Anselm's 'ontological Argument'

[Tarser]

I am studying philosophy and would very much like to understand Anselm's 'Ontological argument' for the existence of God, but so far, after lots of thought, I still don't get it. Here's the basic argument:

1. God is a being of which nothing greater can be conceived
2. I can conceive of such a being
3. It is greater to exist in reality than merely in the imagination
4. Therefore the being of which I conceive must exist in reality

I got this from an excellent book by Stephen Law who describes the argument as 'simple and elegant'. Why is it so??? To me, it makes no sense at all. To me, it comes down to this: I can imagine something, so it's real....obviously not the greatest piece of philosophical thought, so I must be missing something fundamental. What am I not understanding? Why is this even an argument at all?

[Quizproquo]

Well I've not read the book but I view it like this.
If god is the thing that is beyond imagination, it is not possible to imagine anything greater than god.
The fact that we don't have a carved in stone idea of what god is, means we can imagine it/him/they/her to be anything we want.
I can imagine god as a fish and then I can imagine an alligator eating that fish, therefore the alligator is greater than god in my minds eye.
If god were a reality, there wouldn't be this ambiguity, so that fact that god is not evident and only exists in our minds suggests that god can't exist because the god of my mind is neither greater or lesser than the god of yours and therefore cannot be so mighty that nothing greater is imaginable.
Just my thoughts and probably wrong.

[agchristie]

It all rather falls apart for many where no2 is concerned....

[Hypognosis]

@agchristie

I have to agree with you. IF something is conceivable by the human mind AND the human mind is NOT infinite THEN the maximum thing it can conceive of CANNOT be infinite.

Therefore premise #2 has to be false.

God has to fall within the realms between the maximum that the mind can conceive of and infinity.

The trouble is, by its very definition, nothing can exceed infinity, therefore god must either equal infinity or, possibly, infinity minus a fraction of 1.


Am I looking silly yet?

[birdie1971]

Taser - "... To me, it comes down to this: I can imagine something, so it's real..."

Yep. That's about it.

That's the level of Anselm's argument. It's rather like Thomas Aquinas’ Quinque viae: Not one of his “proofs” are anything of the sort. Each and every one of them is logically invalid. As are Anselm's.

[Tarser]

For anyone with common sense, it seems quite clear that Anselm's argument is simply ridiculous. But why, oh why is this 'philosophy'? Descartes also, as far as I can see, said ridiculous things. He wanted to find a way of finding knowledge that was 'absolutely beyond doubt' and then asserted that it was certain that God existed. He said this:

"..we have in us the idea of God, and the objective reality of this idea is not contained in us...nor can it be contained in anything else except in God himself, therefore this idea of God that is within us requires God for its cause; and consequently, god exists.." (Meditations)

Again, I just don't understand why this is good philosophy, especially from someone seeking knowledge that could not be doubted. I gave up Philosophy at university after about five weeks and switched to Anthropology. I didn't think I had the maturity or the intellect to follow it. Now much older, I have a renewed interest in Philosophy and want to understand the arguments, but I am reminded again of why I gave it up. The 'great thinkers' of the past just seem to have spoken an awful lot of BS!

[naomi24]

//The 'great thinkers' of the past just seem to have spoken an awful lot of BS! //

That's one of the most sensible things I've ever seen written about some of the great thinkers of the past.

[mibn2cweus]

Creating a word out of thin air 'God' does not validate that word as one that has meaning. The meaning of a word is that to which in reality it refers. Reality is not created by virtue of stringing an arbitrary group of letters together. Words should be about reality, not vice versa.

Understanding the role of concepts and concept formation in rational thought is at the heart of any sound philosophy. Such musings as presented in the OP far from being conceptual are designed not merely in disregard of the role of concepts but are attempts to deal a death blow to the art of conceptual, logical reasoning.

There is no greater destructive force against humanity than a mind that has been programmed to destroy itself.

[Clanad]

"The meaning of a word is that to which in reality it refers"… even words such as "thought", I presume…? Maybe even "soon" or, perhaps "love" and, I'd expect anything that falls within the category of "Epimenides Paradox"…?

[mibn2cweus]

"All Cretans are liars" . . . but apparently not infallibly so.

Yet another case of presumption rears its ugly head.

Adjectives and adverbs are not excluded in considering whether or not they correspond to reality. Thought refers to a process that is potentially available to a functioning brain that possesses the requisite intelligence. Love, as an emotional response to what one perceives as a value, no less so real, albeit like thought, not necessarily in complete correspondence to reality.

[jomifl]

argument No. 3 is meaningless

[jomifl]

The only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths..

[mibn2cweus]

Well for starters, 1... is riddled with presumptions.

[mibn2cweus]

//The only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths..//

Classic self-contradictory statement.

[jomifl]

Mibs, that's philosophy for you...

[agchristie]

@ Hypo

Infinitely funny!

@ Naomi

Thankfully, we have some great thinkers on AB :)

[mibn2cweus]

//Mibs, that's philosophy for you...//

I wouldn't be absolutely certain about that if I were you, but then I'm not . . . or am I?

The problem of absolutes is not that they don't exist but rather that they are, like existence, identity and consciousness, inherent in any attempt to deny them.

[jim360]

The picture may help clarify things:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/math/a/b/4/ab47f643c7918fda58089c7f5129a183.png

Then again, it may not...

Essentially the ontological argument is about slightly more than just "if I can imagine something it must be real", but rather "if I can imagine something perfect then it must be real" -- since, the argument goes, existence is a necessary condition for perfection.

This is not necessarily as stupid as it sounds, or as contributors above would suggest, although the argument has a number of possible flaws: most notably, it fails to establish which God you are talking about when referring to a "perfect being". The image above, for example, merely "proves" (accepting as correct and consistent the definitions Df and the axioms Ax) that some object x exists containing all possible "positive" qualities, whatever those are.

The second problem is whether or not you can define such positive properties in a consistent way, or if it even makes sense to have such a thing as "perfect". Thus, the question the argument poses to start with is something like: "is it possible that a prefect being (God) exists?" If the answer to that is "no" to start with, then that's the end of the matter. But if not, and it is possible for there to be such a perfect being, then it does sort of follow that perfection implies existence.

It can be surprisingly compelling, if you think about it long enough. Perhaps that's overthinking, although that said the basis of the argument is worth looking into. See here, as an example (which also helps to explain the scribbles in the image above):

http://www.stats.uwaterloo.ca/~cgsmall/ontology.html

[naomi24]

// the argument goes, existence is a necessary condition for perfection.

This is not necessarily as stupid as it sounds//

It's stating the obvious - but a load of hot air nonetheless.

[Zacs-Master]

Perfection is subjective and therefore can never be achieved as something perceived by society. Michael Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time explores this in a fascinating way.