Why ontological arguments are illogical

[genkaus]

It depends on your definition of 'perfection', doesn't it? For example, if the "perfect" amount of beauty is defined as "that amount which minimizes suffering universally", then in your example the woman would not possess 'perfect' beauty.

Why the hell would I define perfect like that? The word already has a definition - "conforming absolutely to the description or definition of an ideal type".

The dictionary defines "perfect beauty"?

It defined "perfect" and it defines "beauty". Joining the two isn't a big leap.

I think we'd be better served by criticizing an actual ontological argument instead of just making wild characterizations about what features ontological arguments do and don't have.

I thought we were going with Leibniz. So how does he define perfection.

Well, we've each made our claims, and neither of us has provided evidence. Of course, this whole issue can be avoided by criticizing specific ontological arguments.

You should know better than that. I cannot prove that "no philosopher postulating an ontological argument has never put forward a definition of what he means by perfect" - that would be proving a negative.

No, he did argue exactly how all perfections can exist together in a single entity. You might not like his argument, or you might not find it persuasive, but he did argue it.

His argument is: "It is impossible to demonstrate that no entity can possess all perfections. Therefore, the conjunction of every perfection does not entail contradiction."

It seems like the continuum hypothesis to me; you can't prove whether it's "true" or "false" from the axioms of ZFC, so therefore it is logically compatible (if it weren't logically compatible, ZFC + Continuum hypothesis would entail a contradiction).

That's the argument? Really? But we've already established by example that it is impossible for an entity to posses two contradictory perfections and therefore it'd be impossible for it to posses all perfections. Therefore, the conjunction of every possible perfection does entail a contradiction.

The justification was that since perfections cannot be analyzed, in particular they cannot be proved to contradict each other, and hence entail no contradiction with each other.

Actually, that would be an invalid inference. If perfection cannot be analyzed and contradiction cannot be proven, it does not mean that no contradiction entails, it simply means that one cannot be proven. Besides, there is no justification for the statement "perfections cannot be analyzed".