phxlosophy

blog specialising in philosophy revision help also for AS and A2 theology students

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Tired tautology

How Kant describes the Ontological Argument, and he is quite right. He successfully challenges Descartes and Anselm. When you describe an object, you do not say it exists or not because it is irrelevant to the description. 

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The Ontological Argument - Kant

Kant argues that if you don't have a "triangle" at all then you don't need its attributes.

He says it's okay to dismiss the subject and predicate together, because the predicate should enhance the subject (e.g. purple is purple or x is boring)

Furthermore, the existence is not a predicate - it is not a "quality of something"as you do not enhance the description of something by that it exists - for example if you were to describe someone, would you describe them as existing?

It is perfectly possible to imagine something that is perfect, but does not exist. Descartes is trying to turn an analytic statement (a quality of God) into a synthetic one (about his existence).

Basically, he separated the concepts of "the nature of something", e.g. God, and something's existence, and said that one did not influence each other. A predicate must give us information about something and "its exists" does not.

He uses the example of £100 in your wallet - you can describe and imagine it but you cannot jump from the description of it to saying it exists, when you actually are skint. 

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The Ontological Argument - Descartes

Descartes saw "existence" as an attribute of a perfect being

If you take away three sides of 180 degree angles of a triangle, it stop being a triangle

Simply if you take away the existence from a "supreme perfect being" it is not supremely perfect anymore

Descartes was not concerned with the mind or reality, only the definition of a perfect being 

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Angry Dogs Growl and Kill

Angry - Anselm

Dogs - Descartes

Growl - Gaulino 

and 

Kill - Kant 

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The Ontological Argument - Gaunilo

Gaunilo challenges Anselm with the "Perfect Island" analogy

HE said that by Anselm's logic, if you were to imagine a perfect island, it would exist because it would not be perfect if it didn't

Being that there were contemporaries, Anselm back fired, saying that you can't compare a contingent thing (the island) with a non-contingent thing (God). He also argued "being than which greater cannot be conceived" is unique.

Plantinga said that islands have no "intrinsic maxim" (they can always be better) - but you cannot apply this to Anselm's God

Gaunilo's criticism only applies to the first form of the argument, not the second. 

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The Ontological Argument explained!

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God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived of.

Anselm - the Ontological Argument 

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The Ontological Argument - Anselm

The Argument is based on the definition of God

Anselm, the founder of the argument, had previously concluded in Monologian that God was "that than which nothing greater can be concieved from." His argument relies upon this assumption.

He said that an atheist understands this concept, even if he does not believe in the existence of God.

But he said that it must be greater to exist in reality than to exist in mind alone.

So for God, to be the greatest being, his existence must be necessary

In a later argument, he also states that (by similar logic) something "can;t be thought of as not existing" is greater than something that can.

HENCE, GOD EXISTS. 

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The Ontological Argument

The traditional arguments for the existence of God are all philosophical schools of thought that use reasoning and logic to attempt to prove God's existence. The Ontological Argument is the only one of the arguments that is A-Priori 

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“Candidates will need to have a good understand of the main proofs for God’s existence and their criticisms. It is important that candidates make the effort to read some of the proofs in their original form: Brian Davies: Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology and Guide, or the anthologies by Paul Helm, or that by Taliaferro and Griffiths. Kant’s Moral Argument is an area where candidates often get bogged down in describing his moral ethics rather than explaining the Moral Argument. It is important while they are studying this section that they keep in mind where he is going with his description of an innate moral awareness. Candidates will need to be able to offer a critique of this argument using the psychological views of Freud. Candidates will need therefore to be able to demonstrate knowledge of Freud’s challenges to religion and religious belief.”

The Arguments of God's Existence - Examiner's Expectation 

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Goodness of God and the God as Creator - Exam Question

How do the writers of the Bible explain the concept of God as the Creator? (25 marks)

two creation stories

what does each say about God?

God's relationship with his creation

use of relevant vocab 

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Goodness of God and God as a Creator - Criticisms

How the scientific viewpoint presents a contrary option

Contradiction between the two creation stories

Where did evil come from if God created ex nihilo?

The Euthyphro Dilemma - does the God of CT really escape it?

How can God be perfect, yet personal and interactive? Is God's definition of morality flawed?

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Do the gods love what is good because it is good or is it good because the gods love it?

Plato - The Euthyphro Dilemma 

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The Goodness of God - The Euthyphro Dilemma

The philosophical conundrum dates all the way back to the ancient Greeks (and it is the name of one of Plato's dialogues). In it, Socrates ponders "Do the Gods love what is good because it is good or is it good because the God's love it?"

Two possibilities spring from this:

If the Gods love it because it is good, then there must be a moral standard that exists outside them, which makes their moral judgement somewhat redundant

But what if it is good because the Gods love it, then who is to say that the judgement of the Gods is correct

The Judeo-Christian God circumvents this dilemmas, as there is no "static" definition of good for him to follow or define. Good is spoken through his actions and behaviour.