RE: The classic ontological argument
October 2, 2024 at 1:48 am
(This post was last modified: October 2, 2024 at 1:49 am by The Grand Nudger.)
In anselms understanding it's not a binary proposition of things which do and do not exist. God, to be god, must not only exist, it must not only have the greatest this and that other thing, it must also..tautologically, have the most existence. Anselms argument, reduced to it's most essential terms, is that nothing can have more existence than the thing that has the most existence, therefore god must exist. It was a theist, kant, who offered the definitive modal criticism of anselms formulation - stating that existence is not a real predicate. You cannot have "more" of a thing which is not an actual quantity. Kant argued that there were at least two modalities. One that concerns the truth of judgements, and another that concerns the existence of things. By taking a set of assertions that, for generosity and brevity's sake, we'll accept as true about one modality, and forming a conclusion about a wholly different one, anselm made the forced error of invalidating his own argument for god. Forced, in this case, because there is no other way to premise this argument from within the confines of christian neoplatonism without making such an error.
The church subsequently abandoned it and neoplatonism like a common altar boy.
The church subsequently abandoned it and neoplatonism like a common altar boy.
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