RE: Ontological Arguments - A Comprehensive Refutation
March 13, 2014 at 3:00 pm
(This post was last modified: March 13, 2014 at 3:01 pm by Neo-Scholastic.)
@MFM, I agree with your modal factionalism position and have nothing to contribute.
With respect to sensible objects, I generally agree that every form has a substance and also the reverse, every substance has a form. However, your thought problem (one by one eliminating all properties) only applies to accidental properties.
For example, a pencil, a table, and a tool shed, may all be made from wood. Wood, as a substance, can take many forms, even if it always takes on some shape. In any collection of sensible objects, all the objects manifest being, not from an actually distinct formless substance (like you say), but with a substance capable of manifesting any form. Thus it makes sense to posit a fundamental substance (primal matter) having only one property, the propensity to be, that never occurs apart from an informing principle.
The above analysis would be incomplete without discussing the need for an informing principle. A different collection of objects like a granny smith apple, a blade of grass (be careful as you pass), and an a glass of Green River, all have the formal property of reflecting visible light between 5000 and 6000 angstroms.* Like the substance example above, in any collection of sensible objects, none exist as a disembodied form, but as an informing principle capable of manifesting in various substances . Thus it makes sense to posit a fundamental informing agency that acts through, but never apart from, primal matter.
*Here I careful distinguish between physical features of the sensible objects and the psychological responses of the mind, e.g. “green.”
With respect to sensible objects, I generally agree that every form has a substance and also the reverse, every substance has a form. However, your thought problem (one by one eliminating all properties) only applies to accidental properties.
For example, a pencil, a table, and a tool shed, may all be made from wood. Wood, as a substance, can take many forms, even if it always takes on some shape. In any collection of sensible objects, all the objects manifest being, not from an actually distinct formless substance (like you say), but with a substance capable of manifesting any form. Thus it makes sense to posit a fundamental substance (primal matter) having only one property, the propensity to be, that never occurs apart from an informing principle.
The above analysis would be incomplete without discussing the need for an informing principle. A different collection of objects like a granny smith apple, a blade of grass (be careful as you pass), and an a glass of Green River, all have the formal property of reflecting visible light between 5000 and 6000 angstroms.* Like the substance example above, in any collection of sensible objects, none exist as a disembodied form, but as an informing principle capable of manifesting in various substances . Thus it makes sense to posit a fundamental informing agency that acts through, but never apart from, primal matter.
*Here I careful distinguish between physical features of the sensible objects and the psychological responses of the mind, e.g. “green.”
