It seems, therefore, that all that Anselm’s proof requires is that modicum of rationality which is needed to understand a simple descriptive phrase, to reflect on what the description implies, and to conclude to these implications concerning the thought object one has in mind as a result of understanding the description.
If you understand the phrase “something which cannot be thought not to exist”, you have to think of something which cannot be thought not to exist. But what cannot be thought not to exist is certainly greater than anything that can be thought not to exist. So, if that than which nothing greater can be thought of were something that can be thought not to exist, then something greater than that than which nothing greater can be thought of could be thought of, which is impossible. Therefore, that than which something greater cannot be thought of cannot be thought not to exist.
Just like Zeus, eh? Btw, do you stop to think about what omnipotent means and implies? Is omnipotence the greater thing?
Then there is the question of what, exactly, a thought object is, and if it is of a being than which & etc., then what do we know about the idea? And in particular how that idea, or any idea about the idea, becomes constitutive of anything "existing in reality"? — tim wood
Edit: This is also a reply to ↪Count Timothy von Icarus. The non-theist need not maintain that the various notions of "unlimited being" are unintelligible, but can agree that it may be intelligible to some degree while maintain that it has not been demonstrated that this "unlimited being" is the same as say the Christian god, or indeed any god
Sure, but the rejection of particularly Christian revelation doesn't affect the ontological argument at all. — Count Timothy von Icarus
That there is stuff may be a mystery, but there is no need to prefer the answer supposedly given by the ontological argument, especially since that argument is fraught with problems. — Banno
On the argument, there seems to be a few issues. The first is "greater than." — Count Timothy von Icarus
To contradict this is to say that a thought object is not thought to be greater in virtue of its being thought to exist. Or simplified: fiction is as good as the real thing - a fiction that is in fact realized is no greater than an unrealized fiction (where both are thought objects). — Leontiskos
But we might suppose that such a concept is hard to fully take in. — Count Timothy von Icarus
that the argument could suffer from a premise that is not as well known as its conclusion — Count Timothy von Icarus
This is relevant in that infinite, unlimited being is often called upon to ground metaphysics. The claim that this is "unintelligible" while putting forth "it just is, for no reason at all" as the root explanation for everything is more than a little ironic, particularly when the ad hoc appeal to brute fact is paired with eliminativism or deflationism re causes, such that everything "just is" and explanation seems to be little more than a hallucination resulting from inexplicable constant conjunction in the first place (isn't this just epistemic nihilism with extra steps?) — Count Timothy von Icarus
Arguably, the argument simply proves that the atheist cannot deny God (i.e. the being greater than which no being can be thought) without affirming a contradiction. So, it shows that we should affirm the existence of God, on pain of being fools or misologes. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Omnipotence is the greatest power. It doesn't follow it is the greatest good or knowledge. God is traditionally conceived as being the greatest everything, so all other things being equal and omnipotent God would be greater than a God whose powers were limited. — Janus
Just like Zeus, eh? Btw, do you stop to think about what omnipotent means and implies? Is omnipotence the greater thing? — tim wood
Arguably, the argument simply proves that the atheist cannot deny God (i.e. the being greater than which no being can be thought) without affirming a contradiction. So, it shows that we should affirm the existence of God, on pain of being fools or misologes. — Count Timothy von Icarus
However, this itself does not prove "that God exists." We could consider here Brouwer and other's objections to the use of proof by contradiction in existence proofs in mathematics. So, there is a possible distinction here. And perhaps, having taken the conclusion in this way, we could dismiss some of the criticisms re "proofs cannot demonstrate existence," (what about existence theorems?) or "existence simpliciter must somehow be assumed somewhere in the premises" (I think it's fairly obvious that it isn't in Anselm's formulations though). — Count Timothy von Icarus
"existence simpliciter must somehow be assumed somewhere in the premises" — Count Timothy von Icarus
The wonder of Anselm's proof is that it does something that we think it should not be able to do, and it is very hard to say why it is wrong, or at least to say why rigorously. At this point the argument looks to be sound. It is valid and there are no premises that are clearly or demonstrably false. — Leontiskos
Part 3. The Atheist, Who is Not a Fool — Leontiskos
Anselm’s retort, that the Fool’s denial was possible in the first place only because he is truly a fool, thoughtlessly mumbling words he himself does not understand, leads us directly to the crux of the very possibility of a dialogue between the Saint and the Fool, or put in less biased terms, between the theist and the atheist. — Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof: A Problem of Reference, Intentional Identity and Mutual Understanding - Section 3
But even without these moral implications, it seems that the theist now may justifiably claim that, as a result of his denial, the atheist just rendered himself unable to think of a humanly otherwise thinkable thought object. By denying the existence of God the atheist will never be able to think of the same God as the theist, whose conception of God logically implies the existence of God, as Anselm’s proof shows. — Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof: A Problem of Reference, Intentional Identity and Mutual Understanding - Section 3
The argument professes to prove that; but it doesn't succeed, for the reasons given.
The formally regimented argument is pretty clearly valid, and none of the premises of which it is alleged to be a formalization is obviously objectionable. The first premise simply articulates Anselm’s conception of God as the thought object than which no thought object can be thought greater.5 The second premise is just the reductio assumption that God is a mere thought object. As for the third premise—the claim that thought objects that can be thought to exist in reality can be thought to be greater than mere thought objects—one might allege (as Klima himself does) that it is analytic by virtue of the meaning of ‘greater than’. Finally, one might convince himself of the truth of the fourth premise—the claim that God can be thought to exist in reality—by introspection. So Klima’s claim that these premises ‘have to be accepted as true’ is initially plausible.
Tony Roark - Conceptual Closure in Anselm’s Proof
If the argument is to hold, the it must not be possible for it to be in error. Accordingly it is not incumbent on the fool to show that one of the premisses must be false; but only that it might be false. So indeed, there is a clear way in which one can supose “something which cannot be thought not to exist", and understand that such a thing entails a contradiction. “something which cannot be thought not to exist" may well occupy much the same space as "a number greater than any other" or "A triangle with four sides" or even "The present king of France"; there may be no such thing.
Well this is related to what ↪Count Timothy von Icarus said about the notion of unlimited (although it is more precisely about power than general unlimitedness). 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." And of course no one thinks it is greater to be evil than to be good, so presumably it would not be an evil being, but the idea brings out your difference between moral (?) goodness and and a form of greatness which prescinds from the moral.
Right, I am following what you are saying here. But the difficulty is that affirmation of existence separates from existence, or something like that. Right? If the argument proves that we should affirm the existence of God without proving that God exists, then how does that work? Or do we want to take a half-step back and say that it proves that the atheist cannot deny God without proving that we should affirm the existence of God? (But that seems to fall away from Anselm.) So how would we address these difficulties?
Do you think it isn't? Do you think premise (1) does not bring with it omnipotence? — Leontiskos
Omnipotence is the greatest power. It doesn't follow it is the greatest good or knowledge. God is traditionally conceived as being the greatest everything, so all other things being equal an omnipotent God would be greater than a God whose powers were limited. — Janus
Can one ever totally eliminate the possibility of error? Is "error is possible," without pointing out any clear error a good counter to other demonstrations? — Count Timothy von Icarus
Right, and this perhaps touches on the theological concerns that came to the fore during the Reformation, that only doing what is best would somehow be a limit on divine sovereignty and power. I personally think this sort of concern doesn't hold water. Defining freedom in terms of potency leads to contradiction (e.g. the demonstrations at the opening of Hegel's Philosophy of Right) and so the notions that lead to a renewed salience for Euthyphro dilemmas in the early modern period seem to simply be flawed. This is relevant inasmuch as people claim that God is "unthinkable" due to these supposed "paradoxes." — Count Timothy von Icarus
We could also consider abductive arguments. There, we might have strong reasons to affirm the existence of something. It would be unreasonable to deny it. And yet this is also not a demonstration that it exists. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Indeed, we might say that a demonstration that shows that God exists in the same manner as both our conceptions of God's existence and the real existence of all other things would be guilty of equivocation. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Choosing the first alternative would amount to claiming that God’s concept is contradictory. [...] In any case, in Anselm’s argument the concept of God to bevemployed is adequately specified by the first premise, and the atheist would probably be hard pressed to show that the description “that than which nothing greater can be thought of” is self-contradictory. — Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof - Section 3
At this point, however, the atheist may shift the burden of proof by saying that even if this description does not seem to contain any prima facie contradiction, it may well be contradictory. By way of analogy, he may bring up the description: “the greatest prime number”, which, on the face of it, does not appear to be contradictory, so it seems to refer to the greatest prime number. But, as we know from Euclid, the assumption that there is a greatest prime number leads to contradiction, so the description cannot refer to anything. — Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof - Section 3
Second, he can say that a contradiction, if derivable at all, could be derived from this description only with the help of other assumptions, just as in the case of the greatest prime. But, unlike the case of the greatest prime, these auxiliary assumptions probably need not be accepted as true. — Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof - Section 3
Finally, concerning Anselm’s argument one can also say that the premise attacked by the atheist does not even require that Anselm’s description should be free from such implied contradictions. For the premise requires only that one can think that God (under Anselm’s description) exists, which one can do even with the greatest prime, until one actually realizes the implied contradiction. So the burden of proof falls back upon the atheist, if he wishes to challenge this premise. — Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof - Section 3
So, since [the atheist] denies that the description applies to any thought object he can think of, he just does not have such a thought object in his mind, while he perfectly understands what is meant by this description. — Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof - Section 3
2. There is a sleight of hand from ens rationis to ens reale, somewhat hidden here but brought out in Free Logic by the invalidity of a move from Ti to E!i. — Banno
We actually saw this play out two days ago in the midst of a discussion on Mario Bunge, who admits of conceptual existence and who treats existence as a first-order predicate. A response was as follows:
[...]
That is, the assumption is that Bunge must be working with two mutually exclusive subclasses, at least "in effect." This is the sort of objection that Klima has in his sights. How does he address this objection?... — Leontiskos
4. The argument relies on a substitution within an intensional context, at line (5), that is not justified. — Banno
If it be insisted that He is omnipotent, that implies that He can do anything, implying that there are things to be done, implying that of the things to be done, they are at present in an unperfected state needing to be perfected, implying God a kind of glorified maintenance man obliged to go about perfecting what needs to be perfected. Omnipotence, then, straight out implies an imperfect God and an imperfect creation, contradicting any notion of a perfect all-everything being. — tim wood
Well... not so much. The definition (1) supposes that there is a greatest thing, which, even if we assume that "greatest" works in this way, is what is in question when we ask if there is a god. In combination with the other premises the argument is circular. That's not OK. But of course the argument has to be circular in order to be valid....the argument looks ok at first glance. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Perhaps not, but here the error is set before you.Can one ever totally eliminate the possibility of error? — Count Timothy von Icarus
Roark has his own critique. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I'll not reply to this directly. — Banno
Perhaps not, but here the error is set before you. — Banno
Klima offers the fool a rhetorical exit — Banno
There are those who think that what a word means is what the speaker intends it to mean, and nothing more. So if the fool intends "four sided shape" by "triangle", then that's an end to it, and communication simply fails. — Banno
But of course there is such a justification, which can be seen in the ongoing conversations and interactions amongst us; — Banno
Here he offers three replies to the fool. The first is that theology has shown that the concept of god can be made consistent; of course, the fool will disagree. The second, that any contradiction must be derived from auxiliary assumptions; but the problem is not one of contradiction, it is of circularity and ambiguous definition. The third, the familiar insistence that all that is assumed is that one can conceive of god; ignoring premise 3.At this point, however, the atheist may shift the burden of proof by saying that even if this description does not seem to contain any prima facie contradiction, it may well be contradictory. By way of analogy, he may bring up the description: “the greatest prime number”, which, on the face of it, does not appear to be contradictory, so it seems to refer to the greatest prime number. But, as we know from Euclid, the assumption that there is a greatest prime number leads to contradiction, so the description cannot refer to anything.
In response, the theist first of all can point to the whole tradition of rational (as opposed to mystical) theology showing how apparent contradictions concerning God’s nature are resolved.17 Second, he can say that a contradiction, if derivable at all, could be derived from this description only with the help of other assumptions, just as in the case of the greatest prime. But, unlike the case of the greatest prime, these auxiliary assumptions probably need not be accepted as true. Finally, concerning Anselm’s argument one can also say that the premise attacked by the atheist does not even require that Anselm’s description should be free from such implied contradictions. For the premise requires only that one can think that God (under Anselm’s description) exists, which one can do even with the greatest prime, until one actually realizes the implied contradiction. So the burden of proof falls back upon the atheist, if he wishes to challenge this premise. Therefore, he has to turn to the other premise anyway, asking whether he has to admit God as at least a possible object of thought.
Yep.He is summarizing the Anselm-Gaunilo exchange, and this is transparent in the paper. — Leontiskos
The first is that theology has shown that the concept of god can be made consistent; — Banno
The third, the familiar insistence that all that is assumed is that one can conceive of god; ignoring premise 3. — Banno
This occurred in ↪this post of mine and explicitly in its final paragraph. — Leontiskos
Taking the example from the text, one can clearly conceive of a greatest prime, and then look to see if such a thing makes sense. One can proceed, as has been done, to show that it involves a contradiction, thereby showing that a greatest prime does not exist.In response to this question the atheist now may claim that the way Anselm wishes to force him to think of God will not make him admit that God is even in the intellect, at least, in his intellect, despite the fact that he understands very well what Anselm means by his description, which may not be contradictory after all. For understanding this description does not require him to believe that it applies to anything, so understanding this description will not make him think of anything that he thinks to be such that nothing greater than it can be thought of. So, since he denies that the description applies to any thought object he can think of, he just does not have such a thought object in his mind, while he perfectly understands what is meant by this description.
And here, the fool is "simply unable to think of the same thought object" as the theist. The thought in the theists head is different to the thought in the fools's head, and never the twain; together with as much disparaging of the fool as can be mustered.But here the theist swoops down: of course, the atheist is just a fool! Indeed, a wicked fool, who, only because of his insistent denial, admits to be simply unable to think of the same thought object that I think of, that is, God. With this last move the atheist just revealed himself for the miserable fool he is, for in order to maintain his untenable position he simply gives up his otherwise natural human ability to think of God, that than which nothing greater can be thought of. As Saint Bonaventure put it: “the intellect has in itself [...] sufficient light to repel this doubt and to extricate itself from its folly. Whence the foolish mind voluntarily rather than by constraint considers the matter in a deficient manner, so that the defect is on the part of the intellect itself and not because of any deficiency on the part of the thing known.”18
The issue 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?But throughout this process, the questioner thinks of the same thought object as the answerer, without knowing under what description or name the answerer identifies this thought object.
Intending to refer to the same thought-object but under a different description. "I'll have what she's having", involving some sort of telepathy, perhaps.Accordingly, if one mind entertains a thought object under some particular description, another mind may make what I would call parasitic reference to the same thought object, by merely intending to refer to the same thought object that the first conceives of, but not conceiving it under the same description, indeed, sometimes even denying that the description in question in fact applies to this thought object.
So on to Part Four. — Banno
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