAaran

Actually, it is not all that clear what it means to say "The concept of a being that necessarily exists is logically coherent." I hold the same opinion as you regarding necessary existents: with no constraints on possible worlds other than the rules of logical inference, there should not be any. — SophistiCat

The "constraints on possible worlds" which is referred to here, is nothing more than the assumption of an actual world. As soon as we assume that there is an actual world, then all other possible worlds are constrained in the sense of being other than the supposed actual world. So the assumption of an actual world imposes this necessity on to all possible worlds.

Whether this assumption, that there is one world (the actual world) which has a completely different status from all the other possible worlds is "logically coherent", is highly doubtful. If one possible world is given the status of "actual world", this distinguishes it from the others, and it may be logically incoherent to categorize it as one of the possible worlds. It has been distinguished as other than the possible worlds. So it appears like we're stuck with the option of either accepting that all possible worlds are equally possible worlds, with no actual world, and no such thing as a being which necessarily exists, or else we have a designated actual world, but whatever it is that is made necessary by this designation of "actual world", is irrelevant to all the possible worlds, because of the designated difference between the actual world and the possible worlds.

The fundamental vision practitioners of this magic show about our reality, their true metaphysical framework, is a demonstration of the ideality of the real and the reality of ideation; so long as a magician is skilled and driven enough to dissolve the boundaries between the two. All spells ensnare a portion of our shared narrative, carve out the magician's place upon it through sheer will, and tear the new narrative screaming from the ideal into the real; from the immaterial to the material. Though often overlooked, the powers of chaos magic are pregnant in all uses of language: and what black arts this thread can teach.

Let me make sure I understand what you are saying here. 'God' does not exist prior to man's invention. The people who brought 'G' into existence, these magicians were able to "dissolve the boundaries between", "the ideality of the real and the reality of ideation", bringing 'G' into the real. The real which is at its base is an ideality for man.

I think it works the other way round, 'G' is fetishized, some what in the same way jimmy choo stilettos are fetish items, where their reality points to their ideality

Ontological arguments are examples of summoning magic.They work in the same way as a chaos magic summoning ritual, an array of symbols (premises and their entailment relations) are given the power to transform something from an ideal existence (something thought) to a real one (something actual). They do this with no imposition or restriction from the already actual. The mechanism is by taking the distinction between the actual and the ideal and dissolving it; which works by recognising it (assuming it) as already dissolved.

This is exactly what chaos magic does when summoning beings; interpretation and thought are fundamentally believed as a creative act embodied in a symbolic ritual (an argument here), and the target being: the one that's considered creatively through and with the symbols; is imbued with actuality by its embodiment in the symbols used in the ritual. It is as if actuality is contagious. This is a physical form of the modal collapse step in modal versions of the argument from 'possibly necessary => necessary'. Its analogue is 'ideal in actual (thought in symbol mark) => actual (full properties of the being are actualised exactly as imagined)'. It's also very similar to a theological insistence that the transubstantiation is literally Jesus' body and blood being consumed; the bread and the wine are actual versions of their mythological functions.

In essence, ontological arguments are attempts to summon God into actuality through the play of symbols. The God summoned is the one that passes through the words' meanings as their interpretation in the ritual (argument), being equal to their referent and (posited as, this is magic) already actual ground. Structurally, they are bundles of words which are (purported) literal sufficient conditions for an entity's existence, they are summoning magic.

The mechanism is by taking the distinction between the actual and the ideal and dissolving it; which works by recognising it (assuming it) as already dissolved — fdrake

What's actually interesting too is the way it does this: knowing that it's literally impossible to move from ideality to actuality, it begins in actuality ('God exists in thought', etc), but always a kind of deficient actuality. From here, two steps are necessary - first, showing how this beginning in actuality can't measure up to the ideality of what God 'ought' to be ('the greatest being conceivable'), and second, concluding from this failure of initial actuality that the ideality must therefore be the case. This three-step dance of sophistry is what characterizes every ontological argument, and also exposes it for the fraudulent magical thinking that, as you rightly point out, it is.

The distinction between actual and ideal things is usually subordinated in the argument through a relation with undetermined scope. In the 'greater than which cannot be conceived' formulation, it's the 'greater than' which ranges over ideal and actual, which means an existential proposition containing the 'greater than' relation ranges over a partitioned set of ideal and actual entities (which is typically set up explicitly in a premise). It makes sense that the more similar someone posits ideal and actual - or the more similar they set it up in the argument - the stronger the argument will seem. Possibly why the belief that things are more real the more they actualise their potentials and turning it up to 11 for the idea of God goes along with ontological arguments so well.

Modal arguments have the distinction dissolved in the background, hidden in the accessibility relation.
It's essentially a forgotten or usually unrepeated premise that all possible worlds and this world are in an equivalence relation. So the modal arguments take the form 'imagine that X is the case, by the nature of X X is possibly necessarily the case, so it's necessarily the case, so it's the case'. Equivalence accessibility relations conjure possibilities into actuality through necessity. If what can be imagined is all possible, then every imagined entity necessary to its associated narrative comes into being.

A highly rationalised form of black magic.

Fixed it. — StreetlightX

No, you haven't fixed it. You've made it into a non-sequitur.

(1) God exists in the understanding, but not in reality (assumption for reductio).
(2) Existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone. (premise)
(3) A Being having all of God's properties plus existence in reality can be conceived. (premise)
(4) From (1) and (2), a being having all of God's properties plus existence in reality is would be greater than God.
(5) From (3) and (4), a Being greater than God can be conceived.
(6) It is false that a Being greater than God can be conceived (by definition).
(7) Hence, it is false that God exists in the understanding, but not in reality. — Alvin Plantinga

As a non-native speaker, your change of "is" into "would be" in (4) seems fair. But this change does not solicit the corresponding change you've added to the conclusion, that's just arbitrary. In fact, the conclusion that follows can probably remain unchanged.

In fact, if we are to make it more exact, the change should be:

(1) God exists in the understanding, but not in reality (assumption for reductio).
(2) Existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone. (premise)
(3) A Being having all of God's properties plus existence in reality can be conceived. (premise)
(4) From (1) and (2), a being having all of God's properties plus existence in reality is would be greater than God.
(5) From (3) and (4), a Being greater than God can be conceived.
(6) It is false that a Being greater than God can be conceived (by definition).
(7) Hence, it is false that God would exists in the understanding, but not in reality. — Alvin Plantinga

Then we account for the hypothetical being, and the atheist has to show that God doesn't exist in the understanding.

Also, it's something that is exaggerated to think the argument is a sophism, when heavy-weights like even Hegel thought that it is important.

But, I will grant you this - the atheist does not have to show that the idea of God is incoherent or logically contradictory to deny the argument (as most people think). It suffices to show that the idea of God, (or the Absolute, or call it how you will) cannot exist in the (finite) understanding.

No, you haven't fixed it. You've made it into a non-sequitur. — Agustino

I didn't make it into a non-sequitur. It is a non-sequitur. As for this:

(7) Hence, it is false that God would exist in the understanding, but not in reality. — Alvin Plantinga

Leaving aside that you've changed the sentence structure so that it no longer reflects the proposition (1) that it needs to mirror so as to disprove (the entire point of the exercise), let's not forget that 'would' functions here as a conditional (grammatically, a 'second conditional'): every 'would' must be coupled with an 'if', or a least a condition under which it 'would be the case'. And that condition, in this case, is precisely... you guessed it, 'if God existed'. Hence the facile nature of all 'ontological arguments'.

Modal arguments have the distinction dissolved in the background, hidden in the accessibility relation. — fdrake

Yup. The modal crap is just another way of burying the petitio principii deeper and in a more technical and even less obvious way.

I didn't make it into a non-sequitur. It is a non-sequitur. — StreetlightX

Your version is a non-sequitur, since the conclusion you presented does not follow from the premises.

Leaving aside that you've changed the sentence structure so that it no longer reflects the proposition (1) that it needs to mirror so as to disprove (the entire point of the exercise) — StreetlightX

(1) is an assumption. The conclusion is in accordance with the assumption. That's why we say that it is false that God would exist in the understanding (assumption (1)) and not also in reality.

'would' must be coupled with an 'if' — StreetlightX

Even if this is granted, the "would" is coupled with the if of God existing in the understanding, not with the if of God existing in reality.

@Agustino

(3) A Being having all of God's properties plus existence in reality can be conceived. (premise)
(4) From (1) and (2), a being having all of God's properties plus existence in reality is greater than God.
(5) From (3) and (4), a Being greater than God can be conceived. — Alvin Plantinga

5) doesn't make sense. There's no conceptual difference between the Being in 3) and the supposed "greater" Being in 5). In both cases we conceive of a being with all of God's properties plus existence in reality.

It seems to retroactively change 3) to "A Being having all of God's properties plus existence in understanding only can be conceived".

5) doesn't make sense. — Michael

Why not? (3) establishes only that such a being can be conceived, not that it is also greater than God. It is (4) that establishes this. Thus (5) is a conclusion combining both (3) and (4) to tell us that a Being greater (the greater comes from (4)) than God (as conceived in assumption (1)) can be conceived.

In 3) we conceive of a being who has God's properties and exists in reality. According to 5) we can conceive of something greater than this. So what are we conceiving?

According to 5) we can conceive of something greater than this. So what are we conceiving? — Michael

No, "God" in (5) refers to the God we have conceived in (1). Greater than that God.

Then all the argument shows is that a being who is imagined to be real and have God's properties is greater than a being who is imagined to be imaginary and have God's properties. But there's no way to deduce from this that there is a being who is real and has God's properties.

God is defined as a being than which none greater can be imagined. If a being that is imagined to exist in reality is greater than a being that is imagined to exist in understanding alone then the first premise of the argument is:

1) [A being that is imagined to exist in reality ... ] exists in the understanding, but not in reality.

According to 5) we can imagine something greater, but this is wrong; we're just re-imagining the same thing – namely, a being that is imagined to exist in reality.

That the thing we imagine doesn't exist in reality isn't that we imagine it to not exist in reality. The argument is guilty of conflating these two different things.

The conclusion is in accordance with the assumption. — Agustino

Not in your formulation. Compare:

(1) God exists in the understanding, but not in reality [original]
(7) Hence, it is false that God would exist in the understanding, but not in reality. [Your forumlation]

If (1) is P, (7) is not ¬P. My formulation works because I've qualified the proposition. You've altogether changed it. This is just a failure of basic logical form, not to speak of content.

Even if this is granted, the "would" is coupled with the if of God existing in the understanding, not with the if of God existing in reality. — Agustino

You don't understand. The point of changing 'is' to 'would be' is to expose the fact that 'existence in the understanding' is hypothetical to begin with. To 'exist in the understanding' is precisely to not exist, or, if we want to be consistent and introduce some terminology, it is to have 'unactualized existence'. So the point is that the Being with 'existence in reality' is simply a 'better hypothetical', but a hypothetical nonetheless.

This is the whole conceit of the - in fact any - ontological proof: it grants existence to what, by definition, does not exist. It equivocates on the whole concept of existence, confusing, from the very beginning, ideality and actuality, as @fdrake rightly pointed out.

Then all the argument shows is that a being who is imagined to be real and have God's properties is greater than a being who is imagined to be imaginary and have God's properties. — Michael

Exactly right - and every single 'ontological argument' does this.

Then all the argument shows is that a being who is imagined to be real and have God's properties is greater than a being who is imagined to be imaginary and have God's properties.
— Michael — StreetlightX

These are the same things.

What about an imagined imaginary imagined God?
Surely such a thing would be "greater" for having to be more difficult to conceive?ad infinitem...

And then if YOU imagine an imagined imaginary imagined God, and ask me to imagine your conception of it, would that not be greater still?

Luckily, existence is bivalent: either something exists, or it does not. The rest, like your post, is word-play.

Doing something with an ideal object in a manner which treats it as ideal, like imagining a snark, is a lot different from doing something that treats the same object as real, like going outside for a snark hunt. Another example, coming up with a fictional character and telling a story about them is a lot different from having an imaginary friend you believe is real.

If the distinction between actions which treat some their involved objects as ideal entities - products of ideation in its broadest sense - and actions which treat all of their involved objects as actual entities - products of more than ideation in its broadest sense - is removed; that can land you in an asylum, for real. It removes the distinction between fantasy and reality, along with thoughts of things and things.

Or maybe you're a chaos magician!

I wanted to respond to this, from your posts and Deleuze studies I believe you think of existence univocally. How do you deal with different strata like ideal and actual?

I think of it disjunctively, like there's a list of distinct modes of being. Each mode has a bunch of different and possibly overlapping generating conditions. Eg we make ideas through ideation but we can't say that bricks are products of ideation alone.

I view it like: bricks are a composite of physical processes of individuation to make their constituents, coupled actual/ideational ones to take the constituents and turn them into a brick. Then its derived/imagined function ('being part of a wall') is ideal but the functioning itself plays out in actuality: its prescriptive ideal function ('what is to be done with the brick') and the virtual regularities that allow it are tightly linked in a manner that allows some kind of co-realisation, a tandem movement in actuality and ideality where its path is its potential carving itself out. The mechanism of this movement itself is the virtual form of existence.

I think of this virtual dimension of any individuating process (ideation or cement mixing/baking/shaping) as constraining immanence to that process; a developmental trajectory generated through other constitutive (cement mixing) or limiting (cement needs hardening to be a brick) individuating processes which simultaneously constrains the trajectory and pushes along it. In a more prosaic form, existence has a good analogy to water filling a cup. The water being the instigating developmental trajectories, the cup being the immanent limitation/demarcation of them, and the cup-filling as their constitutive (of the cup-filling) dynamical union.

So to be is to be involved in these processes in general. On topic, I'd say that God does indeed exist but is formed through ideational and discursive processes constrained by their own histories, and can act as an instigator and constraint in other processes; a myth that nevertheless has moved mountains.