Anselm's argument examined.

[max-greece]

I originally posted this in the Atheism Vs Christianity thread but as it will get lost in there I thought I'd enter it separately as well.

"Anselm defined God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived", and then argued that this being could exist in the mind. He suggested that, if the greatest possible being exists in the mind, it must also exist in reality. If it only exists in the mind, a greater being is possible—one which exists in the mind and in reality."

Just for a bit of fun whilst I have a few moments I thought we might like to investigate the best counters to the above argument. I'll start of with a few and you guys can chime in with critiques or comments or other arguments that are hopefully better than mine:

1. Defining God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" is fine - but it rules out the OT/NT God who is further from that definition than Superman.
2. Whatever being that could be defined as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" is not conceivable by the human mind. All we could actually conceive of would be a pale imitation of what that being would be.
3. "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" - by whom? We would get some serious variation of what one person conceives compared to another when talking about perfection. Mine would be female, for example and a bad fit for someone who sees the perfect being as male. There can't be any compromise here, as we are dealing with perfection and hermaphrodite wouldn't do it for me. This leads to polytheism if each of us can conjure up from out imagination our own perfect being that has not been conceived of in exactly the same way.
4. Whatever we conceive of in the mind cannot be made whole by will alone- however neat the philosophy.
5. There is no evidence that existence in reality, even in addition to existence in the mind, makes the greatest possible being better. It could be, for example, that existence a priori denies perfection. Nothing we know of, that exists is perfect.
6. We can change a few of the terms of the argument to prove that it doesn't work. As follows:

Max defined Monster as "that than which nothing scarier can be conceived", and then argued that this being could exist in the mind. He suggested that, if the scariest possible being exists in the mind, it must also exist in reality. If it only exists in the mind, a scarier being is possible—one which exists in the mind and in reality and is in the room behind him ready to eat him in the next 2 seconds."

aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh

Oh no - still alone. The premise fails.

Anyone got any more/better ones?

[Minimalist]

Um...this:

He suggested that, if the greatest possible being exists in the mind, it must also exist in reality.

merely tells me that Anselm was a shithead.

[MindForgedManacle]

From what I recalled, Anselm carefully worded the argument so that the thing in question doesn't actually have to be conceivable by human minds. I think Kant's objection flattens the argument. Anselm's claim that to exist in reality is 'more perfect' than to merely exist in the mind fails because existence isn't a property, rather it's a necessary precondition to have properties. I think it might be put even better by saying that an object is a property of existence.

[max-greece]

"because existence isn't a property, rather it's a necessary precondition to have properties. I think it might be put even better by saying that an object is a property of existence."

Well that addresses my next question which was "what does existence mean when applied to God - who doesn't exist, or can't be detected to exist, in this universe.

Thanks for the input.

I think you've ruled out argument 2. Do you think 3 still stands or has that gone too?

[bennyboy]

He gives the human mind too much credit. My conception of an apple is of its crude properties: color, shape, scent, maybe a couple details like spots or leaves. The truth is that a real apple is far more complex than my conception of it. And that's not even a "maximally perfect apple."

I'd argue one of the properties of an actual God is that man, being relatively simple, should NOT be capable of conceiving it; for if man can fully comprehend every aspect of God, while still conceiving of other things, then Man is greater than God.

[Esquilax]

The other problem is that, for every greatest conceivable being we can conceive of, another one can be created that tops it by simply adding the additional characteristic that it can kill the previous greatest conceivable being. And one can keep adding fripperies and new shit on top of the old, constantly building a series of consecutively greater conceivable beings merely by having the last one as a jumping off point. There is no upper limit on "greatest conceivable X" so there's no way to stop either: it's an infinite progression upwards into ridiculousness.

What does this imply for Anselm's argument? What's the minimum threshold of greatness that allows our conceived being to become real? Would we have an infinite chain of real, material greatest beings?

... Or could only the most conceivably great being- one we've already established can't exist for long- exist materially?

[MindForgedManacle]

I think Esquilax brought up one of the better ways of showing the argument to be fundamentally flawed. Further, another reductio ad absurdum can be constructed which should defeat the argument as well: flip the moral property. Theists who use any of the various ontological arguments for God's existence claim maximall goodness (omnibenevolence) is a necessary property for the supposed Maximally Excellent Being. Well, then simply flip that property to maximal evilness (omnimalevolence), run the argument, and then I've logicked into existence an omnipotent, omniscient and omnimalevolent being. But there cannot be 2 omnipotent beings who exist simultaneously? Yet ontological arguments can be just as validly used to establish both.