(August 10, 2023 at 8:20 am)Belacqua Wrote: Let's imagine that Socrates is pale. Then he goes out in the sun for a while and gets a suntan.
The suntan depends for its existence on Socrates. Even though other people had tans before him, Socrates's suntan depends for its existence on him.
If the suntan goes away, Socrates continues to exist. If Socrates goes away, then his suntan disappears also. Therefore Socrates is ontologically prior to his suntan.
As you rightly point out, a suntan cannot have existence independent of a human being (it would be like a grinning cat disappearing and leaving a grin behind) but that is also precisely why one oughtn't make a comparison of the two. They don't fit in the same class of being.
(August 10, 2023 at 8:20 am)Belacqua Wrote:Quote:LinuxGal
It's like claiming an actual god is greater than the mere idea of a god.
I see no relation of this claim to the idea of ontological dependency.
Anselm's Ontological Argument argues that since God is, by definition, the greatest there is, and since the concept of God in fact exists, one is obliged to assign existence to an actual God, because an actual God is greater than a mere concept of one. Setting aside the absurdity of making existence an attribute, the argument relies on treating an actual God and human thoughts of God in the same ontological class (which to an atheist is true, but for the purpose at hand, they are apples and oranges).
